1 10 2 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/2a94abacd3adfbb2fdb2fa883c1d13f5.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=C4qVFvPuq7-xcTv0lE-BJ-d%7EpKOdVbbmsoZEzenXk9lRa2QLTZ9Pn7rCpzOMyox-fiC99Z7D5To7hx0x9vuXywm9R0Z5ctu77UioyxlyjHzVXXSBFqAq65RCabRnDMzkZqQL6TQm0c8nGQfLZ526pknBj2hLj4sigLH5o6GTXsGUtUmK4fWyAtlOPIcqf1gv0c9hCRpHWg-aBs2aonlSd7vSj2vWmEstbeKbeDweOY3MTvqyN3Cks1RoIRRblDbQRjKoDP9g74Y8uEGkH0TqUMZ1nelkZCc3I6Ib3RfZRIl3p5td0Rq1D4MAXNoPDrljUy2pABy8PpLmmnWgoshWNg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM bed74dced17ee361919a2c41e08668de PDF Text Text ������NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTfON OF HISTORY. �I �— ethics — and the materialist Conception of Bistorp. By KARL KAUTSKY (Author of " The Social Revolution and on the Morrow of the Social Revolution,” &-c.). Translated by J. B. ASKEW. THE LONDON: TWENTIETH CENTURY PRESS, LIMITED (Trade Union and 48 Hours), 37A and 38, Clerkenwell Green, E.C. ��CONTENTS. PAGE CHAP Preface I. II. III. .... ... ... ... ... ... Ancient and Christian Ethics The Ethical Systems of of the Enlightenment The Ethics of Kant ... the vii i Period ... ... n ... ... 20 1. —The Criticism of Knowledge. 2. —The Moral Law 3. —Freedom and Necessity. 4. —The Philosophy of Reconciliation. IV. The Ethics of Darwinism ... ... 41 1. —The Struggle for Existence. 2. —Self-movement and Intelligence. 3. —The Motives of Self-maintenance and Propagation 4. —The Social Instinct. V. The Ethics of Marxism.......................... 63 1.—The Roots of the Materialist Conception of History. 2—The Organisation of Human Society. 3. —The Changes in the Strength of the Social Instinct, 4. —The Influence of the Social Instincts. 5. —The Tenets of Morality. �I �PREFACE. Like so many other of the principal Marxist publica­ tions, the present one owes its origin to a special occasion—it arose out of a controversy. The polemic in which I was involved last autumn with the editors of “Vorwaerts,” brought me to touch on the question of their ethical tendencies. What I said, however, on this point was so often misunderstood by one side, and on the other brought me so many requests to give a more thorough and systematic exposition of my ideas on Ethics, that I felt constrained to attempt to give at least a short sketch of the development of Ethics on the basis of the Materialist Conception of History. I take as my starting point, consequently, that materialist philosophy which was founded on one side by Marx and Engels, on the other, in the same spirit, by Joseph Dietzgen. For the results at which I have arrived, I alone am responsible. My original intention was to write an article for the “ Neue Zeit ” on the subject. But never had I so miscalculated the plan of a work as this ; and not only in respect of its scope. I had begun the work in �viii PREFACE. October, because I thought there were going to be a few months of quiet for the party, which might be devoted to theoretical work. The Jena Congress had run harmoniously, so that I did not expect to see a conflict in our party so soon. On the other hand, it looked at the beginning of October as if there had come in the Russian Revolution a pause for gathering to­ gether and organising the revolutionary forces. As is well known, however, everything turned out quite differently. An unimportant personal question was the occasion of a sharp discussion, which, indeed, did not for a moment disturb the party, but all the same cost the party officials, and especially those in Berlin, a considerable amount of time, worry and energy. What, however, certainly demanded even more time and energy was the Russian Revolution, which unexpectedly, in the course of that very October, received a powerful impetus, and regained its previous height. That glorious movement naturally absorbed, even outside of Russia, all the interest of thinking people. It was a magnificent time, but it was not a time to write a book on Ethics. However, the subject had captivated me, and I could not free myself, and so I concluded my work, despite the many distractions and interruptions which the Berlin storm in a tea cup and the hurricane on the Russian ocean brought with them. It is to be hoped that this little work does not bear too obviously on its face the marks of its stormy birth. When, however, I had brought it to a conclusion, another question arose. Far beyond the limits of an article had it grown, and yet was hardly fitted for a �PREFACE. ix book. It contents itself with giving a general idea of my thought, and gives very few references to facts and arguments to prove or illustrate what has been brought forward. I asked myself whether I ought not to reconstruct and enlarge my work by the addition of such argu­ ments and facts. If, however, that had to be done, it would mean delaying the publication of the work for an indefinite period ; because to carry out this work I should require two years quiet, undisturbed labour. We are, however, coming to a time when for every Social-Democrat quiet and undisturbed work will be impossible—when our work will be continual fighting. Neither did I desire that the publication should be put off for too long a time, in view of the influence which has been gained in our ranks by the Ethics of Kant, and I, consequently, hold it necessary to show the relations which exist between the Materialist Conception of History and Ethics. Consequently, I have resolved to allow the little book to appear. In order, however, to show that with this not all is said which I might have said on Ethics, and that I hold myself in reserve to deal with the subject more fully in a period of greater calm, I call the pre­ sent work simply an attempt—an essay. Certainly, when these quieter times will come is not discernible at present, as I have already remarked. At this very time the myrmidons of the Czar are zealously at work to rival the deeds of the Albas and Tillys during the religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries—not irt �X PREFACE. military achievements, but in brutal destruction. The West European champions of culture and order regard that with enthusiasm as the restoration of legal conditions. But just as little as the hirelings of the Hapsburgs succeeded, despite temporary successes in conquering North Germany and Holland for Catholi­ cism, will the Cossacks of the Romanoffs succeed in restoring the rule of Absolutism. This has only suffi­ cient strength remaining to lay its country waste, not to rule it. In any case the Russian Revolution is not by any means at an end—it cannot close so long as the peasants are not appeased. The longer it lasts so much the greater will be the disturbance in the ranks of the West European proletariat, so much the nearer financial catastrophes, so much the more probable that, even in W’est Europe, there should set in a period of class struggle. This is not a time which calls for the theoretical labours of revolutionary writers. But this drawback for our theoretical labours, which will be probably felt in the next few years, we need not lament. The Materialist Conception of History is not only important because it allows us to explain history better than has been done up to now, but also because it enables us to make history better than has been hitherto done. And the latter is more important than the former. From the progress of the practice our theoretical knowledge grows, and in the progress of the practice our theoreti­ cal knowledge is proved. No world conception has �PREFACE. Xi been in so high a degree a philosophy of deeds as the dialectical materialism. Not only upon research but upon deeds do we rely to show the superiority of our philosophy. Even the book before us has not to serve for con­ templative knowledge, but for the fight—a fight in which we have to develop the highest ethical strength as well as the greatest clearness of knowledge if we are to win. K. Kautsky. Berlin, Friednau, January, 1906. ��Ethics and the Materialist Conception of History. CHAPTER I. Ancient And Christian Ethics. In the history of philosophy the question of Ethics comes to the fore soon after the Persian War. The fact of having successfully repelled the great Persian despotism had had a similar effqpt on the tiny Hellenic people to that made by the defeat of the Russian despotism on the Japanese. At one blow they became a world power, in command of the sea which surrounded them, and with that its trade. And if now in Japan an era of great industry is being inaugurated on a scale the extent of which they them­ selves are hardly yet fully aware, so after the Persian Wars Greece, and Athens in particular, became the headquarters of the world commerce of that time, commercial capitalism embraced the entire people, and . dissolved all the traditional relations and con­ ceptions which had hitherto ruled the individual and regulated his dealings. The individual found himself suddenly transplanted into a new society, in which he missed all the traditional supports on which he had relied ; and, indeed, the more so the higher he stood socially ; thus he found himself left wholly to himself. And yet, despite all this seeming Anarchy, everyone B �2 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. felt not only a need for distinct rules of conduct, but he found more or less clearly that in his own inner being there worked a force which controlled his action and allowed him to decide between good and bad, to aim for the good and avoid the bad. This force revealed itself as a highly mysterious power. Granted that it controlled the actions of many men, that its decisions between good and bad were given without' the least delay and asserted themselves with all decision, if anyone asked what was the actual nature of this force, and on what foundation it built its judgments, it was then seen that both this force as well as the judgments, which appeared so natural and self-evident, were phenomena which were harder to understand than any other phenomena in the world. So we see then that since the Persian Wars, Ethics, or the investigation of the mysterious regulator of human action—the moral law—comes to the front in Greek philosophy. Up to this time Greek philosophy had been more or less natural philosophy. It made it its duty to investigate and explain the laws which hold in the world of nature. Now nature lost interest with the philosophers even more and more. Man, or the ethical nature of humanity, became the central point of their investigations. Natural philosophy ceased to make further progress, the natural sciences were divided from philosophy ; all progress of the ancient philosophy came now from the study of the spiritual nature of man and his morality. The Sophists had already begun to despise the know­ ledge of nature. Socrates went still further, being of opinion that he could learn nothing from the trees, but much from the human beings in the town. Plato looked on natural philosophy as play. With that, however, the method of philosophy changed. Natural philosophy is necessarily bound to rely on the observation of nature. On the other hand, how is the moral nature of man to be observed with more cer­ tainty than through the observation of our own per­ sonality ? The senses can deceive us ; other men can deceive us ; but we ourselves do not lie to ourselves �3 ANCIENT AND CHRISTIAN ETHICS. when we wish to be truthful. Thus, finally, that alone was recognised as certain knowledge which man pro­ duced from himself. But not alone the subject and the method but also the object of philosophy was different. Natural philo­ sophy aimed at the examination of the necessary con­ nection of cause and effect. Its point of view was that of causality. Ethics, on the other hand, dealt with the will and duty of man, with ends and aims which he strives for. Thus its point of view is that of a con­ scious aim or teleology. Now these two conceptions do not always reveal themselves with equal sharpness in all the various schools of thought. . There are two methods of explaining the moral law within us. We can search for its roots in the obvious forces of human action, and, as a result, appeared the pursuit of happiness or pleasure. With commodity production, when goods are produced by private producers indepen­ dently of each other, happiness and pleasure, and the conditions necessary thereto, become a private matter. Consequently, men came to look for the foundation of the moral law in the individual need for happiness or pleasure. That is good which makes for the individual pleasure and increases his happiness, and evil is that which produces the contrary. How is it then possible that not everybody under all circumstances has a desire for the good ? That is explained by the fact that there are various kinds of pleasure and happiness. Evil arises when we choose a lower kind of pleasure, or happiness in preference to a higher, or sacrifice a lasting pleasure to a momentary and fleeting one. lhus it arises from ignorance or short sightedness. Accordingly, Epicurus looked on the intellectual plea­ sures as higher than the physical because they last longer and give unalloyed satisfaction. He considers the pleasure of repose greater than the pleasure of action. Spiritual peace seems to him the greatest pleasure. In consequence all excess in any pleasure is to be rejected; and even selfish action is bad, since B2 �q ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. respect, love, and the help of my neighbour, as well as the prosperity of the community to which I belong, are factors which are necessary to my own prosperity, which, however, I cannot attain if I only look out for myself without any scruples. This view of Ethics had the advantage that it ap­ peared quite natural and that it was very easy to reconcile it with the needs of those who were content to regard the knowledge which our senses give us of the knowable world as real, and to whom human existence itself formed only a part of this world. On the other hand, this view of Ethics was bound to produce in its turn that materialist view of the world. A theory which founded Ethics on the longing for pleasure or happiness of the individual, or on egoism, and the materialist world-concept conditioned and lent each other mutual support. The connection of both elements comes most completely to expression in Epicurus (341-270 b.c.). His materialist philosophy of nature is founded with a distinctly ethical aim. The materialist view of nature is in his view alone in the position to free us from the fears which a foolish superstition awakens in us, and to give us that peace of soul without which true happiness is impossible. On the other hand, all those elements who were opposed to this philosophy were obliged to reject this ethics and vice versa : those who were not satisfied with his ethics were not satisfied with the materialism either. And the Ethic of Egoism, or the pursuit of individual happiness, gave ample opportunity for attack. In the first place it did not explain how the moral law arose as a binding moral force, as the duty to do the right, and not simply as advice to prefer the more rational kind of pleasure to the less rational. And the speedy, decisive moral judgments on good and bad are quite different from the balancing up between different kinds of pleasures or utilities. Finally also, it is possible to feel a moral sense of duty even in cases where the most generous interpretation, can find no pleasure or ability from which the pursuit of this duty can be deduced. If I refuse to lie, although �ANCIENT AND CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 5 I by that means stir up public opinion for ever against me, if I put my existence at stake or even bring on myself the penalty of death, there can be no talk of even the more remote pleasure or happiness which could transform the discomfort or pain of the moment into its opposite. But what could the critics bring forward to explain this phenomenon ? In reality, nothing—even, if accord­ ing to their own view, a great deal. Since they were unable to explain the moral law by natural means it became to them the surest and most unanswerable proof that man lived not only a natural life, but also outside of nature, that in him supernatural and extra­ natural forces work, that his spirit is something super­ natural. Thus arose from this view the Ethic of Philo­ sophic Idealism and Monotheism, the new belief in God. This belief in God was quite different to the old Poly­ theism ; it differed from the latter not only in the num­ ber of the gods, and it did not arise from the fact that many were reduced to one. Polytheism was an at­ tempt to explain the processes of nature. Its gods were personifications of the forces of nature; they were thus not over nature, and not outside of nature, but in her, and formed a part of her. Natural philo­ sophy superseded them in the degree in which it dis­ covered other than personal causation in the processes of nature, and developed the idea of the necessary con­ nection of cause and effect. The gods might here and there maintain a traditional existence for a time even in the philosophy, but only as a kind of superman who no longer played any active part. Even for Epicurus, despite his materialism, the gods were not dead but they were changed into passive spectators. Even the non-materialist ethical school of philosophy, such as was most completely represented by Plato (427-347 b.c.), and whose mystical side was far more clearly developed by the Neo-Platonists, especially by Plotinus (204-270 a.d.), even this school did not find the gods necessary to explain nature, and they dealt with the latter no differently to the materialists. Their �6 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. idea of God did not spring out of the need to explain the natural world around us but the ethical and spiri­ tual nature of man. For that they required to assume a spiritual being standing outside of and over nature, thus outside of time and space, a spiritual being which formed the quintessence of all morality, and who ruled the material nature just as the aristocrats ruled the crowd who worked with their hands. And just as the former conceived themselves as noble and the latter appeared to them common and vulgar, so did nature become mean and bad, the spirit, on the other hand, elevated and good. Man was unlucky enough to belong to both worlds : those of matter and spirit. Thus he is half animal and half angel, and oscillates between good and evil. But just as God rules nature, has the moral in man the force to overcome the natural, the desires of the flesh, and to triumph over them. Complete happiness is, nevertheless, impossible for man so long as he dwells in this vale of tears, where he is condemned to bear the burden of his flesh. Only then, when he is free from this and his spirit has returned to its original source, to God, can he enjoy unlimited happiness. Thus it will be seen that God plays a very different rdle to what He does in the original Polytheism. This one god is no personification of an appearance of the outer nature, but the assumption for itself of an inde­ pendent existence on the part of the spiritual (or intel­ lectual) nature of man. Just as this is a unity, so can the Godhead be no multiplicity. And its most complete philosophic form, the one god, has no other function than of accounting for the moral law. To interfere in the course of this world in the manner of the ancient gods is not his business, but, at least, for philosophers the assumption of binding force in the natural law of cause and effect suffices. Certainly the more this view became popular and grew into the religion of the people, the more did the highest, the all-embracing and all-ruling spirit take on again personal characteristics ; the more did he take part in human affairs, and the more did the old gods �ANCIENT AND CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 7 smuggle themselves in. They came in as intermedia­ tors between God and man, as saints and angels. But even in this form the contempt for nature held good, as well as the view that the spiritual, and especially the ethical nature of man, was of supernatural origin and afforded an infallible proof of the existence of a super­ natural world. Between the two extremes, Plato and Epjcurus, there were many intermediary positions possible. Among these the most important was the Stoic philo­ sophy, founded by Zeno (341-270 B.c). Just like the Platonic philosophy, it attached those who sought to derive the moral law from the pleasure or egoism of the individual; it recognised in him a higher power standing over the individual which can drive man to action, and which brings him pain and grief, nay, even to death. But different to Plato, it saw in the. moral law nothing supernatural, only a product of nature. Virtue arises from the knowledge of nature; happiness is arrived at when man acts in accordance with nature, that is, in accordance with the universe, or universal reason. To know nature and act in accordance with her reasonably, which is the same as virtuously, and voluntarily to submit to her necessity, disregarding individual pleasure and pain, that is the way to happi­ ness which we will go. The study of nature is, how­ ever, only a means to the study of virtue. And nature itself is explained from a moral point of view. The practical result of the Stoic Ethics is not the pursuit of happiness but the contempt for pleasure and the good things of the world. But this contempt for the world was finally to serve the same end : that which appeared to Zeno as well as Epicurus as the highest, viz., a state of repose for the individual soul. Both systems of philosophy arose out of the need for rest. The intermediary position of the Stoic Ethics be­ tween the Platonic and the Epicurean corresponded to the view of the universe which Stoicism drew up. The explanation of nature is by no means without import­ ance to them, but nature appeared to them as a greater view of monotheistic materialism, which assumes a �8 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. divine original force from which even the human soul springs. But this original force, the original fire, is bodily, it exists within and not without nature, and the soul is not immortal, even if it survives the human body. Finally it will be consumed by the original fire. Stoicism and Platonism finally became elements of Christianity, and overcame in this form the materialist Epicureanism. This latter materialism could only prove satisfactory to a social class which was satisfied with things as they were, which found in them its pleasure and happiness, and had no need for another state of affairs. It was necessarily rejected by those classes to whom the world as it was seemed bad and full of pain ; to the decaying class of old aristocracy as well as the ex­ ploited classes for whom present and future in this world could only be equally hopeless, when the material world, that is, the world of experience, was the only one, and no reliance was to be placed on an almighty spirit who had it in his power to bring this world to destruction. Finally, materialism was bound to be rejected by the whole society so soon as this had so far degenerated that even the ruling classes suffered under the state of affairs, when even these came to the opinion that no good could come out of the existing world, but only evil. To despise the world with the Stoics, or to look for a Redeemer from another world with the Christians, became the only alternative. A new element was brought into Christianity with the invasions of the barbarians, in that the old and decrepit Roman society with its antiquated system of produc­ tion and decadent views of life had now combined with a youthful German society, organised on the basis of the mark—a people of simple thought and content to enjoy life ; these elements combined to produce a strange new formation. The Christian Church became the law which held the new State together. Here, again, the theory is apparently confirmed that the spirit is stronger than matter, and the intelligence of the Christian priest­ hood showed itself strong enough to tame the brute �ANCIENT AND CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 9 force of the German barbarians. And, moreover, this brute force springing out of the material world, appeared to the representatives of Christianity as the source of all evil, when it was not ruled by spirit and held in check by the spirit; while, on the other hand, they saw in the spirit the source of all good. Thus the new social situation only contributed to strengthening the philosophic foundation of Christianity and its system of Ethics. But, on the other hand, there came through this new situation the joy in life and a feeling of self-confidence into society which had been lacking at the time of the rise of Christendom. Even to the Christian clergy, at least in the mass, the world no longer appeared as a vale of tears, and they acquired a capacity for enjoyment, a happy Epicureanism, though certainly a coarser form and one which had little in common with ancient philosophy. Never­ theless the Christian priesthood was obliged to main­ tain the Christian Ethic, no longer as the ex­ pression of their own moral feeling, but as a means of maintaining their rule over the people. And everything forced them to recognise more and more the philosophic foundation of this system of Ethics, namely, the mastery of the spirit over the real world. Thus the new social situation produced on the one hand a tendency to a Materialist system of Ethics ; while, on the other, a series of reasons arose to strengthen the traditional Christian Ethic. Thus arose that dual morality which became a characteristic of Christianity, the formal recognition of a system of Ethics, which is only partially the expression of our moral feeling and will, and consequently of that which controls our action. In other words, moral hypocrisy became a standing social institution which was never so widely spread as under Christianity. Ethics and religion appeared now as inseparably bound together. Certainly the moral law was the logi­ cal creator of the new god ; but in Christianity the new god appeared as the creator of the moral law. With­ out belief in God, without religion, no morality. Every ethical question became* a theological one, and as the �IO ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. most original and simple form of social indignation is the moral—the feeling of moral indignation, the feeling of the immorality of the existing institutions—so did every social uprising commence in the form of theo­ logical criticism, in which undeniably came, as an addi­ tional factor, the circumstance that the Church was played as the foremost means of class rule, and the Roman priesthood the worst exploiters in the Middle Ages, so that all rebellion against any form of exploita­ tion always affected the Church in the first place. Even after the Renaissance, at a time when philo­ sophic thought had again revived, questions of Ethics remained for a very long time questions of theology. �TUB PERIOD OF ENLIGHTENMENT. II CHAPTER II. The Ethical Systems of the Period of the Enlightenment. After the Renaissance the study of Nature again began to arouse interest, and with it also philosophy, which from then until well into the 18th century be­ came principally natural philosophy, and, as such, raised our knowledge of the world to far above the level reached in the ancient world ; they set out from the progress which the Arabs had made in Natural Science during the Middle Ages over the Greeks. The high-water mark of this development is certainly to be found in the theory of Spinoza (1632-1677). With these thinkers Ethics occupied a secondary place. They were subordinated to Natural Science, of which they formed a part. But they came again to the front so soon as the rapid development of capitalism in Western Europe in the 18th century had created a similar situation to that which had been created by the economic awakening which followed on the Persian wars in Greece. Then began, to speak in modern language, a re-valuing of all values, and therewith a zealous think­ ing out and investigation into the foundation and essence of all morality. With that commenced an eager research into the nature of the new method of production. Simultaneously with the appearance of Ethics arose a science of which the ancients had been Ignorant, the special child of the capitalist system of production, whose explanation it serves—Political Economy. In Ethics, however, we find three schools of thought side by side, which often run parallel to the three systems of the Ancients—the Platonic, the Epicurean, and the Stoic. An anti-materialist one, the traditional Christian position; the materialist one ; and finally a �12 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY, middle system between the two. The optimism and joy of life in the rising bourgeoisie—at least in their progressive elements, especially among their intellec­ tuals—felt itself strong enough to come forth openly and to throw aside all the hypocritical masks which the ruling Christianity had hitherto enforced. . And miser­ able though frequently the present might be, the rising bourgeoisie felt that the best part of reality, the future, belonged to them, and they felt themselves capable of changing this Vale of 'I ears into a Paradise, in which each could follow his inclinations. In reality, and in the natural impulses of man, their thinkers saw the source of all good and not of all evil. This new school of thought found a thankful public, not only among the more progressive elements in the bourgeoisie, but also in the Court nobility, who at that period had acquired such a power that even they thought that they could dispense with all Christian hypocrisy in their life of pleasure, all the more as they were divided by a deep chasm from the life of the people. They looked on citizens and peasants as beings of a lower order to whom their philosophy was incomprehensible, so that they could freely and undis­ turbedly develop it without fear of shaking their own means of rule—the Christian Religion and Ethics. The conditions of the new life and Ethics developed most vigorously in France. There they came most clearly and courageously to expression. Just as in the case of the ancient Epicureanism so in the new enlightenment philosophy of Lamettrie (1709-1751), Holbach (1723-1789), Helvetius (1715-1771), the ethic of egoism, of utility or pleasure stood in the closest connection with a Materialist view of the universe. The world, as experience presents it to us, appeared the only one which could be taken into account by us. The causes of this new Epicureanism had great simi­ larity with the ancient one, as well as the results at which both arrived. Nevertheless they differed in one very essential point. The old Epicureanism had not arisen as the disturber of the traditional religious views, it had understood how to accommodate itself to them. �THE PERIOD OF ENLIGHTENMENT. 13 It was not the theory of a revolutionary class ; it did not preach war but contemplative enjoyment. Platonic Idealism and Theism represented far more the over­ throw of the traditional religious views—a theory of the discontented classes. But with the Philosophy of Enlightenment it was otherwise. Though certainly even this has a conserva­ tive root; it regarded contemplative enjoyment as happiness, that is, so far as it served the needs of the Court nobility, which drew its living from the existing absolutist State. But in the main it was the philosophy of the most intelligent and most developed as well as the most courageous elements in the bourgeoisie. It gave them a revolutionary character. Standing from the very beginning in the most absolute opposition to the traditional religion and Ethics, these classes ac­ quired—in proportion as the bourgeoisie increased in strength and class consciousness—the conception of a fight—a conception quite foreign to the old Epicureans —a fight against priests and tyrants, a fight for the new ideals. The nature and method of the moral views and the height of the moral passions are, according to human life, and especially by the constitution of the French Materialists, determined by the conditions of State, as well as by education. It is always self-interest that determines man ; this can, however, become a very social interest, if society is so organised that the indi­ vidual interest coincides with the interest of the com­ munity, so that the passions of men serve the common welfare. True virtue consists in the care for the com­ monweal ; it can only flourish where the commonwealth at the same time advances the interests of the indivi­ dual, where he cannot damage the commonwealth without damaging himself . It is incapacity to perceive the more durable interests of mankind, ignorance as to the best form of govern­ ment, society, and education which renders a state of affairs possible, which of necessity brings the individual interest into conflict with that of the community. It only remains to make an end to this ignorance to find �14 ethics and the materialist conception of history. StHte’ rOciety’ a.nd education corresponding nL? <!en?a"dS °f rSason ln order to establish happi? ness and virtue on a firm and eternal foundation. Here we arrive at the revolutionary essence of the French Materialism, which indicts the existing State as the source of immorality. With that it raises itself above the level of Epicureanism ; but, at the same time it weakens the position of its own Ethics. ’ fnrm°rq.uestion of inventing the best form of State and society. These have got to be fought for , the powers that be must be confronted and overthrown in order to establish an empire of virtue. fl”at ,requircs’ however, great moral zeal, and where is ;t° COme lf !he existing society is so bad ?Pr™erl alt°Sethf:r the growth of morality or th T6’ n°* morahty be already there in order rtat L g *rise? Is if not necessary that the moral should be alive in us before the moral order can become a fact? But how is a moral ideal to be evolved from a vicious world? To that we obtain no satisfactory answer. In very different fashion to the French did the Englishmen of the i8th century endeavour to explain the. moral law. They showed themselves in general less bold and more inclined to compromise, in character with the history of England until the Reformation, their insular position was especially favourable to their economic development during this period. Thev were driven thereby to make sea voyages, which in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, owing to the Co omal system formed the quickest road to a fortune. It kept England free from all the burdens and ravages of wars on land, such as exhausted the Europin Bowers. Thus in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen­ turies England acquired more wealth than all the Powers of Europe, and placed herself, so far as econo­ mic position was concerned, at their head. But when new classes and new class antagonisms, and with them new social problems arise in a country at an earlier date than elsewhere, the new classes attain only a small degree of class-consciousness, and still remain, to a �THE PERIOD OF ENLIGHTENMENT. Ig large degree, imprisoned in the old methods of thought, so that the class antagonisms appear in a very un­ developed form. Thus in such countries it does not at once come to a final and decisive struggle in the class war; it comes to no decisive overthrow of the old classes, who here continue to rule without any limit, and in all the neighbouring countries remain at the height of their power. The new classes are still in­ capable of taking on the government because they do not realise their own position in society, and alarmed by the novelty of their own endeavour, themselves seek for support and points of contact in the traditional relations. It would thus seem to be a general law of social development that countries which are pioneers in the economic development are tempted to great compro­ mises in the place of radical solutions. For example, France in the Middle Ages stood by the side of Italy at the head of the economic develop­ ment of Europe. She came more and more into oppo­ sition with the Papacy—their Government first rebelled against Rome. But just because she opened the way in this direction, she never succeeded in founding a national Church, and was only able to force the Papacy to a compromise which, with unimportant interrup­ tions, has lasted up to the present. On the other hand, the most radical champions against the 'Papal power were the two States which were economically the most backward—Scotland and Sweden. Since the Reformation, England, together with Scot­ land, has taken the place of France and Italy, the pioneers of her economic development, and thus com­ promise became for both these countries the form of the solution of their class struggles. Just because in England in the seventeeth century capital acquired power more rapidly than elsewhere, because there earlier than in other countries did it come to a struggle with the feudal aristocracy, this fight has ended with a compromise, which accounts for the fact that the feudal system of landed property is stronger in England even to-day than in any other country of Europe— �l6 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. Austro-Hungary alone, perhaps, excepted. For the same reason—that of her rapid economic development —the class war between proletariat and bourgeoisie first blazed up in England, of all countries in the world. But it was before the proletariat and industrial capitalists had yet got over the small bourgeois method of thought, when many, and even clear-sighted ob­ servers, confused the two classes together as the industrial class, and when the type of the proletariat, class-conscious and confident in the future of his own class as well as that of the industrial capi­ talist, autocrat and unlimited ruler in the State, had not yet developed. Thus the struggle of the two classes landed, after a short and stormy flare-up, in a compromise, which gave the bourgeoisie for many years to come more unlimited power than in any other land with the modern system of production. Naturally the effects of this law, just as that of any other, can be disturbed by unfavourable currents and advanced by favourable ones. But in any case it is so far efficacious that it is necessary to be on our guard against the crude popular interpretation of the material­ ism of history, as if it meant that that land which leads in the economic development will always bring the corresponding forms of the class-war to the most decisive expression. Even Materialism and Atheism, as well as Ethics, were subject to the spirit of compromise, as it has ruled since the sixteenth century. The fight of the democratic and rising class against a governing power independent of the bourgeoisie, and subject to the feudal aristocracy, with their court nobility and their State Church, commenced in England more than a cen­ tury before France, at a time when but few had sur­ passed the Christian form of thought. Wherein France the fight against the State Church had become a fight between Christianity and atheistic Materialism, in Eng­ land it had become merely a struggle between special democratic Christian sects and the State as an organ­ ised sect. And while in France in the period of en­ lightenment the majority of the intelligence and the �THE PERIOD OF ENLIGHTENMENT. 17 classes that came under its influence thought as Mate­ rialists and Atheists ; the English intelligence searched for a compromise between Materialism and Christianity. Certainly it was in England that Materialism found its first public expression in the theory of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) ; there certainly were to be found thinkers on ethical questions, whose courage surpassed that of the most courageous Frenchmen, who, like Mandeville (1670-1733), declared morality to be a means of rule, a discovery to keep the workers in subjection, and who regarded vice as the root of all social good. But such ideas had little influence on the thought of the many. A Christian profession remained the sign of respecta­ bility, and the pretence of this, even where not really felt, became the duty of every man of learning who did not wish to come into conflict with society. Thus Englishmen remained very sceptical of the Materialistic Ethics which wished to found the moral law on self-love, or on the pleasure and utility of the individual. Certainly the intellectual circles of the rising bourgeoisie sought even in England to explain the moral law as a natural phenomenon, but they saw that its compulsion was not to be explained from simple considerations of utility, and that the combinations were too artificial which were required to unite the com­ mands of morality with the motives of utility—still less to think of making out of the latter an energetic motive force of the former. Thus they distinguished very nicely between the sympathetic and the egoistic instincts in man, recognised a moral sense which drives man to be active for the good of his fellows. After the Irishman Hutcheson (1694-1747), the most distinguished repre­ sentative of this theory was Adam Smith (1723-1790). In his two principal works he investigated the two main springs of human action. In the “Theory of Moral Sentiments” (1759) he started out from sym­ pathy as the most important law of human society ; while his “ Wealth of Nations ” assumes the egoism— the. material interest of the individual—to be the main­ spring of human action. That book appeared in 1776, but the principles which it contained were enunciated c �l8 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. by the author in Glasgow as early as 1752 or 1753. His theory of Egoism and his theory of Sympathy were not mutually exclusive, but were complementary one of the other. This placing in contrast of egoism and moral sense by Englishmen, was as compared to the Materialists an approach to Platonism and Christianity. Neverthe­ less their views remained very different from these. While, according to Christianity, man is bad by nature, and according to the Platonic theory our natural im­ pulses are the source of evil in us, so for the English school of the eighteenth century the moral sense was opposed certainly to egoism, but was just as much as the latter a natural impulse. Even egoism appeared here not as a bad but as a justifiable impulse which was as necessary for the welfare of society as sympathy with others. The moral sense was a sense just as any other human sense, and to a certain extent a sixth sense. Certainly with this assumption, as in the case of the French Materialists, the difficulty was only postponed, not solved. To the question whence comes this pecu­ liar sense in man the Englisnman had no answer. It was given by Nature to man. That might suffice for those who traded in a creator of the universe, but it did not make this assumption superfluous. The task for the farther scientific development of Ethics appeared clear in this state of the question. The French, as well as the English school, had achieved much for the psychological and historical explanation of the moral feelings and views. But neither the one nor the other could succeed in making quite clear that morality was the outcome of causes which lie in the realm of experience. The English school had to be sur­ passed and the causes of the moral sense investigated. It was necessary to go beyond the French school and to lay bare the causes of the moral ideal. But the development moves in no straight but in a dialectical line. It moves in contradictions. So the next step of ethical philosophy did not go in this direction, but in the contrary. Instead of investigating the ethi­ cal nature of man in order to bring it more strictly than �THE PERIOD OF ENLIGHTENMENT. jg ever under the general laws of nature, it came to quite other conclusions. This step was achieved by German philosophy, with Kant (1724-1804). Certain people like to cry now, “Back to Kant!” But those meaning by that the Kantian Ethic might just as well cry, “ Back to Plato! ” �20 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. CHAPTER III. The Ethics of Kant. i.—The Criticism of Knowledge. Kant took the same ground as the Materialists. He recognised that the world outside of us is real, and that the starting-point of all knowledge is the experience of the senses. But the knowledge which we acquire from experience is partly composed of that which we acquire through the sense impressions and partly from that which our own intellectual powers supply from themselves ; in other words, our knowledge of the world is conditioned not simply by the nature of the external world but also by that of our organs of knowledge. For a knowledge of the world therefore the investi­ gation of our own intellectual powers is as necessary as that of the external world. The investigation of the first is, however, the duty of philosophy ; while the second is the science of science. In this there is nothing contained that every Mate­ rialist could not subscribe to, or that, perhaps with the exception of the last sentence, had not also been previously said by Materialists. But certainly only in the way in which certain sentences from the Materialist Conception of History had already been expressed be­ fore Marx, as conceptions which had not borne fruit. It was Kant who first made them the foundation of his entire theory. Through him did philosophy first become the science of science, whose duty it is not to teach a distinct philosophy but how to philosophise, the process of knowing, methodical thinking, and that by way of a critique of knowledge. But Kant went farther than this, and his great philo­ sophical achievement, the investigation of the faculties of knowledge, became itself his philosophical stumbling block. �THE ETHICS OF KANT. 21 Since our sensual experience does not reveal to us the world as it is in itself, but only as it is for us—as it appears to us—thanks to the peculiar constitution of our faculties of knowledge, so the world as it is in itself must be different to that which appears to us. Consequently Kant distinguishes between the world of phenomena, of appearances, and the world of things in themselves, the “noumena,” or the intelligible world. This latter is for us unknowable, it lies out­ side of cur experience, so that there is no need to deal with it; one might simply take it as a method of designating the fact that our knowledge of the world is always limited by the nature of our intellectual faculties, is always relative : that for us there can only be relative and no absolute truths, not a final and com­ plete knowledge, but an endless process of knowing. But Kant was not content with that. He felt an unquenchable longing to get a glimpse into that un­ known and inexplorable world of things in themselves, in order to acquire at least a notion of it. And indeed he got so far as to say quite distinct things about it. The way to this he saw in the critique •of our powers of thought. These latter, by separating from experience that which comes from the senses, must arrive at the point of describing the forms of knowledge and perception as they originally and d priori, previous to all experience, are contained in our “feelings.” In this manner he discovered the ideality of time and space. According to him, these are not conceptions which are won from experience, but simply the forms of our conception of the world, which are embedded in our faculties of knowledge. Only under the form of conceptions in time and space can we recog’ nise the world. But outside of our faculties of know­ ledge there is no space and no time. Thus Kant got so far as to say about the world of things in themselves, that completely unknowable world, something very dis­ tinct, namely, that it is timeless and spaceless. Without doubt this logical development is one of the most daring achievements of the human mind. That �22 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. does not say by any means that it is not open to criti­ cism. On the contrary, there is a great deal to be said against it, and, in fact, they are very, very weighty objections which have been brought against it. The assumption of the ideality of space and time in the Kantian sense led to inextricable contradictions. There can certainly be no doubt that our conceptions of time and space are conditioned by the constitution of our faculties of knowledge, but I should have thought that that would only necessarily amount to say­ ing that only those connections of events in the universe can be recognised which are of such a nature as to call forth in our intellectual faculties the concepts of space and time. The ideality of time and space would then imply, just as the thing itself, no more and no less than a limit to our powers of know­ ing. Relations of a kind which cannot take the form of space or time concepts—even if such really exist, which we do not know—are for us inconceivable, just as much as the ultra-violet and ultra-red rays are imper­ ceptible to our powers of vision. But this was by no means the sense in which it was understood by Kant. Because space and time provide the forms in which alone our faculties of know­ ledge can recognise the world, he takes for granted that time and space are forms which are only to be found in our faculty of knowledge, and correspond to no sort of connection in the real world. In his “ Pro­ legomena to every future Metaphysic,” Kant com­ pares in one place the concept of space with the concept of colour. This comparison appears to us very apt; it by no means, however, proves what Kant wants to prove. If cinnabar appears red to me, that is certainly conditioned by the peculiarity of my visual organs. Outside them there is no colour. What appears to me as colour is called forth by waves of ether, of a distinct length, which affect my eye. Should anyone wish to treat these waves in relation to the colour as the thing in itself, which in reality they are not, then our power of vision would not be a power to see the things as they are but power to see them as �TIIE ETHICS OF KANT. 23 they are not; not a capacity of knowledge, but of illusion. But it is quite another matter when we look not at one colour alone but take several colours together and distinguish them from one another. Each of them is called forth by distinct ether waves of different lengths. To the distinctions in the colours there correspond differences in the length of the ether waves. These distinctions do not exist in my organ of vision, but have their ground in the external world. My organs of vision only have the functions of making me conscious of this difference in a certain form, that of colour. As a means to a recognition of this distinction it is a power of real knowledge and not of illusion. These distinc­ tions are no mere appearances. The fact that I see green, red, and white has its ground in my organ of sight. But that the green should differ from the red, testifies to something that lies outside of me, to a real difference between the things. Moreover, the peculiarity of my organ has the effect that by its means I can only recognise the motions of the ether. No other communication from the outer world can reach me through that medium. Just as with the power of vision, in particular, so is it with the organs of knowledge in general. They can only convey to me space and time conceptions, that is, they can only show me those relations of the things which can call forth time and space conceptions in my head. To impressions of another kind, if there are any, they cannot react, and my faculty of knowledge renders it possible for me to obtain any impressions in a particular way. So far the categories of space and time are founded in the construction of my faculty of knowledge. But the relations and distinctions of the things them­ selves, which are shown to me by means of the individul space and time concepts, so that the different things appear to me as big and small, near and far, sooner or later, are real relations and distinctions of the external world, which are not conditioned through the nature of my faculty of knowledge. �24 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. Therefore, even if we are not in a position to recog­ nise a single thing by itself, if our faculties of know­ ledge are in respect to that faculties of ignorance, we can yet recognise the real differences between things. These distinctions are no mere appearances, even if our conception of them is conveyed to us by means of appearances, they exist outside of us, and can be recognised by us, though only under certain forms. . Kant, on the other hand, was of opinion that not simply are space and time forms of conception for us, but that even the temporal and spacial differences of phenomena spring solely from our heads, and notify nothing real. If that were really so, then would all phenomena spring simply from our heads, since they all take the form of temporal and spacial differences, then we could know absolutely nothing about the world outside of us, not even that it existed. Given that a world outside of us exists then, owing to the ideality of space and time, our faculty of knowledge would be not an imperfect, one-sided mechanism which com­ municated to us only a one-sided knowledge of the world, but, of its kind, a complete mechanism, namely, one to which nothing was lacking to cut us off from all knowledge of the world. Certainly a mechanism which can hardly be described as a “ faculty of knowledge.” Thus in spite of Kant’s energetic attack on the mystical idealism of Berkeley, which he had hoped to replace by his own critical idealism, his criticism took a turn which nullified his own assumption that the world is real and only to be known through experi­ ence, and thus mysticism, cast out from the one side, found on the other a wide, triumphal doorway open, through which it can enter with a flourish of trumpets. 2.—The Moral Law. Kant assumed as his starting-point that the world is really external to us, and does not simply exist in our own heads, and that knowledge about it is only to be attained through experience. His philosophical achievement was to be the examination of the conditions of experi­ ence, of the boundaries of our knowledge. But just �TtHE ETHICS OF KANT. 25 this very examination became for him an incitement to surmount this barrier and to discover an unknowable world, of which he actually knew that it was of quite another nature than the world of appearances, that it was completely timeless and spaceless, and therefore causeless as well. But why this break-neck leap over the boundaries of knowledge which cut away all firm ground beneath his feet? The position could not be a logical one, since through this leap he landed on contradictions which nullified his own assumptions. It was an his­ torical reason which awakened in him the need for the assumption of a supersensuous world—a need which he must satisfy at any price. If, in the eighteenth century, France was a hundred years behind England, just so much was Germany behind France. If the English bourgeoisie no longer needed Materialism, since without it, and on reli­ gious grounds, they had got rid of the feudalistic State and its Church, the German bourgeoisie did not yet feel strong enough to take up openly the fight against the State and its Church. They, therefore, withdrew in fear from Materialism. This came in the eighteenth ■century to Germany, just as to Russia : not as the philo­ sophy of the fight but of pleasure, in a form suitable to the needs of the “enlightened” despotism. It grew within the princely courts, side by side with the narrowest orthodoxy. In the bourgeoisie there re­ mained, however, even in its boldest and most inde­ pendent pioneers, as a rule, a relic of Christian belief hanging to them, from which they could not emanci­ pate themselves. All this made the English philosophy appeal specially to German philosophers. In fact, its influence on Kant was very great. I cannot remember ever to have found in his writings any mention of a French Materialist of the eighteenth century. On the -other hand, he quoted with preference Englishmen of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—Lock, Hume, Berkeley, and Priestley. �26 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. But between the German and English philosophy there was a great difference. The English philoso­ phised at a time of great practical advance, of great practical struggles. The practical captured their entire intellectual force ; even their philosophy was entirely ruled by practical considerations. Their philosophers were greater in their achievements in economics, politics, and natural science, than in philosophy. The German thinkers found no practicality which could prevent them from concentrating their entire mental power on the deepest and most abstract problems of science. They were therefore in this respect without their like outside of Germany. This was not owing to any race quality of the Germans but to the circum­ stances of the time. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the deepest philosophic thinkers were to be found in Italy, France, Holland, England, and not in Germany. The quiet that came over German political life in the century following the Thirty Years’ War first gave Germany the lead in philosophy, just as Marx’s “Capital” had its origin in the period of reaction following on 1848. Kant, despite his sympathy for the English, could not find satisfaction in their philosophy. He was just as critical towards it as towards Materialism. . The weakest point in both cases was bound to strike him—-the Ethics. It seemed to him quite impossible to. bring the moral law into a necessary connection with nature, that is, with the world of phenomena. Its explanation required another world, a timeless and spaceless world of pure spirit, a world of freedom in contrast to the world of appearances (phenomena), which is ruled by the necessary chain of cause and effect. On the other hand, his Christian feelings, the outcome of a pious education, were bound to awaken the need for the recognition of a world in which God and immortality were possible. * * As a curiosity it may be mentioned here that it is possible to confront Bernstein’s witty remark “ Kant against Cant " with the fact that Kant himself was Cant. “ His ancestors came from �THE ETHICS OF KANT. 27 As Kant had to allow that God and immortality were completely superfluous in the world of our experience, he was obliged to look for a world “ beyond experi­ ence for them, and thus the spaceless and timeless world of things in themselves corresponded exactly to his needs. . The best proof for the existence of God and immor­ tality in this world of the “ beyond ” Kant obtained from the moral law. Thus we find with him, as with Plato, that the repudiation of the naturalist explanation and the belief in a special world of spirits, or, if it be preferred, a world of spirits lending each other mutual support, render it necessary. How, however, did Kant manage to obtain further insight into this spirit world? The “ Critique of Pure Reason ” only allowed him to say of it that it was timeless and spaceless. Now this spacelessness has to be filled up with a content. Even for that Kant has an idea. The unknowable world of things in themselves be­ comes at least partly knowable directly one succeeds in getting hold of a thing in itself. And this Kant finds in the personality of man. I am for myself at once phenomenon and thing in itself. My pure reason is a thing in itself. As a part of the sensuous world I am subject to the chain of cause and effect, therefore to necessity, as a thing in itself I am free, that is, my actions are not determined by the causes of the .world of the senses, but by the moral law dwelling within me, which springs from the pure reason and calls out to Scotland............ The father a saddler by profession, maintained in his name the Scottish spelling Cant; the Philosopher first changed the letters to prevent the false pronounciation as Zant. (Kuno Fischer, “History of Modern Philosophy” Vol. III., page 5 2, German Ed.). His family were very religious and this influence Kant never got over. Not less than Kant is Cant related to puritan piety. The word signified first the puritan method of singing, then the puritan, the religious, and finally the customary thoughtless oft-repeated phrases to which men submit themselves. Bernstein appealed in his assumption of Socialism for a Kant as an ally against the materialist “ Party-Cant” �28 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY, me not “Thou must,” but “Thou shalt.” If I were not free this “ shall ” would be an absurdity if there did not correspond to it a “can.” The moral freedom of man is certainly a complicated question, carrying with it no less contradictions than the ideality of time and space. Since this freedom comes to expression in actions which belong to the chain of cause and effect they are necessary. The same world of phenomena, as such falling beneath the actions are at the same time free and necessary. Moreover,, freedom arises in the timeless, intelligible world, while cause and effect always fall in a particular time. The same time-determined action has thus a time as well as a cause in time. But what is now the moral law which from the world of things in themselves, the “World of the Under­ standing,” extends its working right into the world of appearances, the world of the “senses,” and subor­ dinates these to itself? Since it springs from the world of the understanding, its determining ground can only be in pure reason. It must be of purely formal nature, because it must remain fully free from all rela­ tion to the world of the senses, which would at once involve a relation of cause and effect, a determinin°r ground of the will which would at once annihilate its freedom. “There is, however,” says Kant, in his “Critique of Practical Reason, ” .“ besides the matter of the law, nothing further contained than the law-giving form. Thus the law-giving form, so far as it is contained in the maxim, and that alone, can constitute a deter­ mining ground of free will.” From that he draws the following “ Fundamental Law of Pure Practical Reason ” :— Act so that the maxim of thy action may be a prin­ ciple of universal legislation.” This principle is by no means startlingly new. It forms only the philosophic translation of the ancient precept, to do unto others as we would be done by. This is. only the declaration that this precept forms a revelation of an intelligible world ; a revelation which �THE ETHICS OF KANT. 20 with the greatest application of philosophic insight was to be discovered as a principle which applied not only for humanity ‘ ‘ but for all finite beings who possess reason and will, nay, even including the infinite being as the highest intelligence.” Unluckily, the proof for this law which was to apply even to the supreme intelligence has a very serious flaw to show. It ought to be ‘‘independent of all conditions pertaining to the world of the senses,” but that is easier said than fulfilled. Just as little as it is possible with the air-pump to create a completely airless space ; just as it must always contain air, though it be in so refined a degree that it is no more to be recognised by us, in the same way we cannot possibly grasp a thought, which is independent of all conditions apper­ taining to the world of senses. Even the moral law does not escape this fate. The moral law already includes conditions which belong to the world of the senses. It is not a law of the ‘‘pure will” in itself, but a law of the control of my will or thought in contact with my fellow man. It assumes this ; for me, however, these are appearances from the world of the senses. And still more is assumed, however, by the conception of the moral law : ‘ ‘ Act so that the maxim of thy action may be a principle of universal legislation.” This as­ sumes not only men outside of me, but also the wish that these fellow men should behave themselves in a particular manner. They are to behave themselves as the moral law prescribes me to act. Here not only society, but also a distinct form of social conditions are assumed as possible and desirable. That, in fact, the need for such is concealed in the ground of his “ Practical Reason,” and determines his spaceless and timeless moral law, Kant himself betrays in his 11 Critique of Practical Reason” in a polemic against the deduction of the moral law out of happiness : “ It is, therefore, surprising that intelligent men should have thought of calling the desire for happiness a universal practical law on the ground that the desire is �30 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. universal, and, therefore, also the maxim by which everyone makes this desire determine his will. For, whereas in other cases a universal law of nature makes everything harmonious, here, on the contrary, if we attribute to the maxim the universality of a law, the extreme opposite of harmony will follow the greatest opposition, and the complete destruction of the maxim itself, and its purpose. For, in that case, the will of all has not one and the same object, but everyone has his own (his private welfare), which may accidentally accord with the purposes of others which are equally selfish, but which is far from sufficing for a law, because the occasional exceptions which one is permitted to make are endless, and cannot be definitely embraced in one universal rule. In this manner, then, results a harmony like a married couple bent on going to ruin, ‘ O marvellous harmony, what he wishes she wishes also,’ or, like what is said of the pledge of Francis I. to the Emperor Charles V., ‘ What my brother Charles wishes, that I wish also’ (viz., Milan). Em­ pirical principles of determination are not fit for any universal external legislation, but just as little for in­ ternal, for each man makes his own subject the founda­ tion of his inclination, and in the same subject some­ times one inclination, sometimes another, has the pre­ ponderance. To discover a law which would govern them all under this condition, bringing them all into harmony, is quite impossible.”* Thus pleasure is not to be a maxim which can serve as a principle of universal legislation, and that because it can call forth social disharmonies. The moral law has thus to create a harmonious society, and such must be possible, otherwise it would be absurd to wish to create it. The Kantian moral law assumes thus in the first place a harmonious society as desirable and possible. But it also assumes that the moral law is the means *Kant’s “ Critique of Practical Reason,” translated by T. W. Abbott, fourth editon revised, London, 1839. Section IV. Theorem III., pp. 115-6. �THE ETHICS OF KANT. 31 to create such a society, that this result can be achieved through a rule which the individual sets to himself. We see how thoroughly Kant was deceived when he thought that his moral law was independent of all conditions appertaining to the world of sense, and that it formed thus a principle which would apply to all timeless and spaceless spirits including God Almighty himself. In reality Kant’s moral law is the result of very con­ crete social needs. Naturally, since it springs from the wish for an harmonious society, it fs possible to deduce from it the ideal of an harmonious society, and thus it has been possible to stamp Kant as a founder of Socialism. Cohen repeats this again also in his latest work, “Ethic of the Pure Will” (Ethik des reinen Willens), 1905. In reality, however, Kant is much farther removed from Socialism than the French Materialism of the eighteenth century. While, accord­ ing to these, the moral lawr was determined by the condition of the State and society, so that the reform of morality rendered necessary, in the first place, the reform of the State and society, so that the fight against immorality widened itself into a fight against the ruling powers, according to Kant the society which exists in time and space is determined bv a moral law standing outside of time and space, which directs its commands to the individual, not to society. Is the morality of the individual imperfect? One must not lay the blame for that on the State and society, but in the fact that man is not entirely an angel, but half animal and, consequently, always being drawn down by his animal nature, against which he can only fight through the raising and the purifying of this own inner man.. The individual must improve himself if the society is to be improved. It is clear Socialism takes peculair forms if we are to look on Kant as its founder. This peculiarity will be in no way diminished when we observe the further develop­ ment of the moral law by him. From the moral law springs the consciousness of personality and the dignity of man, and the phrase: “ Act so that you as well in �32 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. your own person as in the person of every other at all times look on man as an end and never simply as a means. ’ ’ “ In those words,” says Cohen (pp. 303-4), “ is the deepest and most far-reaching sense of the categoric imperative brought to expression ; they contain the moral programme of the new time and the entire world history. The idea of the final (or end) advantage of humanity becomes thereby transformed into the idea of Socialism, by which every man is defined as a final end, as an end in itself.” The programme of the ‘‘entire future world his­ tory ” is conceived in somewhat narrow fashion. The “ timeless moral law, that man ought to be an end, and at no time simply a means,” has itself only an “ end ” in a society where men are used by other men as simple means to their ends. In a communist society, this possibility will disappear, and with it the necessity of the Kantian programme for the “ entire future world history.” What then is to become'of this? We have then in the future either no Socialism or no world history to expect. The Kantian moral law was a protest against the very concrete feudal society with its personal relations of dependency. The so-called “Socialist” principle which fixes the personality and works of men is, accord­ ingly just as consistent with Liberalism or Anarchism as with Socialism, and contains, in no greater degree any new idea than the one already quoted of the uni­ versal legislation. It amounts to the philosophical fotmula for the idea of “ Freedom, Equality, and Fraternity ” then already developed by Rousseau, and which was also to be found in primitive Christianity. Kant only imparted the form in which this principle is proved. The dignity of personality is derived from the fact that it here forms part of a super-sensuous world, that as a moral being it stands outside nature and over nature. Personality is “ freedom and independ­ ence from the mechanism of the entire natural world,” so that “ the person as belonging to the world of sense �THE ETHICS OF KANT. 33 is subordinate to its own personality as far as it belongs to the world of intelligence.” Thus it is not then to be wondered if man, as belonging to both worlds, is obliged to look on his own being, with regard to its second and highest qualification, not otherwise than with respect, and to conceive the greatest respect for the laws of the same. And with that we could congratulate ourselves on having got back to the early Christian argument for the equality of man, which is based on the fact that we are all children of God. 3.—Freedom and Necessity. Meanwhile, reject, as we must, the assumption of the two worlds to which, according to Plato and Kant, man belongs, it is nevertheless true that man lives at the same time in two worlds, and that the moral law in­ habits one of them, which is not the world of experi­ ence. But all the same, even this world is no supersensuous one. The two worlds in which man lives are the Past and the Future. The Present forms the boundary of the two. His whole experience lies in the past, all ex­ perience being as such necessarily of the past, and all the connecting links which past experience shows him lie with inevitable necessity before, or rather, behind him. In these there is nothing more left to alter ; he can do nothing more in regard to them than recognise their necessity. Thus is the world of expe­ rience the world of knowing, and the world of necessity. It is otherwise with the Future. Of this I cannot have the smallest experience. Apparently free, it lies before me as the world which I do not explore as one knowing it, but in which I have to assert myself as an active agent. Certainly I can extend the experience of the past into the future ; certainly I can conclude that these will be even so necessarily determined as those ; but even if I can only recognise the world on the assumption of necessity, yet I shall only be able to act in it on the assumption of a certain freedom. Even if a compulsion is exercised over my actions, there still D �34 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. remains to me the choice whether I shall yield to it or not; there remains even as a last resort the possi­ bility of withdrawing myself by a voluntary death. Action implies continual choice between various possi­ bilities, and be it only that of doing or not doing, it means accepting or rejecting, defending or opposing. Choice, however, assumes, in advance, the possibility of choice, just as much as the distinction between the acceptable and inacceptable, the good and the bad. The moral judgment, which is an absurdity in the world of the past—the world of experience, in which there is nothing to choose, where iron necessity reigns—is unavoidable in the world of the unknown future—of freedom. And not only the feeling of freedom is assumed by action, but also certain aims. Does there rule in the world of the past the sequence of cause and effect (causality), so in that of action, of the future, rules the thought of aim (teleology). For action the feeling of freedom is an indispensable psychological necessity, which is not to be got rid of by any degree of know­ ledge. Even the sternest Fatalism, the deepest convic­ tion that man is a necessary product of his circum­ stances, cannot make us cease to love and hate, to defend and attack. But all that is no monopoly of man, but holds also of the animals. Even these have freedom of the will, in the sense that man has, namely, as a subjective, inevitable feeling of freedom, which springs from ignorance of the future, and the necessity of exer­ cising a direct influence on it. And just in the same way they have command of a certain insight into the connection of cause and effect. Finally the conception of an end is not quite strange to them. In respect of insight into the past, and the necessity of nature on the one hand, and on the other in respect of the power of foreseeing the future, and the setting up of aims for their action the lowest specimens of humanity are distinguished far less from the animals than from civilised men. �THE ETHICS OF KANT. 35 The setting up of aims is not, however, anything which exists outside the sphere of necessity, of cause and effect. Even though I set up aims for myself only in the future, in the sphere of apparent freedom, yet the act of setting up aims itself, from the very moment when I set up the aim, belongs to the past, and can thus in its necessity be recognised as the result of dis­ tinct causes. That is not in any way altered by the fact that the attainment of the end is still in the future, in the sphere of uncertainty, thus in this sense in that of freedom. Let the attainment of the end be assumed as ever so far distant, the setting up of the aim itself lies in the past. In the sphere of freedom there lie only those aims which are not yet set up, of which we do not even know anything as yet. The world of conscious aims is thus not the world of freedom in opposition to that of necessity. For each of the aims which we set ourselves, just as for each one of the means which we apply to its attainment, the causes are already given, and are, under certain circum­ stances, recognisable as those which brought about the setting up of these aims and determined the wav in which that was to be achieved. It is impossible, however, to distinguish the realm of necessity and of freedom simply as past and future ; their distinction often coincides also with that o nature and society, or, to be more exact, of society, and that other nature from which the former displays only one particular and peculiar portion. If we look at nature in the narrower sense as apart from society, and then at both in their relation to the future, we find at once a serious difference. The natural conditions change much slower than the social. And the latter at the period when men commenced to philosophise, at the period of the production of wares, had become extremely complicated, whereas in nature there are a large number of simple processes, whose subjection to law can be relatively easily perceived. The consequence is, that despite our'apparent free­ dom of action m the future, this action, nevertheless, as tar as nature is concerned, comes to be looked on D2 �36 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. as determined at an early period. Dark as the future lies before me, I know of a certainty that summer will follow winter, that to-morrow the sun will rise, that to-morrow I shall have hunger and thirst, that in winter the need for warming myself will occur to me, and that my action will never be directed to escaping these natural necessities, but exercised with the idea of satisfying them. Thus I recognise, despite all apparent freedom, that in face of nature my action is necessarily conditioned. The constitution of nature external to us, and of my own body, produce necessities which force on me a certain willing and acting which, being given according to experience, can be reckoned with in advance. It is quite otherwise with my conduct to my fellow men, my social actions. In this case the external and internal causes, which necessarily determine my action, are not so easy to recognise. Here I meet with no overpowering forces of nature, to which I am obliged to submit myself, but with factors on a level with myself, men like myself, who by nature have no more strength than I have. Over against these I feel myself to be free, but they also appear to me to be free in their relations to their fellow men. Towards them I feel love and hate, and on them and my relations to them I make moral judgments. Although the world of freedom and of the moral law is thus certainly another than that of recognised neces­ sity, it is not a timeless, spaceless and supersensual world, but a particular portion of the world of sense seen from a particular point of view. It is the. world as seen in its approach to us ; the world on which we have to work, which we have to rearrange above all. But what is to-day the future will be to-morrow the past; thus what to-day is felt to be free action will be recog­ nised to-morow as necesary action. The moral law. in us, which regulates this action, ceases,, however, with that to appear as an uncaused cause; it falls into the sphere of experience, and can be recognised as the necessary effect of a cause. And only as such are we at all able to recognise it, or can it become an �THE ETHICS OF KANT. 37 object of science. Thus in transferring the moral from the “this side’’—the sensual world—to the “other side”—the supersensual world—Kant did not advance the scientific knowledge of it, but has instead closed all ways to it. This obstacle must be got rid of before everything else ; we must rise above Kant if we are to bring the problem of the moral law nearer to its solution. 4.—The Philosophy of Reconciliation. It is the ethic which forms the weakest side of the Kantian Philosophy. And yet it is just through the ethic that its greatest success was achieved, because it met very powerful needs of the time. French Materialism had been a philosophy of the battle against the traditional methods of thought, and consequently against the institutions which ruled them. An irreconcilable hatred against Christianity made it the watchword not only of the fight against the Church, but of that against all the social and political forces which were bound up with it. Kant’s “ Critique of Pure Reason ” equally drives Christianity from out of the Temple; but the discovery of the origin of the moral law, which is brought about by the “ Critique of the Practical Reason,” opens for it again the door with all due respect. Thus through Kant, Philosophy became, instead of a weapon of the fight against the existing methods of thought and institutions, a means of reconciling the antagonisms. But the way of development being that of struggle, the reconciliation of antagonisms implies the arrest of development. Thus the Kantian Philosophy became a conservative factor. Naturally, Theology was the greatest gainer by this. It served to emancipate the traditional belief from the quandary into which it had been forced by the develop­ ment of science, in rendering the reconciliation of science and religion possible. “ No other science,” says Zeller, “experienced the influence of the Kantian Philosophy in a higher degree �38 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. than Theology. Here Kant found the soil best prepared for his principles ; with that, however, he brought to the traditional methods of thought a reform and an increase in depth, which it was badly in need of.” (Geschichte der deutschen Philosophic, 1873, P- 5I9-) Just after the outbreak of the French Revolution arose a specially strong need for a Theology which was in a position to hold its own against Materialism, and to drive it out of the field, among the educated people. Zeller writes then further— “ Kant’s religious views corresponded exactly to both the moral and intellectual need of the time ; it recom­ mended itself to the enlightened by its reasonableness, its independence of the positive, its purely practical tendency ; to the religious by its moral severity and its lofty conceptions of Christianity and its founder. German Theology from now on took Kant as their authority. His ‘ Moral Theology ’ became after a few years the foundation on which Protestant Theology in Germany, almost without exception, and even the Catholic one to a very large extent, was built up. The Kantian Philosophy, exercised for that reason—and the majority of German Theologians for close on fifty years took their start from it—a highly permanent and far-reaching influence on the general education.” Voslander quotes in this “ History of Philosophy (Leipzig, 1903) the word of a modern German Theo­ logian, Ritschl, who declared :— “ Thus the development of the method of knowledge by Kant implied at the same time a practical rebirth of Protestantism” (Vol. II., p. 476). The great revolution created the soil for the influence of Kant, which was wrought in the two decades after the Terror. Then this influence began to wane. The bourgeoisie acquired after the thirties, even in Ger­ many, strength and courage for more decisive struggles against the existing forms of State and thought, and to an unconditional recognition of the world of the senses as the only reality. Thus through the Hegelian dialectic there arose new forms of Materialism, and �THE ETHICS OF KANT. 39 in the most vigorous form in Germany, for the very reason that their bourgeoisie was still behind that of France and England, because they had not con­ quered the existing State machine, because they had that still to overturn ; thus they required a fighting philosophy, and not one of reconciliation. In the last decades, however, their desire to fight has greatly diminished. Within these, although they have not attained all that they desired, yet they had all which was necessary for their development. Fur­ ther struggles on a large scale, or fights against the existing order, must be of much less use to them than to their great enemy, the proletariat, whose strength was increasing in a most menacing fashion, and who now for its part required a fighting philosophy. It was so much the more susceptible to the influence of Mate­ rialism the more the development of the world of the senses showed the absurdity of the existing order and the necessity of its victory. The bourgeoisie, on the other hand, became more and more susceptible to a philosophy of reconciliation, and thus Kantism was aroused to a fresh life. This resurrection was prepared in the reactionary period after 1848 by the then commencing influence of Schopenhauer. But in the last decade the influence of Kant has forced its way into Economics and Socialism. Since the laws of bourgeois society, which were discovered by the classical economists, showed themselves more clearly as laws which made the class war and the dis­ appearance of the capitalist order necessary, the bour­ geois economists took refuge in the Kantian Moral Code, which, being independent of time and space, must be in a position to reconcile the class antagonisms and prevent the revolutions which take place in space and time. Side by side with the ethical school in economics we got an ethical Socialism, when endeavours were made in our ranks to modify the class antagonisms, and to meet at least a section of the bourgeoisie half way. This policy of reconciliation also began with the cry : �ZJ.O ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. ‘ ‘ Back to Kant! ’ ’ and with a repudiation of Material­ ism, since it denies the freedom of the will. Despite the categoric imperative which the Kantian Ethic cries to the individual, its historical and social tendency from the very beginning on till to-day has been that of toning down, of reconciling antagonisms, not of over­ coming them through struggle. �THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM. 41 CHAPTER IV. The Ethics of Darwinism. 1.—The Struggle for Existence. Kant, like Plato, had divided mankind into two sides : into natural and supernatural, animal and angelic. But the strong desire to bring the entire world, includ­ ing our intellectual functions, under a unitary concep­ tion and to exclude all factors beside the natural from it; or, in other words, the Materialist method of thought was too deeply grounded in the circumstances for Kant to be able to paralyse it for any length of time. And the splendid progress made by the material sciences, which began just at the very time of Kant’s death to make a spurt forwards, brought a series of new discoveries, which more and more filled up the gap between men and the rest of nature, which among other things revealed the fact that the apparently angelic in man was also to be seen in the animal world, and thus was of animal nature. All the same, the Materialist Ethics of the nineteenth century, so far as it was dominated by the conceptions of natural science, as much in the bold and outspoken form which it took in Germany as in the more retiring and modest English and, even now, French version, did not get beyond that which the eighteenth century had taught. Feuerbach founded morality on the desire for happiness ; while Auguste Comte, the founder of Positivism, took, on the other hand, from the English the distinction between the moral or altruistic feelings and the egoistical feelings, both of which are equally rooted in human nature. The first great and decided advance over this position was made by Darwin, who proved, in his book on the “ Descent of Man,” that the altruistic feelings formed no peculiarity of man, that they are also to be found in the animal world, and that there, as here, they spring �42 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY, from causes which are in essence identical, and which have called forth and developed all the faculties of beings endowed with the power of moving themselves. With that almost the last barrier between man and animal was torn down. Darwin did not follow up his discoveries any further, and yet they belong to the greatest and most fruitful of the human intellect, and enable us to develop a new critique of knowledge. When we study the organic world it reveals to us one very striking peculiarity as compared with the in­ organic ; we find in it adaptation to end. All organised beings are constructed and endowed more or less with a view to an end. The end which they serve is, never­ theless, not one which lies outside of them. The world as a whole has no aim. The aim lies in the individuals themselves : its parts are so arranged and fitted out that they serve the individual, the whole. Purpose and division of labour arise together. The essence of the organism is the division of labour just as much as adaption to end. One is the condition of the other. The division of labour distinguishes the organism from inorganic individuals, for example, crystals. Even crystals are distinct individuals, with a distinct form ; they grow when they find the necessary material for their formation, under the requisite conditions; but they are through and through symmetrical. On the other hand, the lowest organism is a vesicle, much less visible and less complicated than a crystal; but a vesicle whose external side is different, and has different functions from the inner. That the division of labour should be that one which is suitable for the purpose, that is, one which is useful to the individual, that which renders his existence pos­ sible, or even ameliorates it, seems wonderful. But it would be still more wonderful if individuals maintained themselves and procreated with a division of labour which was not suitable for the purpose, wrhich rendered their existence difficult or even impossible. But what is the work which the organs of the organ­ ism have to accomplish? This work is the struggle for life, that is, not the struggle with other organisms �THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM. 43 of the same kind, as the word is occasionally used, but the struggle with the whole of nature. Nature is in con­ tinual movement, and is always changing her forms, hence only such individuals are able to maintain their form for any period of time in this eternal change who are in a position to develop particular organs against those external influences which threaten the existence of the individual, as well as to supply the places of those parts which it is obliged to give up continually to the external world. Quickest and best will those individuals and groups assert themselves whose weapons of defence and instruments for obtaining food are the best adapted to their end, that is, best adapted to the external world : to avoid its dangers and to capture the sources of food. This uninterrupted process of adaptation and. selec­ tion of the fittest by means of the struggle for existence produces, under such circumstances as usually form themselves on the earth since it has borne organised beings, an increasing division of labour. In fact,, the more developed the division of labour is in a society, the more advanced does that society appear to us. The continual process of rendering the organic world more perfect is thus the result of the struggle for exist­ ence in it, and probably for a long time to come will be its future result, as long as the conditions of our planet do not essentially alter. Certainly we have no right to look on this process as a necessary law for all time. That would amount to imputing to the world an end which is not to be found in it. The development need not always proceed at the same rate. From time to time periods can come when the various organisms, each in its way, arrive at the highest possible degree of adaptation to the existing conditions, that is, are in the most complete harmony with their surroundings. So long as these conditions endure they will develop no farther, but the form which has been arrived at will develop into a fixed type, which procreates itself unchanged. A further development will only then occur when the surroundings undergo a considerable alteration : if when the inorganic nature is subject to changes which disturb the balance of the �44 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. organic. Such changes, however, take place from time to time, either single, sudden, and violent, or numerous and unnoticed, the sum total and effect of which, how­ ever, equally brings on new situations, as, for example, alterations in the ocean currents, in the surface of the earth, perhaps even in the position of the planet in the universe, which bring about climatic changes, trans­ form thick forests into deserts of sand, cover tropical landscapes with icebergs, and vice versa. These alterations render new adaptations to the changed con­ ditions necessary ; they produce migrations which like­ wise bring the organisms into new surroundings, and produce fresh struggles for life between the old inhabi­ tants and the new incomers, exterminate the badlyadapted and the unadaptable individuals and types, and create new divisions of labour, new functions and new organs, or transform the old. It is not always the highest developed organisms which best assert them­ selves by this new adaptation. Every division of labour implies a certain one-sidedness. Highly-developed or­ gans, which are specially adapted for a particular method of life, are for another far less useful than organs which are less developed, and in that particular method of life less effective, but more many-sided and more easily adaptable. Thus we see often higherdeveloped kinds of animals and plants die out, and lower kinds take over the further development of fresh higher organisms. Probably man is not sprung from the highest type of apes, the man-apes, which are tend­ ing to die out, but from a lower species of four-handed animals. 2.—Self-movement and Intelligence. At an early period the organisms divided themselves into two great groups : those which developed the organs of self-motion, and those which lacked it; animals and plants. It is clear that the power of self­ movement is a mighty weapon in the struggle for life. It enables it to follow its food, to avoid dangers, to bring its young into places where they will be best secured from danger, and which are best provided with food. �THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM. 45 Self-motion, however, necesarily implies an intelli­ gence and vice versa. One of these factors with­ out the other is absolutely useless. Only in combina­ tion do they become a weapon in the struggle for lite. The power of self-movement is completely useless when it is not combined with a power to recognise the world in which I have to move myself. What use would the legs be to the stag if he had not the power to recognise his enemies and his feeding places? On the other hand, for a plant intelligence of any kind would be useless. Were the blade of grass able to see, hear or smell the approaching cow that would not in the least help it to avoid being eaten. Self-movement and intelligence thus necessarily go together, one without the other is useless. Wherever these faculties may spring from, they invariably come up together and develop themselves jointly. There is no self-movement without intelligence, and no intelli­ gence without self-movement. And together they serve the same ends : the securing and alleviation of the indi­ vidual existence. As a means to that they and their organs are devel­ oped and perfected by the struggle for life, but only as a means thereto. Even the most highly-developed in­ telligence has no capacities which would not be of use as weapons in the struggle for existence. . Thus isexplained the onesidedness and the peculiarity of our intelligence. To recognise things in themselves may appear to many philosophers an important task ; for our existence it is highly indifferent, whatever we have to understand' by the theory in itself. On the other hand, for every being endowed with power of movement it is of the greatest importance to rightly distinguish the things and to recognise their relations to one another. The sharper his intelligence in this respect the better service will it do him. For the existence of the singing bird it is quite indifferent what those things may be in themselves which appear to it as berries, hawks, or a thunder-cloud. But indispensable is it for its exist­ ence to distinguish exactly berries, hawks, and clouds- �46 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. from the other things among his surroundings, since that alone puts him in a position to find his food, to escape the enemy, and to reach shelter in time. It is thus inevitable that the intelligence of the animal should be a power of distinguishing in space. But just as indispensable is it to recognise the sequence of the things in time, and indeed this neces­ sary sequence as cause and effect. Since the move­ ment as cause can only then bring as a universal result the maintenance of existence, if it aims at special, more immediate, or remoter effects which are so much the more easily to be achieved, the better the individual has got to learn these effects with their causes. To repeat the above example of a bird : it is not sufficient that it should know how to distinguish berries, hawks and thunder-clouds from the other things in space, it must also know, that the enjoyment of the berries has the effect of satisfying its hunger, that the appearance of the hawk will have the effect that the first small bird which it can grasp will serve it as food, and that the rising thunder-clouds produce storm, rain and hail as results. Even the lower animal, so soon as it possesses a trace of ability to distinguish and self-movement, developes a suspicion of causality. If the earth shakes that is a sign for the worm that danger threatens and an incentive to flight. . Thus if the intelligence is to be of use to the animal in its movements it must be organised so that it is in a position to show it the distinctions in time and space as well as the casual connections. But it must do even more. All the parts of the bodv serve only one individual, only one end—the mainten­ ance of the individual. The division of labour must never go so far that the individual parts become inde­ pendent, because that would lead to the dismember­ ment of the individual. They will work so much the more efficiently the tighter the parts are held together, and the more uniform the word of command. From this follows the necessary unity of the consciousness. If every part of the body had its own intellectual �THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM. 47 organs or did each of the scenes which convey to us a knowledge of the outer world produce its own con­ sciousness, then would all knowledge of the world in such a case and the co-operation of the various mem­ bers of the body be much impeded, the advantages of the division of labour would be abolished, or changed into disadvantages, the support which the senses or the organs of movement mutually give to each other would cease, and there would come instead mutual hindrance. Finally, however, the intelligence must possess, in addition, the power to gather experiences and to com­ pare. To return once more to our singing bird : he has two ways open to him to find out where food is the best for him, and where it is easiest to be found ; what enemies are dangerous for him, and how to escape them. One his own experience, the other the observa­ tion of other and older birds, who have already had experience. No master is, as is well known, born. Every individual can so much the easier maintain him­ self in the struggle for life the greater his experiences and the better arranged they are ; to that, however, belongs the gift of memory and the capacity to com­ pare former impressions with later ones, and to extract from them the common and the universal element, to separate the essential from the inessential—that is, to think. Does observation, the particular factor through the senses, communicate to us the differences, so does thinking tell us the common factor, the universal element in the things. “ The universal,” says Dietzgen, “ is the content of all concepts, of all knowledge, of all science, of all acts of thought. Therewith the analysis of the organs of thought show the latter as the power to investigate the universal in the particular.” All these qualities of the intellectual powers we find developed in the animal world, even if not in so high a degree as with men, and if often for us very difficult to recognise, since it is not always easy to distinguish conscious actions springing from intelligence from the involuntary and unconscious actions—simple reflex �48 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY, actions and instinctive movements which even in men play a great rdle. If we find all these qualities of the intellectual faculties to be a necessary concomitant of the power of self-movement already in the animal world, so do we, on the other hand, find in the same qualities also the same limitations which even the most embracing and most penetrating understanding of the highly-developed civilised man cannot surmount. Forces and capacities which were acquired as weapons in the battle for existence can naturally be made available for other purposes as well as those of rendering existence secure when the organism has brought its power of self-movement and its in­ telligence as well as its instincts, of which we will speak later, to a high enough degree of development. The individual can employ the muscles, which were de­ veloped in it for the purpose of snatching its booty or warding off the foe, as well for dancing and playing. But their particular character is obtained by these powers and capacities all the same only from the struggle for life which developed them. Play and dance develop no particular muscles. That holds good also of the intellectual powers and faculties as a necessary supplement to the power of self-movement in the struggle for life ; developed in order to render possible to the organism the most suit­ able movement in the surrounding world for its own preservation, yet it could, all the same, be made to serve other purposes. To these belong also pure know­ ing without any practical thoughts in the background, without regard for the practical consequences which it can bring about. But our intellectual powers have not been developed by the struggle for existence to become an organ of pure knowledge, but only to be an organ which regulates our movements in conformity with their purpose. So completely does it function in respect of the latter, so incomplete is it in the first. From the very beginning most intimately connected with the power of self-movement, it develops itself completely only in mutual dependence on the power �THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM. 49 of self-movement, and can only be brought to perfec­ tion in this connection. Also the power of the human faculties of cognition and human knowledge is most intimately bound up with human practice, as we shall see. The practice it is, however, which guarantees to us the certainty of our knowledge. So soon as my know­ ledge enables me to bring about distinct effects the production of which lies in my power, the relation of cause and effect ceases for me to be simply chance or simple appearance, or simple forms of knowledge such as the pure contemplation and thought might well describe them. The knowledge of this relation becomes through the practice a knowledge of something real, and is thus raised to certain knowledge. The boundaries of practice show certainly the boun­ daries of our certain knowledge. That theory and practice are dependent on one another, and only through the mutual permeation of the one by the other can at any time the highest results attainable be arrived at, is only an outcome of the fact that movement and intellectual powers from their earliest beginnings were bound to go together. In the course of the develop­ ment of human society the duration of labour has brought it about that the natural unity of these two factors should be destroyed, and created classes to whom principally the movement, and others to whom principally the knowing, fell. We have already pointed out how this was reflected in philosophy through the creation of two worlds, a higher or intel­ lectual and a lower or bodily. But naturally in no individual were the two functions ever to be wholly divided, and the proletariat movement of to-day is directing its energies with good effect to abolishing this distinction, and with it also the dualist philosophy, the philosophy of pure knowledge. Even the deepest, most abstract, knowledge, which apparently is farthest removed from the practical, influence this, and are in­ fluenced by it, and to bring in us this influence to consciousness becomes the duty of 3. critique of human knowledge. As before, knowledge remains in �5° ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. the last resort always a weapon in the struggle for existence, a means to give to our movements, be they movements in nature or society, the most suitable forms and directions. ‘ ‘ Philosophers have only interpreted the world differ­ ently,” said Marx. “The great thing, however, is to change it.” —The Motives of Self-Maintenance and Propagation. Both the powers of self-movement and of knowing belong thus inseparably together as weapons in the struggle for existence. The one developed itself along with the other, and in the degree in which these weapons gain in importance in the organism, others, more primi­ tive, lose, being less necessary, as, for example, that of fruitfulness and of vital force. On the other hand, to the degree that these diminish must the importance of ’the first-named factors for the struggle for life increase, and it must call forth their greater development. But self-movement and knowledge by no means form by themselves a sufficient weapon in the struggle. What use are to me in this struggle the strongest muscles, the most agile joints, the sharpest senses, the greatest understanding, if I do not feel in me . the impulse to employ them to my preservation; if the sight of food or the knowledge of danger leaves me in­ different and awakens no emotion in me? Self-move­ ment and intellectual capacity first then . become weapons in the struggle for existence, if with them there arises a longing for the self-preservation of the organism ; which brings it about that all knowledge which is of importance for its existence at once pro­ duces the will to carry out the movement necessary for its existence, and therewith calls forth the same. Self-movement and intellectual powers have no importance for the existence of the individual without this instinct of self-preservation, just as this latter again is of no importance without both the former factors. All the three are most intimately bound up with each other. The instinct of self-preservation is the most �THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM. 51 primitive of the animal instincts, and the most indis­ pensable. . Without it no animal species endowed in any degree with the power of self-movement and a faculty of intelligence could maintain itself even a short time It rules the entire life of the animal. The same social development which ascribes the care of the intellectual faculties to particular classes and the practical move­ ment to others, and produces in the first an elevation of the ‘‘spirit” over the coarse ‘‘matter,” goes so tar in the process of isolating the intellectual faculties that the latter, out of contempt for the “ mechanical ” action which serves for the maintenance of life, comes to despise life itself. But this kind of knowledge has never as yet been able to overcome the instinct of self­ preservation, and to paralyse the ‘‘action” which serves for the maintenance of life. Nay, even a suicide may be philosophically grounded ; we always in every practical act of the denial of life finally meet with disease or ddsperate social circumstances as the cause but not a philosophical theory. Mere philosophising cannot overcome the instinct of self-preservation. But if this is the most primitive and widely-spread of all instincts, so is it not the only one. It serves only tor the maintenance of the individual. However lone this may endure, finally it disappears without leaving any trace of its individuality behind, if it has not reproduced itself. Only those species of organisms will assert themselves in the struggle for existence who leave a progeny behind them. Now with the plants and the lower animals the reproduction is a process which demands no power of self-movement and no faculty of intelligence. That c anges, however, with the animals so soon as the reproduction becomes sexual, in which two indi­ viduals are concerned, who have to unite in order to e^s ,and sperm on the same spot outside of We body or to incorporate the sperm in the body of the individual carrying the eggs. J f^Tha^dem^-dt a wiI1’ an imPuIse to find each other, i W1fhout that the non-sexual propagation cannot take place ; the stronger it is in the periods E2 �r2 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. favourable for reproduction, so much the sooner will it take place, so much the better will be the prospects of a progeny for the maintenance of the species. On the other hand, there is little prospect for those individuals and species in whom the impulse for self-reproduction is weakly developed. Consequently, from a given degree of the devlopment, natural selection must develop, through the struggle for life, an outspoken impulse to reproduction in the animal world, and evermore strengthen it. But it does not always suffice to the attainment of a numerous progeny. We have seen that in the degree in which self-movement and intel­ lectual powers grow, the number of the germs which the individual produces, as well as its vitality, have a tendency to diminish. Also, the greater the. division of labour, the more complicated the organism, the longer the period which is requisite for its develop­ ment and its attainment to maturity. If a part of this period is passed in the maternal body, that has its limits. Even from consideration of space this body is not in a position to bear an organism as big as itself; it must expel the young body previously to that. In the young animals, however, the capaci­ ties for self-movement and intelligence are the latest achieved, and they are mostly very weakly developed as they leave the protecting cover of the egg or the maternal body. The egg expelled by the mother is completely without motion and intelligence, lhen the care for the progeny becomes an important func­ tion of the mother : the hiding and defence of the eggs and of the young, the feeding of the latter, etc. As with the impulse for reproduction, so is it with the love for the young ; especially in the animal world the maternal love is developed as an indispensable means, from a certain stage of the development on, tO' secure the perpetuation of the species. With the impulse towards individual self-preservation these impulses have nothing to do ; they often come into conflict with it, and they can be so strong that they overcome it. It is clear that under otherwise equal conditions those individuals and species have the best prospect of repro- �THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM. 53 ducing themselves and handing on their qualities and impulses - in whom the impulse of self-maintenance is not able to diminish the impulse to reproduce and protect the progeny. 4.—The Social Instinct. Beside these instincts which are peculiar to the higher animals, the struggle for life develops in par­ ticular kinds of animals still others, which are special and conditioned by the peculiarity of their method of life ; for example, the migratory instinct, which we will not further study. Here we are interested in another kind of instinct, which is of very great importance for our subject: the social instinct. The co-operation of similar organisms in larger crowds is a phenomenon which we can discover quite in their earliest stages in the microbes. It is explained alone . by the simple fact of reproduction. If the organisms have no self-movement, the progeny will, consequently, gather round the producer, if they are not by any chance borne away by the movements of the external world matter : currents, winds, and phenomena of that sort. The apple falls, as is well known, not far from the stem, and when it is not eaten, and falls on fruitful soil, there grow from its pips young trees, which keep the old tree company. But even in animals with power of self-movement it is very natural that the young should remain with the old if no external circumstances supply a ground for them to remove themselves. The living together of individuals •of the same species, the most primitive form of social life, is also the most primitive form of life itself. The division of organisms, having common origin is a later act. . The separation can be brought about by the most diverse causes. The most obvious, and certainly the most effective, is the lack of sustenance. Each locality can only yield a certain quantity of food. If a certain species of animals multiplies over the limits of their food supply, the superfluous ones must either �54 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. emigrate or starve. Beyond a certain number the number of organisms living in one place cannot go. But there are certain species of animals for whom the isolation, the division in individuals or pairs who live only for themselves, is the form of living which affords an advantage in the struggle for existence. Thus, for example, the cat species, which lie in wait for their booty, and take it with an unexpected spring. This method of acquiring their sustenance would be made more difficult, if not impossible, did they circulate in bigger herds. The first spring on the booty would drive all the game away for all the others. For wolves, which do not come unexpectedly on their prey, but worry it to death, the foregathering in herds affords an advantage; one hunts the game to the other, which blocks the way for it. The cat hunts most success­ fully alone. Again, there are animals who choose isolation because thus they are less conspicuous, and can most easily hide themselves, and soonest escape the foe. The traps set by men have, for example, had the effect that many animals which formerly lived in societies are now only to be found isolated, such as the beavers in Europe. That is the only way for them to remain unnoticed. On the other hand, however, there are numerous animals which draw advantage from their social life. They are seldom beasts of prey. We have mentioned the wolf above. But even they only hunt in bands when food is scarce in winter ; in summer, when it is easier to get, they live in pairs. The nature of the beast of prey is always inclined to fighting and violence, and, consequently, does not agree well with its equals. The herbivora are more peaceful from the very manner in which they obtain their food. That very fact in itself renders it easier for them to herd together, or to remain together, because they are more defencless ; they will, however, through their greater numbers, need weapons in the struggle for life. The union of many weak forces to common action can produce a new and greater force. Then, through union, the greater strength of certain individuals is for the good �THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM. 55 of all. Unless the stronger ones fight now for them­ selves, they fight for the good of the weaker ; when the more experienced look out for their own safety, find out for themselves feeding grounds, they do it also for the inexperienced. It then becomes possible to intro­ duce a division of labour among the united individuals, which, fleeting though it be, yet increases their strength and their safety. It is impossible to watch the neigh­ bourhood with the most complete attention and at the same time to feed peacefully. Naturally, during sleep, all observation of any kind comes to an end. But in unity one watcher suffices to render the others safe during sleep or while eating. Through the division of labour the union of indi­ viduals becomes a body with different organs to co­ operate to a given end, and this end is the maintenance of the collective body—it becomes an organism. With that is by no means implied that the new organism or society is a body in the same way as an animal or a plant, but it is an organism of its own kind, which is far more widely distinguished from these two than the animal from the plant. Both are made up from cells without power of self-motion and without conscious­ ness of their own ; society, on the other hand, from individuals with their own power of self-movement and consciousness. If, however, the animal organism has as a whole a power of self-motion and consciousness, they are lacking, nevertheless, to society as well as to the plants. But the individuals which form the society can entrust individuals among their members with functions through which the social forces are Submitted to a uniform will, and uniform movements in the society are produced. On the other hand the individual and society are much more loosely connected than the cell and the whole organism in both plant and animal. The individual can separate itself from one society and join another, as emigration proves. That is impossible for a cell; for it the separation from the whole is death, if we leave certain cells of a particular kind out of account, such as the sperma and eggs, in the pro- �56 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. creation processes. Again society can forthwith im­ pose on new individuals any change of form without any change of substance, which is impossible for an animal body. Finally, the individuals who form society can, under circumstances, change the organs and organisation of society, while anything of that kind is quite impossible in an animal or vegetable organism. If, therefore, society is an organism, it is no animal organism, and to attempt to explain any phenomena peculiar to society from the laws of the animal organism is not less absurd than when the attempt is made to deduce peculiarities of the animal organism and self-movement and consciousness from the laws of the vegetable being. Naturally this does not imply that there is not also something common to the various kinds of organisms. As the animal so also the social organism survives so much the better in the struggle for existence the more unitary its movements, the stronger the binding forces, the greater the harmony of the parts. But society has no fixed skeleton which supports the weaker parts, no skin which covers in the whole, no circulation of the blood which nourishes all the parts, no. heart which regulates it, no brain which makes a unity out of its knowing, its willing, and its move­ ments. Its unity and harmony, as well as its coherence, can only arise from the actions and will of its members. This unitary will, however, will be so much the more assured the more it springs from a strong impulse. Among species of animals, in whom the social bond becomes a weapon in the struggle for life, social im­ pulses become encouraged which, in many species and many individuals, grow to an extraordinary strength, so that they can overcome the impulse of self-preserva­ tion and reproduction when they come in conflict with the same. The commencement of the social impulse we can well look for in the interest which the simple fact of living together in society produces in the individual for his fellows, to whose society he is used from youth on. �THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM. 57 On the other hand, reproduction and care for the pro­ geny already render longer or shorter relations of a more intimate kind necessary between different indi­ viduals of the same species ; and just as these rela­ tions have formed the starting point for the formation of societies, so could the corresponding impulses well give the point of departure for the development of the social impulses. These impulses themselves can vary according to the varying conditions of the various species, but a row of impulses form the requisite conditions for the success of any kind of society. In the first place, naturally, altruism—self-sacrifice for the whole. Then bravery in the defence of the common interests ; fidelity to the community ; submission to the will of society, thus obedience and discipline ; truthfulness to society, whose security is endangered, or whose energies are wasted, when they are misled in any way by false signals. Finally ambition, the sensibility to the praise and blame of society. These are all social impulses which we find expressed already among animal societies, many of them in a high degree. These social impulses are, nevertheless, nothing less than the highest virtues ; they sum up the entire moral code. At the most they lack the love for justice, that is the impulse towards equality. For its development there certainly is no place in the animal societies, because they only know natural and individual in­ equality, and not those called forth by social relations, the social inequalities. The lofty moral law that the comrade ought never to be merely a means to an end— which the Kantians look on as the most wonderful achievement of Kant’s genius, as the moral programme of the modern era, and as essential to the entire future history of the world—is in the animal world a common­ place. The development of human society first created a state of affairs in which the companion became a simple tool of others. What appeared to Kant as the creation of a higher world of spirits is a product of the animal world. How closely the social impulses have grown up with �58 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. the fight for existence . and to what an extent they originally were useful in the preservation of species can be seen from the fact that their effect often limits itself to individuals whose maintenance is advantageous for the species. Quite a number of animals which risk their lives to save younger or weaker comrades kill without a scruple sick or aged comrades that are superfluous for the preservation of the race, and are become a burden to society. The “moral sense,” sympathy,” does not extend to these elements. Even many savages behave in this manner. The moral law is an animal impulse, and nothing else. Thence its mysterious nature, this voice in us which has no connection with any external impulse or any apparent interest; this demon or god, which, since Socrates and Plato, has been found in themselves by those moralists who refused to deduce morality from self-love or pleasure. Certainly a mysterious impulse, but not more mysterious than sexual love, maternal love, the instinct of self-preservation, the being of the organism itself, and so many other things, which only belong to the world of phenomena, and which no one looks on as products of a supersensuous world. Because the moral law is an animal instinct of equal force to the instinct of self-preservation and reproduc­ tion, thence its force, thence its power which we obey without thought, thence our rapid decisions, in par­ ticular cases, whether an action is good or bad, virtuous or vicious ; thence the energy and decision of our moral judgment, and thence the difficulty to prove it when reason begins to analyse its grounds. Thence, finally, we find that to comprehend all means to pardon all, that everything is necessary, that nothing is good or bad. Not from our organs of knowing but from our impulses come the moral law and the moral judgment, as well as the feeling of duty and the conscience. In many kinds of animals the social impulses attain such a strength that they become stronger than all the rest. When the former come in conflict with the latter, they then confront the latter with overpowering �THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM 59 strength as commands of duty. Nevertheless, that does not hinder in such a case a special impulse, say of self-preservation or of reproduction, being tempo­ rarily stronger than the social impulse and overcoming it. But as the danger passes the strength of the self-preserving impulse or the reproductive instinct diminishes, just as that of reproduction after the completion of the act. The social instinct remains, however, existing in the old force, regains the dominion over the individual, and works now in him as the voice of conscience and of repentance. Nothing is more mistaken than to see in conscience the voice of fear of his fellows, their opinion, or even their power of physical compulsion. It has effect even in respect to acts which no one has heard of, even acts which may appear to those nearest as very praiseworthy ; it can even act as repugnance to acts which have been undertaken from fear of his fellows and their public opinion. Public opinion, praise and blame, are certainly very influential factors. But their effect assumes in advance a certain social impulse—namely, ambition—they are not capable of producing the social impulses. We have no reason to assume that conscience is Confined to man. It would be difficult to discover even in men if everyone did not feel its effect on him­ self. Conscience is certainly a force which does not obviously and openly show itself, but works only in the innermost being. But, nevertheless, many investi­ gators have gone so far as to point, even in animals, to a kind of conscience. Darwin says in his book, “ The Descent of Man ” :— “ Besides love and sympathy, the animals show Other qualities connected with the social instincts which we should call moral in men ; and I agree with Agassiz that dogs have something very like a con­ science. Dogs certainly have a certain power of self­ control, and this does not appear to be altogether a consequence of fear. As Braubach remarks, ‘ A dog will restrain itself from stealing food in the absence of its master.’ ” �6o ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. If conscience and feeling of duty are a consequence of the lasting predominance of the social impulses in many species of animals, if these impulses are those through which the individuals of such species are the most constantly and most enduringly determined, while the force of the other impulses is subject to great oscil­ lations, yet the force of the social impulse is not free from all oscillations. One of the most peculiar pheno­ mena is this : that social animals when united in greater numbers also feel stronger social impulses. It is, for example, a well-known fact that an entirely different spirit reigns in a well-filled meeting than in a small one ; that the bigger crowd has in itself alone an inspiring effect on the speaker. In a crowd the indivi­ duals are not only more brave—that could be explained through the greater support which each believes he will get from his fellows—they are also more unselfish, more self-sacrificing, more enthusiastic. Certainly only too often so much the more calculating, cowardly and selfish when they find themselves alone. And that applies not only to men, but also to the social animals. Thus Espinas in his book, “The Animal Societies,’’ quotes an observation of Forel. The latter found :— “The courage of every ant, by the same form, in­ creases in exact proportion to the number of its com­ panions or friends, and decreases in exact proportion the more isolated it is from its companions. Every inhabitant of a very populous ant heap is much more courageous than are similar ones from a small popula­ tion. The same female worker which would allow her­ self to be killed ten times in the midst of her companions, will show herself extraordinarily timid, avoid the least danger, fly before even a much weaker ant, so soon as she finds herself twenty yards from her own home.’’ With the stronger social feeling there need not be necessarily bound up a higher faculty of intelligence. It is probable that, in general, every instinct has the effect of somewhat obscuring the exact observation of the external world. What we wish, that we readily believe ; but what we fear, that we easily exaggerate. The in­ stincts can very easily produce the effect that many �THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM. 6l things appear disproportionately big or near, while others are overlooked. How blind and deaf the instinct for reproduction can render many animals at times is well known. The social instincts which do not show themselves as a rule so acutely and intensively, gener­ ally obscure much less the intellectual faculties ; they can, however, influence them very considerably on occa­ sion. Think, for instance, of the influence of faith­ fulness and discipline upon sheep, who follow their leading sheep blindly wherever it may go. The moral law in us can lead our intellect astray just as any other impulse, being itself neither a pro­ ducer nor a product of wisdom. What is apparently the most devoted and divine in us is essentially the same as that which we look on as the commonest and most devilish. The moral law is of the same nature as the instinct for reproduction. Nothing is more ridiculous than when the former is put on a pedestal and the latter is turned away from with loath­ ing and contempt. But no less false is it to infer that man can, and ought, to give way to his impulses with­ out check. That is only so far true as it is impossible to condemn any one of these as such. But that by no means implies that they cannot come to cross purposes. It is simply impossible that anyone should follow all his instincts without restraint, because they restrain one another. Which, however, at a given moment wins, and what consequences this victory may bring to the individual and his society with it, neither the ethic of pleasure nor those of a moral law standing outside of space and time afford us any help to divine. If, however, the moral law were recognised as a social instinct which, like all the instincts, is called out in us by the struggle for life, then the supersensuous world has lost a strong support in human thought. The simple gods of Polytheism were already dethroned by natural philosophy. If, nevertheless, a new philosophy could arise which not only revealed the belief in God and a supersensuous world, but put it more firmly in a higher form, as was done in ancient times by Plato and on the eve of the French Revolu- �62 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. tion by Kant, the cause lay in the fact that the problem of the moral law, to whose explanation neither its deduction from pleasure nor from the moral sense sufficed—while it yet offered the only “ natural ” causal explanation which seemed possible. Darwinism was the first to make an end to the division of man, which this rendered necessary, into a natural and animal being on the one hand and a supernatural and heavenly one on the other. But with that the entire ethical problem was not yet solved. Were it attempted to explain moral impulse, duty, and conscience as well as the ground type of the virtues from the social impulse, yet this breaks down when it is a question of explaining the moral ideal. Of that there is not the least sign in the animal world ; only man can set himself ideals and follow them. Whence come these? Are they prescribed to the human race from the beginning of time as an irrevocable demand of nature, or an eternal reason—as commands which man does not produce, but which confront man as a ruling force and show him the aims to which he has ever more and more to strive after? That was, in the main, the view of all thinkers of the eighteenth century, Atheists as well as Theists, Materialists and Idealists. This view took, even in the mouth of the boldest Materialism, the tendency to assume a super­ natural providence, which indeed had nothing more to do in nature, but still hovers over human society. The evolution idea which recognised the descent of man from the animal world made this trend of idealism absurd in a Materialist mouth. All the same, before Darwin founded his epochmaking work, that theory had arisen which revealed the secret of the moral ideal. This was the theory of Marx and Engels. �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. 63 CHAPTER V. The Ethics of Marxism. 1.—The Roots of the Materialist Conception of History. The rapid progress of the natural sciences since the French Revolution is intimately connected with the expansion of capitalism from that time on. The great capitalist industry depended more and more on the application of science, and, consequently, had every reason to supply it with men and means. Modern tech­ nique gives to science not only new objects of activity, but also new tools and new methods. Finally inter­ national communication brought a mass of new material. Thus was acquired strength and means to carry the idea of evolution successfully through. But even more than for natural science was the French Revolution an epoch of importance for the science of society, the so-called mental sciences. Be­ cause in natural science the idea of evolution had already given a great stimulus to many thinkers. In mental science, on the other hand, it was only to be found in the most rudimentary attempts. Only after the French Revolution could it develop in them. The mental sciences—Philosophy, Law, History, Political Economy—had been for the rising bourgeoisie before the French Revolution, in the first place, a means of fighting the ruling powers, social and political, which opposed them, and had their roots in the past. To discredit the past, and to paint the new and coming, in contrast to it, as the only good and useful, formed the principal occupation of these sciences. That has altered since the Revolution. This gave the bourgeoisie the essence of what they wanted. It revealed to them, however, social forces which wanted to go further than themselves. These new forces began to be more dangerous than the relics of the deposed �64 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. old. To come to an agreement with the latter became merely a requirement of political sagacity on the part of the bourgeoisie. With that, however, their opinion on the past was bound also to grow milder. On the other hand the Revolution had brought a great disillusionment to the Idealogues themselves. Great as were its achievements for the bourgeoisie, they are not yet up to the expectations of an harmonious empire of morality,” general well-being, and happi­ ness, such as had been looked for from the overthrow of the old. No one dared to build hopes on the new ; the more unsatisfactory the present, so much the more terrifying were the reminiscences of the most recent past which the present had brought to a head, so much the more bright did the farther past appear. That produced, as is well.known, Romanticism in art. But it produced also similar movements in the mental sciences. Men began to study the past, not in order to condemn it, but to understand it; not to show up its absurdity, but to understand its reasonableness. But the Revolution had done its work too thoroughly for men to dream of re-establishing what had been set aside. Had the past been rational, so it was neces­ sary to show that it had become irrational. The socially necessary and reasonable ceased with that to appear as an unchangeable conception. Thus arose the view of a social evolution. That 'applied first to the knowledge of German his­ tory. In Germany the above-described process was most markedly to be seen ; there the revolutionary method of thought had not penetrated so deeply, had never struck such deep roots as in France; there the work of the Revolution had not been so complete, the forces and opinions of the past had been shaken in a less degree, and finally had appeared on the scene more as a disturbing than an emancipating element. But to the study of the German past there asso­ ciated itself the investigation of similar periods. In America the young community of the United States was already so far advanced that a separate class of the intellectuals had been able to develop a real �65 THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. American literature and science. What specially dis­ tinguished America from Europe was, however, the close contact of the capitalist civilisation of the white man with Indian barbarism. That was the object which especially attracted literature and science. Soon after the German Romanticism there arose the Ameri­ can-Indian novel, and soon after the rise of the histori­ cal school of law, the revival of the old fancy tales and the world of legends, and the comparative philological research in Germany, and the scientific theory of the social and linguistic conditions of the Indians in America. At an earlier period, however, the settlement of the English in India had afforded the possibility, nay the necessity of a study of the languages, the customs, and the laws of these territories. As far as Germany there had penetrated, at the commencement of the nineteenth century, the knowledge of Sanskrit, which laid the foundation for the comparative study of languages, which in its turn afforded the most valuable insight into the life of the Indo-Germanic peoples in primitive times. All this rendered it possible to treat the accounts given by civilised observers of primitive peoples, as well as the discoveries of weapons and tools of vanished races, differently from formerly, when they had been simply looked on as curiosities. They now became material by which to extend the partly-revealed chain of human development still further into the past, and to close up many of the gaps. In this entire historical work there was lacking, however, the object which had, up to then, ruled the entire writing of history—the great man theory. In the written sources, from which formerly the know­ ledge of human history was exclusively culled, only the extraordinary had been related, because it was that only which seemed noteworthy to the chronicler of the events of his time. To describe everyday occurrences, that which everybody knew, was by no means his task. The extraordinary man, the extraordinary event, such as wars and revolutions, only seemed worth relating. Thus it was that for the traditional historians, who never got beyond writing up from the sources handed F �66 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. down to them with more or less criticism, the big man was the motive power in history—in the Feudal period the king, the military commander, the religious founder, and the priest. In the eighteenth century there were very many men branded by the bourgeois intellectuals as the authors of all the evil in the world, and the philosophers, on the other hand, as legislators and teachers, as the only real instruments of progress. But all progress appeared to be only external, a simple change of clothes. That period in which the sources of historical writing began to flow more abundantly, the time of the victory of the Greeks over the Persian invasion, was the culminating period of the social deve­ lopment. From that time on society in the lands round the Mediterranean began to decay ; it went down and down till the Barbarian Immigration. Only slowly have the peoples of Europe since then developed them­ selves again to a higher level socially, and even in the eighteenth century they had not risen far above the level of classical antiquity, so that in many points of politics, of philosophy, and especially of art, the latter could rank as a pattern. History, as a whole, appeared simply as a rise and fall, a repetition of the same circle, and just as the simple individual can set himself continually higher aims than he arrives at, because as a rule he fails, so did this circle appear as a horrible tragi-comedy in which all that was most elevated and strongest was doomed to play wretched parts. Quite otherwise was it with primitive history. That, with its individual departments, history of law, com­ parative philology, ethnology, found in the material which these worked up, not the extraordinary and the individual, but the everyday and common-place de­ scribed. But for this very reason primitive history can trace with certainty a line of continuous development. And the more the material increases the more it is pos­ sible to compare like with like, the more it is discovered that this development is no chance, but according to law. The material which is at our disposal is, on the one side, facts of the technical arrangements of life, on the �g? THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. •other, of law, custom and religion. To show the law controlling this, means nothing else than to bring technics into a causal connection with the legal, moral, ■and religious conceptions without the help of extra­ ordinary individuals or events. . This connection was, however, discovered almost ■simultaneously from another side, namely statistics. So long as the parish was the most important econo­ mic institution statistics were hardly required. In the parish it was easy to get a view of the state of ^affairs. But even if statistics were made then, they ■could scarcely suggest scientific observations, as with such small figures the law had no chance of showing itself. That was bound to alter as the capitalist method of production created the modern states, which were not, like the earlier ones, simple groups of communes or parishes and provinces, but unitary bodies with im­ portant economic functions. Besides that, however, the capitalist method of pro­ duction developed not simply the inner market but, in addition, cieated the world market. This produced highly complicated connections which could not be controlled without the means of statistics. Founded lor the practical purpose of tax-gathering and raising of recruits, for customs, and finally for the insurance societies, it gradually embraced wider and wider spheres, and produced a mass of observations on a large scale, revealing laws which were bound to impress themselves on observant workers-up of the material. In England they had already, towards the end of the seventeenth century, since Petty, arrived at a political arithmetic^ in which, however, “estimates” played a very big rdle. At the beginning of the nineteenth cen­ tury the method of statistical inquiries was so com­ plete and its sphere so varied that it was possible to discover with the greatest certainty the laws governing the actions of great masses of men. The Belgian Guelelet made an attempt, in the thirties, to describe in this manner the physiology of human society. It was seen that the determining element in the alterations of human action was always a material, as a F2 �68 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY, rule, an economic change. Thus was the decrease and increase of crime, of suicide, and of marriages shown to be dependent on the price of corn. Not as if, for instance, economic motives were the sole cause that marriages were made at all. Nobody would declare the sexual passion to be an economic motive. But the alteration in the annual number of marriages is called forth by changes in the economic situation. Besides all these new sciences, there is finally to be mentioned a change in the character of the modern writing of history. The French Revolution came to the fore so clearly as a class struggle, that not only its historian must recognise that, but a number of thehistorians were inspired to investigate in other periods of history the r61e of the class wars, and to see in them the motive forces of human development. The classes are, however, again a product of the economic structure of society, and from this spring the antagonisms, there­ fore the struggles of the classes. What holds every class together, what divides them from other classes, and determines their opposition to these, are the par­ ticular class interests, a new kind of interests, of which no moralist of the eighteenth century, whatever school he might belong to, had had any idea. With all these advances and discoveries, which cer­ tainly often enough were only piecemeal and by no means quite clear by the time of the forties in the nine­ teenth century, all the essential elements of the Materialist Conception of History had been supplied. They only waited for the master who should bring them under control and unify them. That was done by Engels and Marx. Only to deep thinkers such as they were was an achievement of that nature possible. In so far that was their personal work. But no Engels, no Marx could have achieved it in the eighteenth century, before all the new sciences had produced a sufficient mass of new results. On the other hand, a man of the genius of a Kant or a Helvetius could also have discovered the Materialist Conception of History if at their time �TIIE ETHICS OF MARXISM. 69 the requisite scientific conditions had been to hand. And on the other hand, even Engels and Marx, despite their genius, and despite the preparatory work which the new sciences had achieved, would not have been able, even in the time of the forties in the nineteenth century, to discover it, if they had not stood on the standpoint «of the proletariat, and were thus Socialists. That also was absolutely necessary to the discovery of this Con­ ception of History. In this sense it is a proletarian philosophy, and the opposing views are bourgeois philosophies. The rise of the idea of evolution took place during a period of reaction, when no immediate further develop­ ment of society was in question. I he conception, con­ sequently, only served for the explanation of the pre­ vious development, and thereby only in a certain sense —that of a justification ; nay, at times, more a glorifi­ cation of the past. Just as through Romanticism and the historical school of jurisprudence there goes through the entire study of early times, even through Sanskrit study—I may point to the example of Schopenhauer’s Buddhism—in the first decades of the last century, a reactionary trait. So was it with that philosophy which made the evolutionary idea of that period the centre of its system—the Hegelian. Even that was only intended to be a panegyric on the pre­ vious development, which had now found its close in the monarchy by the will of God. As reactionary philosophy, this philosophy of the development was bound to be an idealist philosohpy, since the present, the reality, was in too great a contradiction with its reactionary tendencies. As soon as reality—that is, the capitalist society— had got so far as to be able to make itself felt in face of these tendencies, the idealist conception of evolution became impossible. It was superseded by a more or less open Materialism. But only from the proletariat point of view was it possible to translate the social development into a Materialistic one—in other words, to recognise in the present an evolution of society pro«ceeding according to natural laws. The bourgeoisie �JQ ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. was obliged to close its eyes to all idea of a further social evolution, and repudiate every philosophy of evolution, which did not simply investigate the develop­ ment of the past to understand this, and also in order to understand the tendencies of the new society of the future, and to hammer out weapons for the struggle of the present, which is destined to bring about this form of society of the future. Although this period of intellectual reaction after the great Revolution had been overcome, and the bourgeoisie, which had regained self-respect and power, had made an end to all artistic and philosophic romanti­ cism in order to proclaim Materialism, they could not, all the same, get as far as the historic Materialism. Deeply founded as this was in the circumstances of the time, it was no less in the nature of the circumstances that this (the latest form of materialism) could only be a. philosophy of the proletariat ; that it should be repu­ diated by science so far as this came under the influence of the bourgeoisie, repudiated to such an extent that even the Socialist author of “ The History of Materialism,” Albert Lange, only mentions Karl Marx in that work as an economist, and not as a philosopher. The idea . of evolution, generally accepted for the material sciences, even fruitful for certain special' branches of mental science, has remained a dead letter for the scientific point of view7, as interpreted by7 the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie could not even get far­ ther than Hegel in their philosophy. Thev fell back into a Materialism which stands considerably below that of the eighteenth century, because it is purely natural philosophy and has no theory of society to show. And when this narrow7 Materialism no longer suited them they turned to the old Kantianism, purified' fi om the defects which had been superseded by science in the meantime, but not emancipated from its Ethic, which was now the buhvark which w7as to be brought against the Materialist theory of Social Evolution. In the economic sciences the bourgeoisie hovered between an historic conception, w7hich certainly7 acknow7ledges an evolution of society but denies necessary �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. 71 laws of this development, and a view which recognises necessary laws of society but denies the. social develop­ ment, and believes it possible to discover in the psychology of primitive man all the economic cate­ gories of modern society. To these conceptions there was added naturalism (or scientific naturalism) which tries to reduce the laws of society to laws of biology— that is, to the laws of animal and plant organisms— and really amounts to nothing short of a denial of social development. Since the bourgeoisie has grown conservative, only from the proletarian standpoint is a Materialist view of social development possible. It is true that the dialectical materialism is a materialism of its own kind, which is quite different from the materialism of natural science (naturalism). Many friends have wished, accordingly, in order to avoid misunderstandings, to substitute another word for the word Materialism. But if Marx and Engels retained the word Material­ ism, it was on the same ground as the refusal to re-christen their manifesto of the Communists as the manifesto of the Socialists. The word Socialism covers to-day such various wares, among them some really worthless, Christian and national Socialisms of all kinds ; the word Communism, on the other hand, describes unmistakably and clearly the aims of a proletariat fighting a revolutionary fight for its emanci­ pation. So, also, by a designation of the dialectical material­ ism as dialectical “monism,” or “criticism,” or “ realism,” the entire sense of opposition to the bour­ geois world is lost. The word “ Materialism,” on the other hand, has signified since the victory of Christianity a philosophy of the fight against the ruling powers. Therefore, has it come into disrepute with the bour­ geoisie, but for that very reason we followers of the proletarian philosophy have the right to hold fast to this very name, which also can be justified in fact. And a conception of Ethics which rises from this philosophy can rank as a Materialistic one. �72 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. 2*—The Organisation of Human Society. (a) The Technical Development. . If we regard man, from the standpoint of the Mate­ rialist. Conception of History, at the stage at which we left him in the last chapter—at the boundary which divided him from the rest of the animal world—what is it that raises him above it ? Does there exist between him and them only gradual differences, or is there also an essential difference? Neither as thinking nor as moral being is man essentially different from the animals. Does not the difference perhaps lie in the fact that he produces—that is, adapts material found in nature by means of change of form or of place to his purposes ? This activity is, however, also found in the animal world. To leave out of account many insects, such as bees and ants, we find among many warm-blooded animals, even among many fishes, species of productive activity, namely, the production of refuges and dwellings, nests, underground build­ ings, and so on. And however much of this produc­ tive. activity is also the product and result of inherited instincts and dispositions, they are often so suitably adapted to various circumstances that consciousness, the knowledge of causal connections, must also play a part thereby. Or is it the use of tools which raises man above the animals? Also not that. Among animals we find at least the beginnings of the application of tools, of branches of trees for defence, of stones for cracking­ nuts, and so on. Their intelligence, as well as the development of the feet into hands, enables the apes to do that. Thus neither the production of means of consump­ tion nor the use of tools distinguishes man from the animals. What, however, alone distinguishes him is the production of tools, which serve for production and defence or attack. The animal can at the most find the tool in nature ; it is not capable of invent­ ing such. It may produce things for its immediate use, prepare dwellings, collect provisions, but it does �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. 73 not think so far as to produce things which will not serve for direct consumption, but for the production of the means of consumption. With the production of the means of production, the animal man begins to become the human man ; with that he breaks away from the animal world to found his own empire, an empire with its own kind of development, which is wholly unknown to the rest of nature, in which nothing similar is to be found. So long as the animal only produces with the organs provided by nature, or only uses tools which nature gives him, it cannot rise above the means thus pro­ vided for him by nature. Its development only pro­ ceeds in the manner that its own organism develops itself ; the organs alter themselves, the brain included— a slow and unconscious process carried on by means of the struggle for life, which the animal can in no way hurry on by its conscious activity. On the other hand the discovery and production of the tool—the word employed in the widest sense— means that man consciously and purposely gives him­ self new organs, or strengthens or lengthens his natural organs, so that he can still better or easier produce the same that these organs produced ; but besides that he is in a position to arrive at results which were formerly quite unattainable by him. But as man is not simply an animal endowed with higher intelli­ gence and hands—the necessary assumption of the application and production of tools—but also must have been, from the very beginning, a social animal, the discovery and production of a tool did not get lost with the death of the specially-gifted individual who had found it—a Marx or Kant or Aristotle inhabiting the trees of the primitive tropical forests. His herd took up the invention and carried it on, won with it an ad­ vantage in the struggle for life, so that their de­ scendants could flourish better than the other members of their kind. But the further perspicacity which this fostered in the herd served the purpose for the future of rendering the discovery so complete as to further the invention of fresh tools. �74 ethics and the materialist conception of history. Even if a certain degree of intelligence and the development of the hand forms the necessary condition for the discovery and production of tools, yet it was the social character of man which offered the conditions for the continual addition of new and the improvement of old discoveries, thus for a continual development of the technique. The slow and unconscious process of the development of the individuals through the struggle for life, as it ruled the entire remaining organic world, gives way more and more in the human world in favour of the conscious transformation, adaptation and improvement of the organs ; a development which in its beginning, measured by modern standards, is even then very long and difficult to observe, but which, all the same, goes much quicker than the natural selec­ tion. The technical progress forms for the future the foundation of the entire development of man. On that and not on any special divine spark rests all by which man is distinguished from the animals. Every single step forward on this path of technical development is a conscious and intentional one. Each arises from the endeavour to increase the powers of man over the limits set by nature. But each of these technical advances brings also, of necessity, effects with it, which were not intended by its authors, and could not be, because they were not in a position even to suspect them—effects which, just as much as natural selection, could be called adaptation to the surround­ ings ; surroundings, however, which men had artificially modified. In these adaptations there plays, however, consciousness, the knowledge of the new surroundings and its requirements ; again, a r61e ; this, nevertheless, is not that of an independent directing force. (b) Technic and Method of Life. Let us seek, in order to get a clearer idea of what has been said, to give ourselves an idea what conse­ quences it was bound to have when primitive man arrived at the first tool; where he joined the stone anti the stick, which the age had already used, to make a hammer, an axe or a spear. Naturally, the description �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. 75 which here follows can only be a hypothetical one, as we have no witness of the whole process ; but it is not to serve as a proof, only as an illustration. We make it as simple as possible, disregarding, for example, the influence which ^fishing could have had on primitive man. So soon as primitive man possessed the spear he found himself in a position to hunt still bigger animals. His food was, up to then, derived principally from fruits and insects, as well as, probably, little birds and young^ birds ; now he could kill even bigger animals ; meat became, henceforth, more important for his food. The majority of the bigger animals, however, live on the earth, not in the trees ; hunting thus drew him from his airy regions down to the earth. And further, the animals most chaseable, the ruminants, were but seldom to be found in the primitive forest. The more man became a hunter the more could he emerge from the forest in which primitive man was bred. This account, as I have said, is purely hypothetical. The process of evolution may have been the reverse. Equally as the discovery of the tool and the weapon may have driven man out of the primitive forest to come forth into open grass land where the trees were farther apart, just as much might forces which drove primitive man from his original abode have been the spur to the discovery of weapons and tools. Let us assume, for instance, that the number of men increased beyond their means of subsistence ; or that a glacial period, say the glacier of the central Asiatic mountain range sunk low down, and forced the inhabitants from their forests into the grass plains which bordered it; or that an increasing dryness of the climate even more and more cleared the forest, and caused more and more grass land to come up in it. In all these cases primi­ tive man would have been obliged to give up his tree life, and to move about on the earth ; he was obliged from now on to seek for animal food, and could no longer in the same degree feed himself from tree fruits. The new method of life induced him to the frequent �76 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. •employment of stones and sticks, and brought him nearer to the discovery of the first tools and weapons. Whatever development we accept, the first or the second—and both could have taken place independent of each other at different points—from both of them’ we see clearly the close connection which exists be­ tween new means of production, new methods of life and new needs. Each of these factors necessarily produces the other ; each becomes necessarily the cause of changes, which in their turn hide fresh changes in their bosom. Thus every discovery produces inevit­ able changes, which give rise to other discoveries, and therewith bring new needs and methods of life, which again call forth new discoveries, and so on—a chain of endless development which becomes so much more rapid and more complicated the farther it proceeds and the more the possibility and facility of new dis­ coveries advance. Let us consider the consequences which the rise of hunting, as a source of food for man, and his emer­ gence from the primitive forest was bound to draw with it. Besides the meat man took, in place of the tree fruits, roots and fruits of the grasses, corn and maize into his bill of fare. In the primitive forest a cultivation of plants is impossible, and to clear the primitive forest is beyond the power of primitive man. The latter, however, could not even have evolved this idea. He lived from tree fruits ; to plant fruit trees which would first bear fruit after many years assumes that already a high degree of culture and settlement has been attained. On the other hand, the planting of grasses in meadows and steppes is much easier than in the primitive forest, and can be brought about with much simpler tools. The thought of planting grasses, which often bear fruits after only a few weeks, is, moreover, easier to conceive than that of planting trees. Cause and effect are so nearly connected in this case that their dependence is easier to see, and even the unsettled primitive man might expect to exist during the period �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. 77 between seed time and harvest in the neighbourhood of the cultivated ground. Again, man so soon as he left the primitive forest was far more at the mercy of climatic changes than in his primitive home. In the thick forest the changes of temperature between day and night were much less than on the open plain, on which during the day a burning sun rules, and by night a powerful radiation and loss of heat. Storms are also less noticeable in the forest than in a woodless terri­ tory, and against rain and hail this latter offers much less protection than the almost impenetrable foliage of the first. Thus man forced on to the plains was bound to feel a need for shelter and clothing which the primitive man in the tropical lorest nevei felt. If t e male apes had already built themselves formal nests for the night’s repose he was bound to go farther and build walls and roofs for protection, or to seek shelter in caves or holes. On the other hand, it was no great step to clothe himself in the skins of animals which remained over after the flesh had been taken out of them. It was certainly the need for protection against cold which caused mankind to aspire for the pos­ session of fire. Its tecnmcal utility he could only gradually learn after he had used it a long time. The warmth which it gave out was, naturally, at once evident. How man came to the use of fire will, perhaps, never be certainly known ; but it is certain that man in the primitive forest had no need for it as a source of heat, and would not have been able amid.the continual damp to maintain it. Only in a drier region, where greater quantities of dry fire materials were to be found at intervals-—moss, leaves, brushwood—could fires arise, which made man acquainted with fire ; per­ haps through lightning, or more likely from the sparks of a flint, the first tool of primitive man, or from the heat which arose from boring holes in hard wood. We see how the entire life of man, his needs, his dwelling, his means of sustenance were changed ; hoy one discovery brought numerous others in its train so soon as it was once made, so soon as the making �78 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY, of a spear or an axe had been achieved. In all ese transformations consciousness played a p-reat part, but the consciousness of other generations^than those which had discovered the spear orthe axe And the WhlCh -W€re Presented to the consciousness of thev arL5eberatlOn nOt S6t by that of the f°rmer ; feZry\“dye. and SpOntaneOUS* “ s°°" winnTn^ef thefchan^e of dwelling, of the need of the theTffgf f fsuJten^nc€» of the entire method of life, the effects of the discovery are not exhausted. (c) Animal and Social Organism. The division of labour among the organs in the organisation has certain limits, since they are hide-bound to the animal organism, cannot be changed at pleasure, and their number is limited. There is also a limit set for the variety of the functions which an animal organism is capable of performing. It is for instance, impossible that the same limb should serve equally well for holding things, for running and nying, not to speak of other specialisations. The tool, on the other hand, can be changed by man. c Kdapt 11 *° a sinSle definite purpose. This ulfilled, he puts it on one side ; it does not hinder -im in other work for which he requires quite other tools. If the number of his limbs are limited, his tools are innumerable. But not simply the number of the organs of the animal organism is limited, but also the force by which any of them can be moved. It can be in no case greater than the strength of the individual him­ self to whom they belong; it must always be less since it has to nourish all its organs besides the one in motion On the other hand, the force which moves a tool is by no means confined to one individual. So soon as it is separated from the human individual many individuals can unite to move it, nay, they can use ■other than human forces for the purpose—beasts of burden, and again, water, wind or steam. �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. 79 Thus in contrast to the animal organism the develop­ ment of the artificial organs of man is unlimited, at least, as measured by human ideas. 'They find their limit only in the mass of the moving forces which Sun and Earth place at the disposal of man. The separation of the artificial organs of man from his personality has, however, still other effects. If the whole organs of the animal organism are bound up with it, that means that every individual has the same organs at his disposal. The sole exception is formed by the organs of reproduction. Only in this region is a division of labour to be found among the higher organisms. Every other division of labour in the animal organism rests on the simple fact that certain individuals take over certain functions for a certain period—for example, the sentry duty, as leaders, etc.— without requiring for the purpose organs which are different from those of other individuals. The discovery of the tool, on the other hand, made it possible that in a society certain individuals should exclusively use certain tools, or, so much oftener in proportion as they understand their uses better than any one else. Thus we come to a form of division of labour in human society which is of quite another kind from the modest beginnings of such in the animal societies. In the latter there remains, with all the division of labour, a being by itself, which possesses all the organs which it requires for its support. In human society this is less the case the further the division of labour advances in it. The more developed is this latter, so much the greater the number of the organs which society has at its disposal for the gaining of their sustenance and the maintenance of their method of life, but so much the greater, also, the number of the organs which are required, and so much the more dependent the organs over which the indi­ vidual has command. So much the greater the power of society over nature, but so much the more helpless the individual outside of society, so much the more de­ pendent upon it. The animal society which arose as a natural growth can never raise its members above �80 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY, nature. On the other hand, human society forms for the human individual a nature which is a quite peculiar world and apart from the rest; a world which apparently interferes with its being much more than nature, with which latter it imagines itself the better able to cope the more the division of labour increases. And the latter is practically just as unlimited as the possible progress of technique itself ; it finds its limits only in the limits to the expansion of the human race. If we said above that the animal society is an organ­ ism of a peculiar kind, different from the plant and animal, so we now find that human society forms a peculiar organism, not only differing again from the plant and animal individual, but is essentially different from that composed of animals. Before all there come two distinguishing features into account. We have seen that the animal organism itself possesses all the organs which it requires for its own existence, while the human individual under the advanced division of labour cannot live by .itself with­ out society. The Robinson Crusoes who without any means produce everything for themselves are only to be found in children’s story books and the so-called scientific works of bourgeois economists, who believe that the best way to discover the laws of society is to completely ignore them. Man is in his whole nature dependent, on society ; it rules him ; only through the peculiar nature of this is he to be understood. The peculiar nature of society is, however, in a con­ tinual state of change, because human society, in dis­ tinction to the animal one, is always subject to develop­ ment in consequence of the technical advance. Animal society develops itself, probably, only in the same degree as the animal species which forms it. Far faster does the process of development proceed' in human society. But at the same time nothing can be more erroneous than to conceive it as the same as the development of the individual, and distinguish the stages of youth, of maturity, of decay and death in it. So long as the sources of force hold out over which the earth has command, therefore so long as the foundation �81 THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. of technical progress does not disappear, we have no decay and death of human society to expect. This, with the development of technique, must ever more and more advance, and is in this sense immortal. Every society is modelled by the technical apparatus at its command and the people who set it going, for which purpose they enter into the complicated social relations. So long as this technical apparatus keeps on improving, and the people who move it neither diminish in number nor in mental nor physical strength, there can be no talk of a dying out of society. That state of things has never occurred as a per­ manent condition in any society as yet. Temporarily, certainly, it occurs, in consequence of peculiarities with which we will make acquaintance later on, that the social relations which sprang from social needs, get petrified and hinder the technical apparatus and the growth of the members of society in number and in intellectual and physical force, nay even give rise to a reactionary movement. That can, however, historic­ ally speaking, never last long ; sooner or later these fetters of society are burst, either by internal move­ ments, revolutions, or—and that is oftener the case— by impulse from without, by wars. Again, society changes from time to time a part of its members, its boundaries or its names, and it looks to the observer as if the society had shown traces of old age, and was now dead. In reality, however, if we want to take a simile from the animal organism, it has only been suffering from a disease from which it has emerged with renewed strength. Thus, for instance, the society of the Roman Imperial times did not die, but, rejuvenated through German blood, it began, after the migrations of the peoples, with partially new people to improve and build up their technical apparatus. G �82 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. 3.—The Changes tn the Strength of the Social Instincts. (a) Language. Human society, in contrast to those of animals, is continually changing, and for that very reason the people in it must continually be doing the same. The alteration in the conditions of life must react on the nature of man; the division of labour necessarily develops some of his natural organs in a greater degree, and transforms many. Thus, for instance, the development of the human ape from a fruit tree eater into a devourer of animals and plants which are to be found on the ground, was bound to be connected with a transfor­ mation of the hind pair of hands into feet. On the other hand, since the discovery of the tool, no animal has been subjected to such manifold and rapid changes in his surroundings as man, and no animal confronted with such tremendous and increasing problems of adap­ tation to his environment as he, and hence none had to use its intellect to the same degree as he. Already at the beginning of that career, which was opened up by the discovery of the first tool, superior to the rest of the animals by reason of his adaptability and his intellec­ tual powers, he was forced in the course of his history to. develop both qualities in the highest degree. If the changes in society are able to transform the organism of man, his hands, his feet, his brain, how much the more, and how much greater, to change his consciousness, his views of that which was useful and harmful, good and bad, possible and impossible. If man begins his rise above the animals with the discovery of the tool, he has no need to first create a social compact as was believed in the eighteenth cen­ tury, and, as many theoretical jurists still believe, in the twentieth. He enters on his human development as a social animal with strong social impulses. The first ethical result of them on society could only be to influence the force of these impulses. According to the character of society these impulses will be either strengthened or weakened. There is nothing more �83 THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. false than the idea that the social impulses are bound to be continually strengthened as society develops. At the beginning of human society that certainly will be found true. The impulses, which in the animal world had already developed the social impulses, human society permits to remain in full strength ; it ■adds further to that—co-operation in work. This co­ operation itself must have made a new instrument of intercourse, of social understanding, necessary— language. The social animals could correspond with few means of mutual understanding, cries of per­ suasion, joy, fright, alarm, anger and sensational noises. Every individual is with them a whole, which can exist for itself alone. But sensational noises do not, however, suffice if there is to be common labour, or if different tasks are to be allotted, or different products divided. They do not suffice for individuals who are helpless without the help of other individuals. Division of labour is impossible without -a language which describes not merely sensations, but also things and processes. It can only develop in the 'degree to which language is perfected, and this, for its part, brings with it the need for the former. In language itself the description of activities, and especially the human, is the most primitive ; that of things, the later. The verbs are older than the nouns, the former forming the roots from which these latter are 'derived. Thus declares Lazarus Geiger :— “ When we ask ourselves why light and colour were not nameable objects in the first stage of language, but the painting of the colours, the answer lies in this : that man first described only his own actions or those of his kind ; he noticed only what happened to himself or in the immediate and, to him, directly interesting neigh­ bourhood, at a period when he had for such things as light and dark, shining objects, and lightning no sense and no power of conception. If we take as examples from the great number which we have already passed under review (in the book) ; they go back in their beginnings to an extremely limited circle of human G2 �84 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. movements. For this reason the conception of natural objects evolve in such a remarkably roundabout manner from the conception of some human activity, which in one way or other called attention to them, and often brings something that is only a distant approximation to them. So the tree is something stripped of its bark, the earth something ground, the corn which grows on it something without the husk. Thus earth and sea, nay, even the clouds, the heavens themselves, emerge from the same root concept of something ground (“ Der Ursprung der Sprache,” pp. 151-3). This course of the development of language is not astonishing if we grasp the fact that the first duty of language was the mutual understanding of men in common activities and common movements. This rdle of language as a help in the process of production makes it clear why language had origi­ nally so few descriptions of colour. Gladstone and others have concluded from that that the Homeric Greeks and other primitive peoples could only distin­ guish few colours. Nothing would be more fallacious. Experiments have shown that barbarian peoples have a very highly developed sense of colour. But their colour technic is only slightly developed, the number of colours which they can produce is small, and thence the number of their descriptions of colour is small. “ When man gets so far as to apply a colouring material then the name of this colouring material, easily takes on an adjectival character for him. In this way arises the first names of colours.” (Grant Allen, “ The Colour Sum,” p. 254.) Grant Allen points to the fact that even to-day the names of colours increase as the technique of colour grows. The names of the colours serve first the pur­ pose of technic and not that of describing nature. The development of language is not to be understood without the development of the method of production. From this latter it depends whether a language is to remain the dialect of a tiny tribe or become a world language, spoken by a hundred million men. �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. 85 With the development of language a very powerful means of social cohesion is gained, an enormous strengthening and a clear consciousness of the social impetus. But at the same time it certainly produced quite other effects ; it is the most effectual means of retaining acquired knowledge, of spreading it, and handing it on to later generations ; it first makes it pos­ sible to form concepts, to think scientifically, and thus it starts the development of science, and with that brings about the conquest of nature by science. Now man acquires a mastery over Nature and also an apparent independence of her external influences which arouse in him the idea of freedom. On this 1 must be allowed a short deviation. Schopenhauer very rightly says: “ The animal has only visual presentations, and consequently ■only motives which it can visualise: the depen­ dence of its acts of will on the motives is thus clear. In man this is no less the case, and men are impelled (always taking the individual character into account) by the motives with the strictest necessity : only these are not for the most part visual but abstract presentations, that is, conceptions, thoughts which are nevertheless the result of previous views, thus of im­ pressions from without. That gives to man a certain freedom in comparison with the animals. Because he is not, like the animal, determined by the visual surroundings present before him but by his thoughts ■drawn from previous experiences or transmitted to him through teaching. Hence the motive which neces­ sarily moves him is not at once clear to the observer when the deed happens ; but it remains concealed within his mind. That gives not only to his actions taken as a whole, but to all his movements, an obvi­ ously different character from those of the animal: he is at the same time drawn by finer invisible wires. Thus all his movements bear the impress of being guided by principles and intentions, which gives them the appearance of independence, and obviously distin­ guishes them from those of the animal. A.11 these great distinctions depend, however, entirely on the capacity �86 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. for abstract presentations—conceptions.” (“ Preisschrift ueber die Grundlage der Moral,” i860, p. 148.) The capacity for abstract presentations depends again on language. Probably it was a deficiency in language which caused the first concept to be formed. In Nature there are only single things ; language is, however, too poor to be able to describe every single thing. Man must consequently describe all things which are similar to each other with the same word; but with this he undertakes unconsciously a scientific work, the collection of the similar, the separation of the unlike. Language is then not simply an organ of mutual understanding of different men with each other, but has become an organ of thought. Even when we do not speak to others, but think to ourselves only, the thoughts must be clothed in certain words. Does language, however, give to man a certain free­ dom in contrast to the animals, this, all the same, only develops on a higher plane what the formation of the brain had already begun. In the lower animals the nerves of motion are directly connected with the nerves of sensation; here every external impression at once releases a movement. Gradually, however, there developes a bundle of nerves to a central point of the entire nervous system, which receives all the impressions and is not obliged to transmit all to the motor nerves, but can store them up and work them off. The higher animal gathers expe­ riences which it can utilise, and impulses which even under certain circumstances it can hand on to its descendants. , Thus through the medium of the brain the connec­ tion between the external impression and the movement is obscured. Through the language, which renders possible the communication of ideas to others, as well as abstract conceptions, scientific knowledge, and con­ victions, the connection between sensation and move­ ment becomes in many cases completely unrecognis­ able. A very similar thing happens in Economics. The most primitive form of the circulation of wares is that of �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. 87 barter of commodities, of products which serve the personal or productive consumption. Here from both sides an article of consumption is given and received. The object of the exchange is clear. That alters with the rise of an element to facilitate circulation—money. Now it is easy to sell without at once buying, just as the brain makes it possible that impressions should work on the organism without at once releasing' a movement. As this renders pos­ sible a storing up of experiences and impulses, which can even be transmitted to descendants, so notori­ ously can a treasury be collected from gold. And as the collection of that treasury of experiences and impulses under the necessary social conditions finally renders possible the development of science and the conquest of nature by science, so does the collection of money treasure render possible, when certain social conditions are also there, the transformation of money into capital, which raises the productivity of human labour to the highest degree and revolutionises the world within a few centuries to a greater degree than formerly occurred in hundreds of thousands of years. And so just as there are philosophers who believe that the elements, brain and language, . intellectual powers and ideas which form the connection between sensation and movement are not simply means to arrange this connection more conveniently for the indi­ vidual and society, and thus apparently to increase their strength, but that they are of themselves sprung from independent sources of power, starting even from the Creator of the world : so there are economists who imagine that money brings about the circulation of goods, and that as capital renders it possible to develop human production enormously, it is this which is the author of this circulation, the creator of these forces, the producer of all values which are produced over and above the product of the primitive handwork. The theory of the productivity of capital rests on a process of thought which is very similar to that of the freedom of the will and the assumption of a moral �88 ’ ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. law, independent of time and space, which regulates our action in time and space. It was just as logical when Marx combated the one process of thought as the other. (b) War and Property. A further means besides community in work and language to strengthen the social impulses is formed by the social development through the rise of war. We have no reason to suppose that primitive man was a warlike being. Herds of ape-men who gathered together in the branches of trees with copious sources of food may have squabbled and driven each other away.. That this got so far as killing their opponents, there is no example among the living apes of to-day. Of male gorillas it is reported that they occasionally fight each other with such fury that one kills the other, but that is a fight for a wife not a fight for feeding grounds. That changes so soon as man becomes a hunter, who has command of tools which are directed to killing, and who has grown accustomed to killing, to the shed­ ding of strange blood. Also another factor comes into account, which Engels has already pointed out, to explain the cannibalism which often comes up at this period : the uncertainty of the sources of food. Vege­ table food is. in the tropical forests in abundance; on the grass plains, on the other hand, roots and fruits are not always to be found, the capture of game is, more­ over, for the most part a matter of chance. The beasts of prey have thus acquired the capacity of being able to fast for incredibly long periods. The human stomach has not such powers of endurance. Thus necessity easily forces a tribe of savages to a fight for life or death with another neighbouring tribe, which has got a good hunting territory.; then the passions aroused by the fight and agonising hunger finally drive them not simply to kill the foe but also to eat him. In this way technical progress lets loose struggles which the ape-man did not know; fights not with animals of other kinds but with the members of his �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. 89 own kind themselves : struggles, often more bloody than those’ with the leopard and the panther, which at least the bigger apes understand very well how to defend themselves against when united in greater numbers. Nothing is more fallacious than the idea that the pro­ gress of culture and increase of knowledge necessarily bring also higher humanity with them. We could far better say, the ape is more human, therefore more human than man. Murder and slaughter of members of his species from economic notions are products of culture ■ of technic in arms. And up to now the perfection of these has ranked as a great part of the intellectual,, labour of mankind. Only under special circumstances and in special classes will there be produced in the farther progress of culture what we call the refinement of manners. The progress in division of labour ascribes the task of killing animals and men to certain ctesses—hunters, butchers, executioners, soldiers, etc.—who then occupy themselves with brutality or cruelty either as a sport or as a business within the boundaries of civilisation. Other classes are entirely relieved of the necessity, nay, even the possibility of shedding blood. As, for in­ stance, the vegetarian peasants in the river valleys of India, who are prevented by nature from keeping great herds of animals, and for whom the ox is too costly as a beast of burden, or the cow as the giver of milk, for them to be in a position to kill them. Even the majority of the town inhabitants of the European States, since the decay of the town republics and the rise of paid armies as well as the rise of a special class of butchers, are relieved of the necessity to take life. Especially the intellectuals have been for cen­ turies unused to the spilling of blood, which they ascribe to their higher intelligence, which roused milder feelings in them. But in the last century the increased military service has become again a general institution of most European States, and wars have again become the wars of peoples, and with that the refinement of manners among our intellectuals has reached its end. �90 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. They have become since then considerably more brutal; the death penalty, which even in the last fifty years of last century was generally condemned, meets with no opposition any longer, and the cruelties of colonial wars,, which fifty years ago, at least in Germany, would have made their authors impossible, are excused to-day— even glorified. In any case, war among modern peoples ceases to play the r61e it did among the nomadic pastoral and hunting tribes. But if it produces cruelty and blood­ thirstiness on the one hand, it shows itself on the other as a powerful weapon to strengthen the bonds within the family or society. The greater the dangers which threaten the individual, so much the more dependent does he feel himself upon his society, his family, his class, who alone with their joint forces can protect him. So much the greater the respect enjoyed by the virtues of unselfishness or a bravery which will risk life for the society. The more bloody the wars between tribe and tribe, the more will the system of selection have effect among them ; those tribes will assert them­ selves best who have not only the strongest but also the cleverest, the bravest, the most self-sacrificing and best disciplined members to show. Thus war works in primitive times in the most various manners to strengthen the social instincts in men. War, however, in the course of the social evolution alters its forms : also its causes change. Its first cause, the uncertainty of the sources of food, ceases as soon as agriculture and the breeding of animals are more developed. But then begins a new cause of war : the possession of wealth. Not private property, but the tribal property. Side by side with tribes in fruitful regions we find others in unfruitful ones; adjoining nomadic, water-searching and poor shepherds, settled peasants to whom water had no longer value, whose farming produced plentiful sur­ pluses, etc. War now becomes robbery and defence against robbery, and has remained in essence the same till to-day. �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM 91 Even this kind of war has a strengthening effect on the social instincts so long as the property in the tribe is in the main communal. On the other hand, war seems to strengthen the social instincts the more classes are formed in the community, and becomes more and more a simple affair of the ruling classes, whose en­ deavours are aimed towards an increase in their sphere of exploitation, or to put themselves in the place of another ruling class on a neighbouring land. For the subject classes in such wars it is often enough not a question of their existence, and, occasionally, not even a question of a better or worse standard of life for them, but only who is to be their lord. The army becomes either an aristocratic army, in which, the mass of the people have no part, or when they co-operate it becomes a paid or compulsory army, which is commanded by the ruling classes, and they must put their lives at stake not for their own pro­ perty, their own wives and children, but to champion the interests of others, often hostile interests. The bond which holds such armies together is no longer that of social interests, but solely fright of a remorse­ lessly cruel penal code. They are divided by the hate of the mass against the leaders, by the indifference, even the mistrust of the latter against their subor­ dinates. At this stage war ceases to be for the mass of the people a school of social feelings. In the ruling, war­ rior classes it becomes a school of haughty, overbear­ ing demeanour towards the governed classes, because it teaches the ruling classes to treat the former just as they do the common soldiers in the army, to degrade them to blind subordination to an absolute commander, and to dispose of their forces, nay, even their lives, without any scruples. This development of war is, as we have already said, a consequence of the development of property, which again arises from the technical development. Every object which is produced in society, or by means of which production is carried on in it, must be­ at the disposal of someone, and either a group or a �Q2 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. single individual can dispose of it, or the entire society. The nature of this disposal is determined in the first place by the nature of the things, the nature of the method of production, and that of the producer, who made and used his weapons himself, just as he pre­ pared himself a garment or an ornament; while on the. other hand, it was equally natural that the house which was built by the common labour of the tribe should be inhabited in common by them. The various kinds of enjoyment of the various things for utility were always allowed, and, being repeated from generation to generation, became the fixed customs. Thus arose a law of custom, which was then ex­ tended still further in this way, that as often as quarrels arose over this method of use, or about persons who had this right to use, the assembled members of the tribe decided. Law did not arise from any thought-out legislation or social compact, but from a custom resting on the technical conditions, and where these did not suffice, on individual decisions of the society, which decided each case by itself. Thus arose, little by little, a complicated right of property in the various means of production and products of society. Common property, however, preponderated in the beginning, especially in the means of production—a soil worked in . common, water apparatus, houses, also herds of animals and other things besides. Even this small degree of communism was bound to very largely strengthen the social impulses, the interest in the com­ mon good, and also increase the subordination to the same and the dependence on the same. Very differently did the private property of single families or individuals work out, so soon as it arrived at such a pitch that it began to usurp the place of common property. That began when, in consequence of the growing division of labour, the various branches of hand work began to separate themselves from agri­ culture, in which they had hitherto found a large employment; when they became more and more inde­ pendent and separated into branches. �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. 93 This development meant an extension of the sphere of society through the division of labour—an extension of the number of those men who thereby form a society because they work for each other, and thus are materi­ ally dependent for their existence on each other. But this extension of the social labour does not develop OH the lines of an extension of work in common, but towards a separation of individuals from the common work and to making their work the private work of independent producers, who produce that which they themselves do not consume, and obtain in return the products of other branches to consume them. Thus at this stage the common production and common property in the means of production of socie­ ties, each in the main satisfying its own wants, for example, the mark or at least the home community, was bound to give way before the individual production and property of single individuals, or married couples With children, who produced commodities, not for their own use but for the market. With that there arose side by side with private pro­ perty, which had already existed at an earlier period, even if not to so great an extent, an entirely new element in society : the competitive struggle of the different producers of the same kind, who struggle against each other for their share of the market.. War and competition are often regarded as the only forms of the struggle for existence in the entire natural world. In reality, both arise from the technical prog­ ress of mankind, and belong to its special peculiarity. ■Both are distinguished from the struggle for existence of the animal world in that the latter is a struggle of individuals or entire societies against the surround­ ing nature ; a fight against living and inanimate forces of nature in which those best fitted for the particular circumstances can best maintain themselves and reproduce their kind. But it is not a fight for life or death against other individuals of the same kind, with the exception of a few beasts of prey, even with whom the last kind of struggle plays only a second­ ary part in the struggle for life, with the exception �<94 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. •of the struggle for sexual natural selection. With men alone, thanks to the perfection of their tools, the struggle against individuals of the same kind to main­ tain themselves in the struggle for life is developed. But even then there is a great distinction between wars and the struggle for existence. The first is ■a struggle which breaks out between two- different societies ; it means an interruption of production, and thus can never be a permanent institution. But at the same time it necessitates, at least where no great class antagonisms exist, the strongest social cohesion, and thus encourages in the highest degree the social in­ stincts. Competition, on the other hand, is a struggle between individuals, and indeed between individuals of the same society. This struggle is a regulator— although certainly a most peculiar one—which keeps the social co-operation of the various individuals going, and arranges that in the last resort these private producers shall always produce what is socially necessary, that is, what is under the given social conditions necessary. If war forms an occasional interruption of production, so does the struggle for life form its constant and neces­ sary companion in the production of wares. Just as war so does competition mean a tremendous waste of force, but it has been at the same time a means by which to extort the highest degree of tension of all the productive forces and their most rapid improve­ ment. It has consequently had a great economic importance, and has created such gigantic produc­ tive forces that the framework of commodity produc­ tion becomes too narrow, as at one time the frame­ work of the primitive social or co-operative, production became too narrow for the growing division of labour. But over-production, no less than the artificial limita­ tion of production by employers’ associations, shows that the time is past when competition as a spur to production helps on social evolution. But it has always done even this only because it drove it on to the greatest possible expansion of production. On the other hand, the competitive struggle between individuals of the same society has �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. 95 under all circumstances an absolutely deadly effect on the social instincts. Since in this struggle each one asserts himself so much the better the less he allows himself to be led by social considerations, the more exclusively he has his own interest in view. For men under a developed system of production of commodities it seems only too clear that egoism is the only natural impulse in man, and that the social impulses are only a refined egoism, or an invention of priests to get mastery over man, or to be regarded as a supernatural mystery. If in the society of to-day the social impulses have kept any strength, it is only due to the circum­ stance that general commodity production is quite a young phenomenon, hardly ioo years old, and that in the degree in which the primitive democratic com­ munism disappears, and therewith war ceases to be a source of social impulses, a new source of the same breaks forth so much the stronger—the class war of the forward-struggling exploited classes of the people ; a war not by paid soldiers, not by conscripts, but by volunteers—not for other people’s interests, but fought in the interests of their own class. 4-—The Influence of the Social Instincts. (a) Internationalism. The sphere in which the social instincts develop changes at a far quicker rate than the degree of strength of these instincts themselves. The traditional Ethics looked on the moral law as the force which regulates the relations of man to man. Since this view sets out from the individual and not from society, it entirely overlooks the fact that the moral law does not regulate the intercourse of men with every other man, but simply with men of the same society. That it only holds good for these will be comprehensible when we recollect the origin of the social instincts. They are a means to increase the social cohesion, to add to the strength of society. The animal has social instincts only for the members of his own herd, the other herds are more or less indifferent to him. Among �96 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY, social beasts of prey we find direct hostility to the members of other herds. Thus the pariah dogs of Constantinople in every street look very carefully out that no other dog comes into the district. It would be at once chased away, or even torn to pieces. At a similar relation do the human herds arrive so soon as hunting and war rise in their midst. One of the most important forms of the struggle for exist­ ence is now for them the struggle of the herd against other herds of the same kind. The man who is not a member of the same society becomes a direct enemy. The social impulses not only do not hold good for him but directly oppose him. The stronger they are so much the better does the tribe hold together against the common foe, so much the more energetically do they fight the latter. The social virtues, mutual help, self­ sacrifice, love of truth, etc., apply only to fellow-tribes­ men, not to the members of another society. It excited much resentment against me when I stated these facts in the “ Neue Zeit,” and my statement was interpreted as if I had attempted to establish a special Social Demo­ cratic principle in opposition to the principles of the eternal moral law, which demands unconditional truth­ fulness to all men. In reality I have only stated that which has existed as the moral law within our breasts from the time when our forefathers became men, viz., that over against the enemy the social virtues are not required. There is no need, however, on that account that anybody should be especially indignant with the Social-Democracy, because there is no party which interprets the idea of society more widely than they, the party of Internationalism, which draws all nations, all races into the sphere of their solidarity. If the moral law applies only to members of our own society, the extent of the latter is still by no means fixed once for all. Rather does it increase in proportion to the degree in which the division of labour progresses ; the productivity of human labour increases as do the means of human intercourse improve. The number of people increase whom a certain ter­ ritory can support, who are bound to work in a �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. gy certain territory for one another and with one another, and who thus are socially bound together. But also the number of the territories increase whose inhabitants live in connection with each other, in order to work for each other and form one social union. Finally, the range of the territories entering into fixed social dependence on each other and forming a perma<nent social organisation with a common language, common customs, common laws, extends also. After the death of Alexander of Macedon, the peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean had formed already an international circle, with an international language__ Greek. After the rise of the Romans all the lands round the Mediterranean became a still wider inter­ national circle, in which the national distinctions disappeared, and who held themselves to be the repre­ sentatives of humanity. The new religion of the circle which took the place of the old national religions was, from the very begina world religion with one God, who embraced the entire world, and before whom all men were equal. 1 his religion applied itself to all religions, and declared them all to be children of one God, all workers. But in fact the moral law held good even here only for the members of their own circle of culture—for “Christians,” for “believers.” And the centre of gravity in Christianity came ever more and more to­ wards the North and West during the migration of the peoples. In the South and East there formed itself a new circle of culture with its own morality—that of Islam which forced its way forward in Asia and Africa, as the Christian one had done in Europe. Now, however, this last expanded itself, thanks to capitalism, ever more and more to a universal civilisa­ tion which embraced Buddhists, Moslems, Parsees, Brahmins, as well as Christians, who more and more ceased to be real Christians. Thus becomes formed a foundation for the final lealisation of that moral conception already expressed by Christianity, although too prematurely to be able to be realised itself for the majority of Christians, for H �g8 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY, whom it in consequence became a mere phrase ; this was the conception of the equality of men, the view that the social instincts, the moral vir­ tues are to be exercised towards all men in equal fashion. The foundation of a general human morality is being formed not by a moral improvement of humanity, whatever we are to understand by that, but by the development of the productive forms of man, by the extension of the social division of human labour, the perfection of the means of intercourse. This new morality is, however, even to-day, far from being a morality of all men, even in the economically progressive countries. It is in essence, even to-day, the morality of the class-conscious proletariat ; that part of the pro­ letariat which in its feeling and thinking has emanci­ pated itself from the rest of the people, and has formed its own morality in opposition to that of the bour­ geoisie. Certainly it is capital which creates the material foundation for a general human morality, but. it only creates the foundation by treading this morality con­ tinually under its feet. The capitalist nations of the circle of European Society spread this by widening their sphere of exploitation, which is only possible by means of force. They thus create the foundations of a future world peace by war ; the foundations of the universal solidarity of the nations by a universal exploi­ tation of all nations, and those of the drawing in of all colonial lands into the circle of European culture by the oppression of all colonial lands with the worst and most forcible weapons of a most brutal barbarism. The proletariat alone, who have no share in the capi­ talist exploitation, fight it, and must fight it, and they will, on the foundation laid down by capital of world intercourse and world commerce, create a form of society, in which the equality of man before the moral law will—instead of a mere pious wish—become reality. (b) The Class Division. But if the economic development thus tends to widen the circle of society within which the social �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. 99 impulses and virtues have effect till it embraces finally the whole of humanity, it at the same time creates not only private interests within society which are capable of considerably diminishing the effect of these social impulses for the time, but also special classes of society, which, while within their own narrow circle greatly intensifying the strength of the social instincts and virtues, at the same time, however, can materially injure their value for the other members of the entire society, or at least for the opposing sections or classes. The formation of classes is also a product of the division of labour. Even the animal is no homogene­ ous formation. Among them there are already various groups which have a different importance in and for the community. Yet the group formation still rests on the natural distinctions. There are, in the first place, those of sex and of age. Then there are the groups of the children, the youths of both sexes, the adults, and, finally, the aged. The discovery of the tool has at first the. effect of emphasising still more the separation o certain of these groups. Thus it came about that unting and war fell to the men, who were more easily able to get about than the women, who are continually burdened with children. That, and not any inferior power of self-defence, it was, probably, which made hunting and fighting a monopoly of man. Wherever in history and fable we come across female huntresses and warriors, they are always the unmarried. Women do not lack in strength, endurance, or courage, but maternity is not easily to be reconciled with the in­ secure life of the hunter and warrior. As, however motherhood drives the women rather to continually stay in one place, those duties fall to her which require a settled life, the planting of field fruits, the main­ tenance of the family hearth, etc. According to the importance which hunting and war, or, on the other side, agriculture and domestic life’ attain for society, and according to the part which each of the two sexes play in either, the importance and relative respect paid to the man and woman in the social life also changes. But even the importH2 �IOO ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. ance of the various ages depends on the method of pro­ duction. Does hunting preponderate, which renders the sources of food very precarious and from time to time necessitates great migrations, the old people become easily a burden to the society. They are often killed, sometimes even eaten. It is different when the people are settled ; the breeding of animals and agriculture produce a more plentiful return. Now the old people can remain at home, and there is no lack of food for them. There is, however, at the same time a great sum of experiences and knowledge stored up, whose guardians, so long as writing was not discovered or become the common property of the people, are the old folk. They are the handers down of what might be called the beginning of science. Thus they are not now looked on as a painful burden, but honoured as the bearers of a higher wisdom. Writing and printing deprives the old people of the privilege to incorporate in their persons the sum of all experiences and tradi­ tions of the society. The continual revolutionising of all experience, which is the characteristic feature of the modern system of production, makes the old tradi­ tions even hostile to the new. The latter counts, with­ out any further ado, as the better : the old as antiquated, and hence bad. The old only receives sympathy ; it enjoys no longer any prestige. There is now no higher praise for an old man, than that he is still young and still capable of taking in new ideas. As with the respect paid to the sexes, so does the respect paid to the various ages alter in society with the various methods of production. The progressive division of labour carries them further ; distinctions appear within each sex, but chiefly among the men. The woman is, in the first place, more and more tied to the household, whose range diminishes instead of growing, as more and more branches of production break away from it, becoming independent and a domain of the men. Technical progress, division of labour, the separation into trades were up till last century almost exclusively restricted to �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. IOI men; only a few reflections from that affected the household and, consequently, woman’s work. The more this separation into different professions advances, the more complicated does the social organ­ ism become, whose organs they form. The nature and method of their co-operation in the fundamental social process, in other words, the method of production, has nothing of chance about it. It is quite independent of the will of the individuals, and is necessarily deter­ mined by the given material conditions. Among these the technical factor is again the most important, and whose development causes that of the method of pro­ duction. But it is not the only one. Let us take an example. The materialist conception of history has been often understood as if certain techni­ cal conditions of themselves meant a certain method of production, nay even certain social and political forms. As that, however, is not exact, since the same tools are to be found in various states of society ; there­ fore, it is argued, the materialist conception of his­ tory must be false, and the social relations are not determined by the technical conditions. The objection is right, but it does not hit the materialist conception of history, but its caricature, by a confusion of techni­ cal conditions and method of production. It has been said, for instance, the plough forms the foundation of the peasant economy. But manifold are the social circumstances in which this appears ’ Certainly. But let us look a little more closely. What brings about the deviations of the various forms of society which arise on the peasant foundations ? Let us take, for example a peasantry which lives on the banks of a great tropical or sub-tropical river, which periodically floods its banks, bringing either decay or fruitfulness to the soil. Water dams, etc., will be required to keep the water back here, and to guide it there. The single village is not able to carry out such works by itself. A number of them must co­ operate, and supply labourers ; common officials must be appointed, with a commission to set the labour going for making and maintaining the works. The bigger �102 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY, the undertaking the more villages must take a part; the greater the number of the forced labourers the greater the special knowledge required to conduct such works, so- much the greater the power and knowledge of the leading officials compared with the rest of the popula­ tion. Then there grows on the foundation of a peasant economy a priest or official class, as in the river plains of the Nile, the Euphrates, or the Whang-Ho. Another species of development we find there : where a flourishing peasant economy has settled in fruitful, accessible lands in the neighbourhood of robbers— nomadic tribes. The necessity of guarding themselves against these nomads forces the peasants to form a force of guards, which can be done in various ways. Either a part of the peasantry applies itself to the trade of arms and separates itself from the others who yield them services in return, or the robber neighbours are induced by payment of a tribute to keep the peace and to protect their new proteges from other robbers, or, finally, the robbers conquer the land and remain as lords over the peasantry, on whom they levy a tribute, for which, . however, they provide a protective force. The result is always the same—the rise of a new feudal nobility which rules and exploits the peasants. Occasionally the first and second methods of develop­ ment unite, then we have, besides a priest and official class, a warrior caste. Again, quite differently does the peasantry develop on a sea with good harbours, which favour sea voyages, and bring them closer to other coasts with well-to-do populations. By the side of agriculture, fishing arises ; fishing which soon passes over into war-piracy and sea commerce. At a particularly suitable spot for a harbour is gathered together plunder and merchants* goods, and there is formed a town of rich merchants. Here the peasant finds a market for his goods ; now arise for him money receipts, and also the expenditure of money, money obligations, debts. Soon he is the debtor of the money owners in the town. Sea piracy and sea commerce, as well as sea war, bring, however, a plentiful supply of slaves into the �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. 103 country. ■ The town money owners, instead of exploit­ ing their peasant debtors any further, go to work to drive them from their possessions, to unite into great plantations, and to introduce slave work for the peasant, without any change being required in the tools and instruments of agriculture. Finally, we see a fourth type of peasant development in inaccessible mountain regions. The soil there is poor and difficult to cultivate. By the side of agricul­ ture, the breeding of stock retains the preponderance. Nevertheless, both are not sufficient to sustain a great increase of population. At the foot of the mountains, fruitful, well-tilled lands tempt them. The mountain peasants will make the attempt to conquer and exploit them, or, where they meet with resist­ ance, to hire out their superfluous population as paid soldiers. Their experience in war, in combination with the poverty and inaccessibility of their land, serves to guard it against foreign invaders, to whom in any case its poverty offers no great temptation. There the old peasant democracy still exists, when all around the peasantry have long become dependent on feudal lords, priests, merchants and usurers. Occasionally a primitive democracy of that kind tyrannises and ex­ ploits a neighbouring country which they have con­ quered, in marked contradiction to their own highlyvalued liberty. Thus the old cantons of the fatherland of William Tell exercised through their bailiffs in Tessin in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a rule, whose crushing weight could compare with that of the tyran­ nical Geisler. It will be seen that very different methods of pro­ duction are compatible with the peasant economy. How are these differences to be explained? The opponents of the materialist conception of history trace them back to force, or again to the difference of the ideas which form themselves at various periods in the various peoples. Now it is certain that in the erection of all these methods of production force played a great part, and Marx called it the midwife of every new society. But �104 ETHICS and the materialist conception of history. whence comes this monopoly of force? How does it come that one section of the people conquers with it and the other not, and that the force produces this and not other results? To all these question^the for« theory has no answer to give. And equally by the heory of ideas does it remain a mystery where the clTntrv f™™wh!ch. Iead to freedom in the mountain c untry, to priest rule in the river valley land, to money and slave economy on the shores of the sea, and in hilly undulating countries to feudal serfdom. 7 We have seen that these differences in the develop­ ment of the same peasant system rest on differences in the natural and social surroundings in which this system is placed. According to the nature of the land, according to the description of its neighbours will the peasant system of economy be the foundation of very different social forms. These special social forms become, then side by side with the natural factors, further founda­ tions, which give a peculiar form to the development based on them. Thus the Germans found when they burst in on the Roman Empire during the migration of the peoples, the Imperial Government with its bureau­ cracy, the municipal system, the Christian Church, as social conditions, and these, as well as they could, they incorporated into their system. All these geographical and historical conditions have to be studied if the particular method of production in a land at a particular time is to be understood. The knowledge of its technical conditions aloqe does not suffice. It will be seen that the materialist conception of his­ tory is not such a simple formula as its critics usually conceive it to be. The examples here given show us, however, also, how class differences and class antag­ onisms are produced by the economic development. Differences not simply between individuals, but also between individual groups within the society, existed already in the animal world, as we have remarked already distinctions in the strength, the reputation, perhaps even of the material position of individuals and groups. Such distinctions are natural, and will be �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. hardly likely to disappear even in a Socialist society. The discovery of tools, the division of labour and its consequences—in short, the economic development con­ tributes still further to increase such difference, or even to create new. In any case, they cannot exceed a certain narrow limit, so long as the social labour does not yield a surplus over that necessary to the main­ tenance of the members of the society. As long as that is not the case, no idlers can be maintained at the cost of society, none can get considerably more in social products than the other. At the same time, however, there arise at this very stage, owing to the increasing enmity of the tribes to each other and the bloody method of settling their differences, as well as through the common labour and the common property, so many new factors through which the social instincts are strengthened that the small jealousies and differences .arising between the families, the different degrees of age, or the various callings can just as little bring a split in the community as that between individuals. Despite the beginnings of division of labour which are to be found there, human society was never more closely bound up together, or more in unison than at the time of the primitive Gentile co-operative society, which preceded the beginning of class antagonisms. Things, however, alter so soon as social labour begins, in consequence of its necessary productivity, to produce a surplus. Now it becomes possible for single individuals and professions to secure for them­ selves permanently a greater sh^re in the social product than the others can secure. Single individuals, only seldom, temporarily, and as a matter of exception, will be able to achieve that for themselves alone ; on the -other hand, it is very obvious that any classes specially favoured in any particular manner by the circum­ stances—for example, such as are conferred by special knowledge or special powers of self-defence, can acquire the strength to permanently appropriate the social surplus for themselves. Property in the products is narrowly bound up with property in the means of production ; who possesses the latter can dispose of the �106 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY, former. The endeavours to monopolise the social surplus by the privileged class produces in it the desire to monopolise and take sole possession of the means of production. The forms of this monopoly can be very diverse, either common ownership of the ruling class or caste, or private property of the individual families or individuals of this class. In one way or another the mass of the workings people become disinherited, degraded to slaves, serfs, wage labourers ; and with the loss of common property in the means of production and their use in common is the strongest bond torn asunder which held primitive society together. And if the social distinctions which managed to form themselves within primitive society were kept within narrow limits, now the class distinctions, which can form themselves, have practically no limit. They can grow on the one side through the technical progress which increases the surplus of the product of the social labour over the amount necessary to the simple maintenance of society ; on the other hand, through the expansion of the community, while the number of the exploiters remains the same or even decreases, the number of those working and producing surplus for each ex­ ploiter grows. In this way the class distinctions can enormously increase, and with them grow the social antagonisms. In the degree in which thife development advances, society grows more and more divided, the class war be­ comes the principal, most general and continuous form of the struggle of the individuals for life in human society ; in the same degree the social instincts lose strength, but they become so much the stronger within that class whose welfare is on the whole always more and more identical with that of the commonweal. It is, however, specially the exploited, oppressed, and uprising classes in whom the class war strengthens thus the social instincts and virtues ; and that because they are obliged to put their whole personality into this with much more intensity than the ruling classes, whoare often in a position to leave their defence, be it with �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. IO~ the weapons of war, or with the weapons of the intellect, to hirelings. Besides that, however, the ruling classes are often internally deeply divided through the struggles between themselves for the social surplus, and over the means of production. One of the strongest causes of that kind of division we have learned in the battle of competition. All these factors, which work against the social in­ stincts, find no, or little, soil in the exploited classes. The smaller this soil, the less property that the strug­ gling classes have, the more they are forced back on their own strength, the stronger do their members feel their solidarity against the ruling classes, and the stronger do their own social feelings towards their own class grow. 5.—The Tenets of Morality. (a) Custom and Convention. We have seen that the economic development intro­ duces into the moral factors transmitted from the animal world an element of pronounced mutability, in that it gives a varying degree of force to the social instincts and virtues at different times, and also at the Same time in different classes; that it, however, in* addition, widens, and then again narrows down the scope within which the social impulses have effect ; on the one side expanding its influence from the tiny tribe till it embraces the entire humanity, on the other side limiting it to a certain class within the society. But the same economic development creates in addi­ tion a special moral factor, which did not exist at all in the animal world, and is the most changeable of all, since not only its strength, but also its contents are subject to far-reaching change. These are the tenets of morality. In the animal world we find only strong moral feel­ ings, but no distinct moral precepts which are ad­ dressed to the individual. That assumes that a language has been formed, which can describe not only impressions but also things, or at least actions ; a language for whose existence in the animal world all! �108 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. signs fail, for which also a need first arises with the common work. Then is it possible to address distinct -demands to the individual. If these demands arise from individual and exceptional needs, then they will again disappear with the individual exceptional case. If on the other hand they have their origin in the social relations, they will recur again and again, so long as these relations last; and in the beginnings of society, where the development is very slow, one can allow hundreds of thousands of years for the endurance of particular social conditions. The social demands on the individual repeat themselves so often and so regularly, that they become a habit, to which the tendency is finally inherited, as the tendency to peculiar kinds of hunting by the sporting dogs, so that certain sugges­ tions suffice to arouse the habit in the descendants as well; also, for instance, the feeling of shame, the habit of covering certain portions of the body whose nude state appears immoral. Thus arise demands on the individual from society which are more numerous the more complicated is society, and these demands, finally by force of habit, become, without any further ado, recognised as moral commands. From this customary character many materialist ethical writers have concluded that the entire being of morals rests alone on custom. With that it is, never­ theless, by no means exhausted. In the first place only such views become, through habit, moral com­ mands, which favour the consideration of the individual for the society, and regulate his conduct to other men. It may be brought against this, that there are individual vices which count as immoral, yet their original con­ demnation was certainly also in the interest of society. Thus, for example, masturbation, if general, must pre­ judice the chance of securing a numerous progeny— and such a progeny appeared then, when Malthus had not yet spoken, as one of the weightiest foundations of the well-being and progress of society. In the Bible (Genesis XXXVIII.) Onan was killed by Jehovah because he allowed his spermatozoa to fall to �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. IOC/ the ground instead of attending to his duty and having intercourse with the wife of his dead brother, so as to raise up seed for the latter. The moral rules could only for this reason become customs because they met deep-lying, ever-recurring social needs. Finally, however, a simple custom can­ not explain the force of the feeling of duty, which often shows itself more powerful than all the demands of self­ preservation. The customary element in morals only has the effect that certain rules are forthwith recognised as moral, but it does not produce the social instincts which compel the performance of demands recognised as moral laws. Thus, for example, it is a matter of habit that counts it as disreputable when a girl shows herself in her nightgown to a man, even when this garment goes down to the feet, and takes in the neck, while it is no way improper if a girl appears in the evening with a much uncovered bosom at a ball before all the world, or if she, in a watering-place, in a wet bathing-dress exposes herself to the lecherous gaze of men of the world. But only the force of the social instincts can bring it about that a sternly moral girl should at no price submit to that which convention, fashion, custom —in short, society—has once stamped as shameless­ ness, and that she should occasionally even prefer death itself to that which she regards as shame. Other moralists have carried the idea of the moral regulations as simple customs still farther, and de­ scribed them as simple conventional fashions, basing this on the phenomena that every nation, nay each class has its own particular moral conceptions which, often stand in absolute contradiction to others, that, consequently, an absolute moral law has no validity. It has been concluded from that that morality is only a changing fashion, which only the thoughtless philis­ tine crowd respect, but which the superman can and must raise himself above as things that appertain to the ordinary throng. But not only are the social instincts something abso­ lutely not conventional, but something deeply grounded �HO ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY, in human nature—the nature of man as a social animal ; even the moral tenets are nothing arbitrary, but arise from social needs. It is certainly not possible in every case to fix the condition between certain moral conceptions and the social relations from which they arose. The individual takes moral precepts from his social surroundings with­ out being aware of their social causes. The moral law becomes, then, habit to him, and appears to him as an emanation of his own spiritual being, a priori given to him, without any practical root. Only scientific in­ vestigation can gradually show up in a series of laws the relations between particular forms of society and particular moral precepts, and then much remains dark. The social forms from which moral principles arose, and which still hold good at a later period, often lie far back, in very primitive times. Besides that, to under­ stand a moral law, not only the social need must be understood which called it forth, but also the peculiar thought of the society which created it. Every method of production is connected not only with par­ ticular tools and particular social relations, but also with the particular content of knowledge, with par­ ticular powers of intelligence, a particular view of cause and effect, a particular logic—in short, a particular form of thought. To understand earlier modes of thought is, however, uncommonly difficult, much more difficult than to understand the needs of another or his own society. All the same, however, the connection between the tenets of morals and the social needs has been already proved by so many practical examples that we can accept it as a general rule. If, however, this connection exists, then, an alteration of society must necessitate an alteration in many moral precepts. Their change is thus not only nothing strange, it would be much more strange if with the change of the cause the effect did not also change. These changes are necessary for that very reason, because every form of society requires certain moral precepts suited for its condition. �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. Ill How diverse and changing are the moral rules is well known. Hence one example suffices to illustrate a morality differing from the present-day European. Fridtjof Nansen gives us in the tenth chapter of his ” Eskimo Life,” a very fascinating picture of Eskimo morals, from which I take a few passages. “ One of the most beautiful and marked features in the character of the Eskimo is certainly his honourable­ ness. .... For the Eskimo it has especial value that he should be able to rely on his fellows and neigh­ bours. In order, however, that this mutual confidence, without which common action in the battle for life is impossible, should continue, it is necessary that he should act honourably to others as well. ... For the same reasons they do not lie readily to each other, espe­ cially the men. A touching proof of that is the following feature related by Dalajer : ‘ If they have to describe to each other anything, they are very careful not to paint it more beautiful than it deserves. Nay, if anyone wants to buy anything which he has not seen, the seller describes the thing, however much he may wish to sell it, always as something less good than it is.’ ” The morals of advertising are unknown for the Eskimos as yet. Certainly that applies to their inter­ course with each other. To strangers they are less strict. “ Fisticuff fights and that sort of ruffianism is not to be seen among them.” Murder is also a great rarity, “ and where it happens is not a consequence of econo­ mic quarrels but of love affairs.” They consider it dreadful to kill a fellow man. War is, hence, quite incomprehensible to them, and abominable; their language has not even a word for it; and soldiers and officers who have been trained to the calling of killing people are to them simply butchers of men.' “ One of the commandments against which the Greenlanders oftenest sin is the seventh. Virtue and chastity do not stand in great esteem in Greenland. Many look on it (on the West Coast) as no great shame if an unmarried girl has children. While we were in Gothard two girls there were pregnant, but they in �112 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. no way concealed it, and seemed, from the evident proof that they were not looked down on, to be almost proud. But even of the South Coast Holm says that it is there no shame if an unmarried crirl has children. & Egede also says that the women look on it as an especial bit of luck and a great honour to have intimate connection with an Angekok—that is, one of their prophets and wise men and adds : Even many men are glad, and will pay the Angekok for sleeping with their wives, especially if they themselves cannot have children by them.” “ The freedom of Eskimo women is thus very different to that appertaining to the Germanic woman. The reason certainly lies in the fact that while the main­ tenance of the inheritance of the race and family has always played a great r61e with the Germans, this has no importance for the Eskimo, because he has nothing to inherit, and for him the main point is to have children. “ We naturally look on this morality as bad. That, however, is by no means to say that it is so for the Eskimos. We must absolutely guard against con­ demning from our standpoint views which have been developed through many generations and after long experience by a people, however much they contradict our own. The views of good and bad are extraordi­ narily different on this earth. As an example, I might quote that when Mr. Egede had spoken to an Eskimo girl of love of God and our neighbour, she said, ‘ I have proved that I love my neighbour, because an old woman who was ill and could not die, begged me that I would take her, for a payment, to the steep cliff from which those always are thrown who can live no more. And,. because I love my people, I took her there for nothing, and threw her down from the rocks.’ “ Egede thought that this was a bad act, and said that she had murdered a human being. She said no, she had had great sympathy with the old woman, and had wept as she fell. Are we to call this a good or bad act ? �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. 113 “We have seen that the necessity of killing old and sick members of society very easily arises with a limited food supply, and this killing becomes, then, signalised as a moral act. “ When the same Egede said that God punished the wicked, an Eskimo said to him he also belonged to those who punished the wicked since he had killed three ■old women who were witches. “ The same difference in the conception of good and bad is to be seen in regard to the Seventh Command­ ment. The Eskimo puts the commandment, ‘ Be fruit­ ful and multiply ’ higher that chastity. He has every reason for that as his race is by nature less prolific.” Finally, a quotation from a letter sent by a converted Eskimo to Paul Egede, who worked in the middle of the eighteenth century in Greenland as a missionary, and found the Eskimo morals almost untouched by European influence. This Eskimo had heard of the Colonial wars between the English and Dutch, and expresses his horror over this inhumanity. “ If we have only so much food that we can satisfy our hunger, and get enough skin to keep out the cold, we are contented, and thou thyself knowest that we let the next day look after itself. We would not on that account carry war on the sea, even if we could. .... We can say the sea that washes our coasts belongs to us as well as the walruses, whales, seals and salmon swimming in it, still we have no objection when others take what they require from the great supply, as they require it. We have the great luck not to be so greedy by nature as them............. It is really astonishing, my dear Paul! Your people know that there is a God, the ruler and guider of all things, that after this life they will be either happy or damned, according as they have behaved themselves, and yet they live as though they had been ordered to be wicked, and as if sin would bring them advantage and honour. My countrymen know nothing either of God or Devil, and yet they behave respectably, deal kindly and friendly with each other, tell each other everything, and ’create their means of existence in common.” I �1 14 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. It is the opposition of the morality of a primitive communism to capitalist morality which appears here. But still another distinction arises. In the Eskimo, society the theory and practice of morality agree with one another ; in capitalist society a division exists be­ tween the two. The ground for that we will soon learn. (b) The System of Production and Its Superstructure. The moral rules alter with the society, yet not unin­ terruptedly, and not in the same fashion and degree as the social needs. They become promptly recognised and felt as rules of conduct because they have become habitual. Once they have taken root as such, they can then for a long time lead an independent life, while technical progress advances, and therewith the develop­ ment of the method of production and the transforma­ tion of the social needs goes on. It is with the principles of morality as with the rest of the complicated sociological superstructure which raises itself on the method of production, it can break away from its foundation and lead an independent life for a time. The discovery of this fact has relieved all those elements who could not escape the influence of the Marxian thought, but to whom nevertheless the con­ sequences of the economic development are extremely awkward, and who in the manner of Kant would like to smuggle in the spirit as an independent driving power in the development of the social organism. . To these the discovery of the fact that the intellectual factors of society can temporarily work independently in it was very convenient. With that they hoped to have finally found the wished-for reciprocal action—the economic factor working on the spirit and the spirit on the econo­ mic factor. Both were to rule the social development ; either in the manner that at one period the economic factor, at another, again, the spiritual force drives the society forward, or in the manner that both together and side by side produce a common result, that, in other words, our will and wishes can at least occa- �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. IX5 sionally break through the hard economic necessity of their own strength, and can change it. Undoubtedly there is a reciprocal action between the economic basis and its spiritual superstructure— morality, religion, art, etc. We do not speak here of the intellectual influence of inventions, that belongs to the technical conditions in which the spirit plays a part ultimately by the side of the tool ; technic is the con­ scious discovery and application of tools by thinking men. Like the other ideological factors morality can also advance the economic and social development. Just in this lies its social importance. Since certain social rules arise from certain social needs, they will render the social co-operation so much the more easy the better they are adapted to the society which makes them. Morality thus reacts on the social life. But that only holds good so long as it is dependent upon the latter, as it meets the social needs from which it sprang. As soon as morality begins to lead a life independent of society, as soon as it is no longer controlled by the latter, the reaction takes on another character. The further it is now developed the more is that develop­ ment purely logical and formal. As soon as it is cut off from the influence of the outer world it can create no more new conceptions but only arrange those already attained, so that the contradictions disappear from them. Getting rid of the contradictions, winning a . unitary conception, solving all problems which, arise from the contradictions, that is the work of the thinking spirit. With that it can, however, only secure the intellectual superstructure already set up, not rise superior to itself. Only the appearance of new contradictions, new problems, can affect a new develop­ ment. . The human spirit does not, however, create contradictions from its own inner being ; they are pro­ duced in it only by the impress of the surrounding world on it. 12 �Il6 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. As soon as the moral principles grow independent, they cease to be, in consequence, an element of social progress. They ossify, become a conservative ele­ ment, an obstacle to progress. Thus can that happen in the human society which is impossible in the animal, morality can become, instead of an indispensable social bond, the means of an intolerable restraint on social life. That is also a reciprocal action, but not one in the sense of our anti-materialist moralists. The contradictions between distinct moral principles and distinct social needs can arrive at a certain degree of intensity in primitive society ; they then become, however, still greater with the appearance of class antagonism. If in the society without classes the adherence to particular moral principles is only a matter of habit, it only requires for them supervision that the force of habit be over­ come. From now on the maintenance of par­ ticular moral principles becomes a matter of interest, often of a very powerful interest. And now appear, also weapons of force, of physical compulsion to keep down the exploited classes, and this means of compul­ sion is placed also at the service of ‘ ‘ morality, ’ ’ to secure obedience to moral principles which are in the interest of the ruling classes. The classless society needs no such compulsory weapons. Certainly, even in it the social instincts do not always suffice to achieve the observance by every individual of the moral code; the strength of the social impulses is very different in the different individuals, and just as different to that of the other instincts : those of self-maintenance and reproduction. The first do not always win the upper hand. But as a means of com­ pulsion, of punishment for others, public opinion—the opinion of the society—suffices in such cases for the classless society. It does not create in us the moral law, the feeling of duty. Conscience works in us when no one sees us, and the power of public opinion is entirely excluded ; it can even, under circumstances, in a society filled with class antagonisms and contra­ dictory moral codes, force us to defy public opinion. �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. 117 But public opinion works in a classless society as a sufficient weapon of police, of the public obedience to moral codes. The individual is so small compared to society that he has not the strength to defy their unanimous voice. This has so crushing an effect that it needs no further means of compulsion or punishment to secure the undisturbed course of the social life. Even to-day in the class society we see that the public opinion of their own class, or, where that has been abandoned, of the class or party which they join, is more powerful that the compulsory weapons of the State. Prison, poverty and death are preferred by people to shame. But the public opinion of one class does not work on the opposite class. Certainly society can, so long as there are no class antagonisms in it, hold the indi­ vidual in check through the power of its opinion, and force obedience to its laws, when the social instincts in the breast of the individual do not suffice. But public opinion fails where it is not the individual against society, but class against class. Then the ruling class must apply other weapons of compulsion if they are to prevail ; means of superior physical or economic might, of superior organisation, or even of superior intelli­ gence.. To the soldiers, police, and judges are joined the priests as an additional means of rule, and it is just the ecclesiastical organisation to whom the special task falls of conserving the traditional morality. This connection between religion and morality is achieved so much easier as the new religions which appear at the time of the decay of the primitive communism and the Gentile society stand in strong opposition to the ancient nature religions, whose roots reach back to the old classless perio*d, and which know no special priest caste. In the old religions Divinity and Ethics are not joined together. The new religions, on the other hand, grow on the soil of that philosophy in which Ethics and the belief in God are most intimately bound up together ; the one factor supporting the other. Since then religion and ethics have been intimately bound up together as a weapon of rule. Certainly the �Il8 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. moral law is a product of the social nature of man ; certainly the moral code of a time is the product of particular social needs ; certainly have neither the one nor the other anything to do with religion. But that code of morals, which must be maintained for the people in the interests of the ruling class, requires religion badly, and the entire ecclesiastical organism for its support. Without this it would soon go to pieces. (c) Old and New. The longer, however, the outlived moral standards remain in force, while the economic development ad­ vances and creates new social needs, which demand new moral needs, so much the greater will be the contradiction between the ruling morals of society and the life and action of its members. But this contradiction shows itself in the different classes in different manners. The conservative classes, those whose existence rest on the old social con­ ditions, cling firmly to the old morality. But only in theory. In actual practice they cannot escape the influence of the new social conditions. The wellknown contradiction between moral theory and practice begins here. It seems to many a natural law of morals, whose demands seem as something desirable but unrealisable. Here again, however, the contradic­ tion between theory and practice in morality can take two forms. Classes and indivduals, full of a sense of their own strength, ride roughshod over the demands of the traditional morality, whose necessity they certainly recognise for others. Classes and indi­ viduals who feel themselves weak transgress secretly against the moral code which they publicly preach. Thus this phase leads, according to the historical situa­ tion of the decaying classes, either to cynicism or hypocrisy. At the same time, however, there dis­ appears very easily, as we have seen, in this very class, the power of the social interests in consequence of the growth of private interests, as well as the possibility of allowing their place in the coming battles to be taken �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. Iig by hirelings, whereby they avoid entering personally into the fray. All these produce in conservative or ruling classes those phenomena which we sum up as immorality. Materialist moralists, to whom the moral codes are simple conventional fashions, deny the possibility of an immorality of that kind as a social phenomenon. As all morality is relative, is that which is called immorality simply a deviating kind of morality ? On the other hand, idealist moralists conclude from the fact that there are entire immoral classes and societies that there must be a moral code eternal and independent of time and space ; a standard independent of the changing social conditions on which we can measure the morals of every society and class. Unfortunately, however, that element of hitman morality which, if not independent of time and space, is yet older than the changing social relations, the social instinct, is just that which the human morality has in common with the animal. What, however, is specifically human in morality, the moral codes, is subject to continual change. That does not prove, all the same, that a class or a social group cannot be im­ moral ; it proves simply that so far at least as the moral standards are concerned, there is just as little abso­ lute morality as absolute immorality. Even the immorality is in this respect a relative idea, as abso­ lute immorality is to be regarded only as a lack of those social impulses and virtues which man has in­ herited from the social animals. If we look, on the other hand, on immorality as an offence against the laws of morality, then it implies no longer the divergence from a distinct standard holding good for all times and places, but the contra­ diction of the moral practice to its own moral principles; it implies the transgression against moral laws which people themselves recognise and put forward as neces­ sary. It is thus nonsense to declare particular moral principles of any people or class, which are recognised as such, to be immoral simply because they contradict our moral code. Immorality can never be more than �120 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. a deviation from our own moral code, never from a strange one. The same phenomenon, say, of free sexual intercourse or of indifference to property can in one case be the product of moral depravity, in a society where a strict monogamy and the sacredness of pro­ perty are recognised as necessary ; in another case it can be the highly moral product of a healthy social organism which requires for its social needs neither the fixed property in a particular woman, nor that in par­ ticular means of conservation and production. (d) The Moral Ideal. If, however, the growing contradiction between the changing social conditions and the weakening hold of morality in the ruling classes tend to growing im­ morality, and shows itself in an increase of hypocrisy and cynicism, which often goes hand in hand with a weakening of the social im­ pulses, so does it lead to quite other results in the rising and exploited class. Their interests are in com­ plete antagonism to the social foundation which created the ruling morality. They have not the smallest reason to accept it, they have every ground to oppose it. The more conscious they become of their antagon­ isms to the ruling social order the more will their moral indignation grow as well, the more will they oppose to the old traditional morality a new morality, which they are about to make the morality of society as a whole. Thus arises in the uprising classes a moral ideal, which grows ever bolder the more they gain in strength. At the same time, as we have already seen, the power of the social instincts in the same classes will be especially developed by means of the class war, so that with the daring of the new moral ideal the enthusiasm for the same also increases. Thus the same evolution which produces in conservative or decaying classes increasing immorality, produces in the rising classes a mass of phenomena which we sum up under the name of ethical idealism, which is not, however, to be confused with philosophical idealism. �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. I2T The very uprising classes are, indeed, often inclined to philosophical materialism, which the declining classes, oppose from the moment when they become conscious that reality has passed the sentence of death upon them, and feel that they can only look for salvation from Supernatural powers—divine or ethical. The content of the new moral ideal is not always, very clear. It does not emerge from any scientific knowledge of the social organism, which is often enough quite unknown to the authors of the ideal, but from a deep social need, a burning desire, an energetic will for something other than the existing, for some­ thing which is the opposite of the existing ; and thus, also, this moral ideal is in reality only something purely negative, nothing more1 than opposition to the existing hypocrisy. So long as class rule has existed, the ruling morality guards ; wherever a sharp class antagonism has been formed, slavery, inequality, exploitation. Thus the moral ideal of the uprising classes in historical times has always had the same appearance, always that which the French Revolution summed up with the words, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. It would seem MS if this were the ideal implanted in every human breast, independent of time and space, as if it were the task of the human race to strive from its beginning for the same moral ideal, as if the evolution of man consisted in the gradual approach to this ideal which continually looms before him. But if we examine more closely, we find that the agreement of the moral ideal of the various historical epochs is only very superficial, and that behind these lie great differences of social aims, which correspond to the differences of the social situation at the time. If we compare Christianity, the French Revolution, and the Social-Democracy to-day, we find that Liberty and Equality for all meant something quite different, according to their attitude towards property and pro­ duction. The primeval Christian demanded equality of property in the manner that they asked for its equal division for purposes of consumption for all, and �122 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY, under freedom they understood the emancipation from all work as is the lot of the lilies of the field who neither toil nor spin and yet enjoy their life. The French Revolution again understood by equality the equality of property rights. Private property was declared to be sacred. And true freedom was for it the freedom to apply property in economic life, accord­ ing to pleasure, in the most profitable manner. Finally, the Social-Democracy neither swears by private property nor does it demand its division. It demands its socialisation, and the equality which it strives for is the equal right of all to the products of social labour. Again, the social freedom which it asks for is neither freedom to dispose arbitrarily of the means , of production and to produce at will, but the limitation of the necessary labour through the gather­ ing in of those capable of working and through the most extended application of labour-saving machinery and methods. In this way the necessary labour which cannot be free, but must be socially regulated, can be reduced to a minimum for all, and to all a sufficient time assured of freedom, for free artistic and scientific activity, for free enjoyment of life. Social freedom— we do not speak here of political—through the greatest possible shortening of the period of necessary labour : that is freedom as meant by the Social-Democracy. It will be seen that the same moral ideal of Free­ dom and Equality can embrace very different social ideals. The external agreement of the moral ideals of different times and countries is, however, not the result of a moral law independent of time and space which springs up in man from a supernatural world, but only the consequence of the fact that despite all social ■differences the main outlines of class rule in human society have always been the same. All the same, a new moral ideal cannot simply arise from the class antagonism. Even within the conserva­ tive classes there may be individuals who develop with their class socially only loose ties and are without class consciousness. With that, however, they possess strong social instincts and virtues, which makes them �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. 123 hate all hypocrisy and cynicism, and, being highly intelligent, they see clearly the contradiction between the traditional moral code and the social needs. Such individuals are bound also, to come to the point of setting up the new moral ideal. But whether their new ideal shall obtain social force depends upon whether they result in class ideals or not. Only the motive power of the class war can work fruitfully on the moral ideal, because only the class war, and not the single-handed endeavours of self-interested people, possesses the strength to develop society farther and to meet the needs of the higher developed method of production. And, so far as the moral ideal can in any degree be realised, is only to be attained through an alteration of society. A peculiar fatality has ruled hitherto that the moral ideal should never be reached. That will be easily understood when we consider its origin. The moral ideal is nothing else than the complex of wishes and endeavours which are called forth by the opposition to the existing state of affairs. As the motive power of the class war, as a means to collect the forces of the uprising classes to the struggle against the existing, and to spur them on, it is a powerful lever in the over­ turning of this. But the new social conditions, which come in the place of the old, do not depend on the form of the moral ideal, but upon the given natural conditions : the technical conditions, the natural milieu, the nature of the neighbours and predecessors of the existing society, etc. A new society can thus easily diverge a considerable distance from the moral ideal of those who brought it about, and so much the more the less the moral indig­ nation was allied with knowledge of the material conditions. Thus the ideal ended continually in dis­ illusionment ; proving itself to be an illusion after it had done its historical duty and had worked as an inspirer in the destruction of the old. We have seen above how in the conservative classes the opposition between moral theory and practice arises, so that morality appears to them as that which �124 ETHICS and the materialist conception of history. ■everybody demands but nobody practises—something1 which is beyond our strength, which is only given to supernatural powers to carry out. Here we see in the revolutionary classes a different kind of antagonism arise between moral theory and practice, the antagon­ ism between the moral ideal and the reality created by the social revolution. Here, again, morality appears as something which Everybody strives for but nobody attains—as, in fact, the unattainable for earthly beings. No wonder then the moralists think that morality has a super­ natural origin, and that our animal being which clings to the earth is responsible for the fact that we can only gaze wistfully at its picture from afar without being able to arrive at it. From this heavenly height morality is drawn down to earth by historical materialism. We make acquaintance with its animal origin, and see how its changes in human society are conditioned by the changes which this has gone through, driven on by the development of the technic. And the moral ideal is revealed in its purely negative character as opposed to the existing moral order, and its importance is recognised as the motive power of the class and as a means to collect and inspire the forces of the revolu­ tionary classes. At the same time, however, the moral ideal will be deprived of its power to direct their policy. Not from our moral ideal, but from distinct material conditions does the policy depend which the social de­ velopment takes. These material conditions have already at earlier periods, to a certain extent, deter­ mined the moral will, the social aims of the uprising classes, but for the most part unconsciously. Or if a conscious . directing social knowledge was already to hand, as in the eighteenth century, it worked, all the same, unsystematically, and not consistently, at the formation of the social aims. It was the materialist conception of history which first completely deposed the moral ideal as the directing factor of the social evolution, and which taught us to deduce our social aims solely from the knowledge of the �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. 125 material foundations. And at the same time it has shown how we can ensure that the new reality resulting from the Revolution shall come up to the ideal, how illusions and disappointments are to be avoided. Whether they can be really avoided depends upon the deg ree of the insight acquired into the laws of develop­ ment, and of the movement of the social organism, its forces and organs. With that the moral ideal will not be deprived of its influence on society ; this influence will simply be re­ duced to its proper dimensions. Like the social and the moral instinct the moral ideal is not an aim, but a force or a weapon in the social struggle for life1.. The moral ideal is a special weapon for the peculiar circum­ stances of the class war. Even the Social-Democracy, as the organisation of the proletariat in its class war, cannot do without the moral ideal, the moral indignation against exploitation and class rule. But this ideal has nothing to' find in scien­ tific Socialism, which is the scientific examination of the laws of the development and movement of the social organism, for the purpose of knowing the neces­ sary tendencies and aims of the proletarian class war. Certainly in Socialism the student is always a fighter as well, and no man can artificially cut himself in two parts, of which the one has nothing to do with the Other. Thus even with Marx in his scientific research there occasionally breaks through the influence of a moral ideal. But he always endeavours, and rightly, to banish it where he can. Because the moral ideal becomes a source of error in science, when it takes on itself to point out to it its aims. Science has only to do with the recognition of the necessary. It can certainly arrive at prescribing a “ shall,” but this dare only come up as a consequence of the insight into the necessary. It must decline to discover a “shall” which is not to be recognised as a necessity founded in the world of phenomena. The Ethic must alwrays be only an object of science ; this has to study the moral instincts as well as the moral ideals, and explain them ; it cannot take advice from them as to the results at �126 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY, which it is to arrive. Science stands above Ethics, its results are just as little moral or immoral as necessity is moral or immoral. All the same, even in the winning and making known of scientific knowledge, morality is not got rid of. New scientific knowledge implies often the upsetting of traditional and deeply-rooted conceptions w’hich had grown to a fixed habit. In societies which include class antagonisms, new scientific knowledge, especially that of social conditions, implies, for the most part however, damage to the interests of particular classes. To discover and propagate scientific knowledge which is incompatible with the interests of the ruling classes, is to declare war on these. It assumes not simply a high degree of intelligence, but also ability and willing­ ness to fight, as well as independence from the ruling classes, and, before all, a strong moral feeling, strong social instincts, a ruthless striving for knowledge, and to spread the truth with a warm desire to help the oppressed', uprising classes. But even this last desire is likely to mislead if it does not play a simple negative part, as repudiation of the validity of the ideas of the ruling classes, and as a spur to overcoming the obstacles which the oppos­ ing class interests bring against the social development, but aspires to rise above that, and to take the direction, laying down certain aims which have to be attained through social study. Even though the conscious aim of the class war in scientific Socialism has been transformed from a moral into an economic aim, it loses none of its greatness. Since that which appeared to all social renovators hither­ to as a moral ideal, which could not be attained by them ; for that the economic conditions are at length given, that ideal we can now recognise for the first time in the history of the world as a necessary result of the economic development, viz., the abolition of class, not the abolition of all professional distinctions, not the abolition of division of labour, but certainly the abolition of all social distinctions and antagonisms which arise from private property in the means of �THE ETHICS OF MARXISM. 127 production and from the exclusive chaining down of the mass of the people to the function of material pro­ duction. The means of production have become so enormous, that they burst to-day the frame of private property. The productivity of labour is grown so huge that to-day already a considerable diminution of the labour time is possible for all workers. Thus grow the foundations for the abolition, not of the division of labour, not of the professions, but of the antagonism of rich and poor, exploiters and exploited, ignorant and wise. At the same time, however, the division of labour is so far developed as to embrace that territory which remained so many thousands of years closed to it—(the family hearth. The woman is torn from it, and drawn into the realm of division of labour, so long a monopoly of the men. With that, naturally, the natural distinc­ tions which exist between the sexes do not disappear, it can also allow many social distinctions, as well as many a distinction in the moral demands which are made on them, to continue to exist or even revive such, but it will certainly cause all those distinctions to dis­ appear from State and society which arise out of the fact that the woman is tied down to the private house­ hold duties, and excluded from the callings of the divided labour. In this sense we shall see not simply the abolition of the exploitation of one class by another, but the abolition of the subjection of woman to man. And at the same time the world commerce attains such dimensions, the international economic relations are drawn so close that therewith the foundation is laid for superseding private property in the means of produc­ tion, the overcoming of natural antagonisms, the end of war and armaments, and for the possibility of per­ manent peace between the nations. Where is a moral idea which opens such splendid vistas? And yet they are won from sober, economic considerations, and not from intoxication through the moral ideals of freedom, equality and fraternity, justice, humanity ! �128 ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. And these outlooks are no mere expectations of con­ ditions which only ought to come, which we simply wish and will, but outlooks on conditions which must come, which are necessary. Certainly not necessary in the fatalist sense, that a higher power will present them to us of itself, but necessary, unavoidable, in the sense that the inventors improve technic, and the capi­ talists, in their desire for profit, revolutionise the whole economic life, as it is also inevitable that the workers aim for shorter hours of labour and higher wages, that they organise themselves, that they fight the capitalist class and its state, as it is inevitable that they aim for the conquest of political power and the overthrow of capitalist ruling. Socialism is inevitable because the class war and the victory of the proletariat is inevitable. �����THE CHILD’S SOCIALIST READER. ©WTAINIK©. '■ TALES, READINGS, POEMS, PICTURES Just wha® was winted fog ** YMng S®eialist$,* Specially useful for Socialist Sunday Schools §®'0ols can form Clubs for its purchase. Bound in C/ot/i (f/2 pp.. 1/6. Post free. /S|. ' WITH THE EXCEPTION OF KARL MARX'S “CAPITAL,” The Best Book on Socialism ECONOMICS of SOCIALISM BY H. M. HYNDMAN. Price THREE SHILLINGS. Post, 3s. 3d. HOW I BECAME A SOCIALIST zl M. Hyhdmaa^ E. Bufori Bax, William Morris, Walter OrSae, J\ Hunter Watts, John E. WilOam^ Edltin. Price 6d< ft&it. By pstt. fry Andreas Soheu, H. W. Lee, James MacdonalM, R. BMwhford, H. Qutl$h, Tom Mann. By Post- "?id. s. 2d. Cloth 1s. nett. THE TWBNTIETH CENTURY PRESS, LIMITED] 37a> Clerkenwell Green, London, E.C. �“KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.“ All Socialists and persons wishing to keep in touch with the views of the Social-Democratic Party on current events, and those desirous of becoming acquainted with the aims and objects of Socialism, should subscribe to the premier Socialist Journal of this country, “JUSTICE,” Published Weekly, Id. A MONTHLY To be obtained of all Newsagents- SOCIALIST REVIEW. For academic and classic articles and discussions on Socialism and its ramifications, Read . , The “SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT,” 3d. Monthly. SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY: THE BASES OF ITS PRINCIPLES AND THE CAUSES OF ITS SUCCESS. A Lecture Delivered in Queen’s Hall, Langham Place, London, April 14th, 1904, by H. M. HYNDMAN. Price - TWOPENCE. By Post, 2|d. TWENTIETH CENTURY PRESS, LIMITED 37A, Clerkenwell Green, London, E.C. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. 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Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Twentieth Century Press, Limited Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1906] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N424 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Askew, J.B. (tr) Subject The topic of the resource Ethics Materialism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Ethics and the materialist conception of history), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Ethics History-Philosophy Materialism NSS https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/030c5a199b7eac47576bad7a383de085.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=ZGv0PaBvvQFalbJFvYFVBeWzaqvc31hSg0UAomvZjsKKrrTTBUkWoHyylsS4QpOs3BuAz%7Eik2pT179ZMnKeJh2gTlYSKfbHM%7E4HwJ%7EIwWGuZWVdzkm0mgdq6dw3k05iymMgKmuI%7EDvHi5OrH-S5xXDz32jXq0c5pNYPOiwlOHVHOqh3ff3CBb-ps00xFNQHsguWyw30KR%7ENgraX3y7W2g7B5i-FwpdHeyOrcxbOGfsuXTjemXqAeH6DBXPeVjkg9Y4HdqVpSlE66Ef6qfa4YChactAz31BJ%7E954s34NfQYsWn9r-hjZKbMGi5UKDmGpoM5J1RNexZKlHG0ZxLn-84w__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 53d75642f0b72ddaccf644be7ab93d5d PDF Text Text THE RUINS: ... . * W - smw T"? & ' OF THE RESOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. WITH NOTES ^f^torical, fecgragSical, anh ^Explanatory TO WHICH IS ANNEXED THE LAW OF NATURE. BY C. F. VOLNEY * * ' S0N00X: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY T. DAVISON, 2Yo, 10, Duke Street, West Smithfield. 1819, ��THE plan of this publication was formed nearly forty years ago; and allusions to it may be seen in the Preface to “Travels in Syria and Egypt, as well as at the end of that work, published in 1787. The per formance was in some forwardness when the events of 1788 in France interrupted it. Persuaded that a de- velopement of the theory of political truth could not sufficiently acquit a citizen of his debt to society, the author wished to add practice ; and that particularly at a time when a single arm Was of consequence in the defence of the general caùse. The same desire of pub lic benefit which induced him to suspend his work, has since engaged him to resume it; and though it may not possess the same merit as if it had appeared under the cbcumstances that gave rise to it, yet he imagines that at a time when new passions are bursting Jorih, pas sions that must communicate their activity to the relb pious opinions of me it * of importance to dissemb * �IV. PREFACE, nate such moral truths as are calculated to operate as a sort of curb and restraint. It is with this view he has endeavoured to give to these truths, hitherto treated as abstract, a form likely to gain them a reception. It was found impossible not to shock the violent prejudices of some readers; but the work, so far from being the fruit of a disorderly and pertur bed spirit, has been dictated by a sincere love of order and humanity. •After reading this performance it will be asked, how it was possible, in 1784, to have had an idea of what did not take place till the year 1790? The solution is simple: in the original plan, the legislator was a fictitious and hypothetical being: in the present, the author has substituted an existing legislator ; and the reality has only made the subject additionally inter esting. �CONTENTS.. . . INVOCATION .. ........... Pas« m CHAP. I. The Tour ....*.......... CHAP. II. Meditations...................... CHAP. ïlîo The Apparition ......... CHAP. IV. The Hemisphere............. 1 3 6 9 CHAP. XII. ^*11* Lessons taught by Ancient, re peated in Modern Times ... 32 CHAP. XU I» Will the Human Race be ever in a better Condition than at present CHAP. XIV. Grand Obstacle to Improvement 48 CHAP. XV. CHAP. V. New Age....................... CHAP. VI. A free ar‘^ legislative People.. 54 Condition of Man in the Uni verse ................................ Original state of Man........ CHAP. VII. Principles of Society ........ CHAP. VIII. Source of the evils of Society 51 CHAP. XVI. 17 CHAP. XVII. 18 Universal Basis of all Right and all Law ......... 55 19 CHAP. XVIII. CHAP. IX. Consternation and Conspiracy of Tyrants ........................ . 57 CHAP. X. General Assembly of the People 59 Origin of Government and Laws 20 General Causes of the Prospe rity of Ancient States ...... 22 CHAP. XI. General Causes of the Revolu tions, and Ruins of Ancient States .................. CHAP. XIX. CHAP. XX. Investigation of Truth........... CHAP. XXI. 25 Problem of Religious Contra dictions ........... 70 �eONTE.NTSé pag« CHAP. Xtll. Origin and Genealogy of Reli gious Ideas........... 91 the vital Principle of the Universe ........................... 119 SECT. I. SECT. VIII. SECT. n. Religion of Moses, or Worship of the Soul of the World, (You-Piter) ....................... 124 Eighth System : The World & Origin of the Idea of God: Machine: Worship of the Worship of the Elements and Demi-ourgos, or supreme Ar the physical Powers of Na tificer ............................... . 121 ture ............... 95 SECT. IX. Second System: Worship of the Stars, or Sabeism .............. 97 SECT. III. SECT. X * Third System : Worship of Symbols, or Idolatry.......... 100 SECT. IV. Fourth System: Worship of two Principles, or Dualism .... 108 SECT. V. Mystical or Moral Worship, or the System of a Future State 112 SECT. I. Sixth System: the animated World, or Worship of the Universe under different Em blems ................................ 118 Religion of Zoroaster ...... 126 SECT. XI. Budoism, or Religion of the Samaneans............................127 SECT. XII. Braminism, or the Indian Sys tem .................. 127 SECT. XIII. Christianity, or the allegorical Worship of the Sun under the cabalistical Names of CHRIS-EN or CHRIST and YES-US or JESUS .......... 127 c h a p . Xxm. End of all Religions the same 135 SECT. VII. Seventh System: Worship of the SOUL of the WORLD, that is, the Element of Fire, CHAP. XXIV. ERRATA. In page 70, Note ** Solution of the Problem of Contradictions .................. 144 after last line insert “ charged.” �INVOCATION. SOLITARY Ruins, sacred Tombs, ye mouldering and silent Walls, all hail! To you, I address my In v o c a t io n . Whilei the vulgar shrink from your aspect with secret terror, my h^rt find, in the contemplation a thSSSmd delicious sentiments, a thousand admirable recollections. Pregnant, I may truly call you with useful lessons, with pathetic and irresisUble advice, to the man who knows how to consult yon. A while ago the whole world bowed the neck in silence before the tyrants that oppressed it, and yet in that hopeless moment you already proclaimed the truths that tyrants hold in abhorrence: mixing the dust of the »roudest kings with that of the meanest slaves, you called upon US to contemplate this example of Eq u a l it y . From your ca, verns, whither the musing and anxious love of Lib e r t y led me, . I saw escape its venerable shade, and with unexpectedfeli city direct its flight, and marshal my steps the way to renovate» France. Tombs, what virtues and potency do you exhibit! Tyrants tremble at your aspect; you poison with secret alarm tneir im pious pleasures; they turn from you with impatience, and, coward like, endeavour to forget you amid the sumptuousness of their palaces. It is you that bring home the rod of justice to the pow erful oppressor; it is you that wrest the ill-gotten gold from tne merciless extortioner, and avenge the cause of him that has none �Fïili WVOCAT1W. to help|, y6u compensate the narrow enjoyments of the poor, by dashing with care the goblet of the rich 'to the unfortunate you ofler a last and inviolable asylum : in fine, you give to the soul that just equilibrium of strength and tenderness, which consti tutes the wisdom of the sage and the seience of life. The wise man looks towards you, and scorns to amass vain granduer and useless riches with which he soon must part; y^u check his law less flights without disarming his adventure and his courage • he feels the necessity of passing through the period assigned him and be gives employment to his hours, and makes use of thé goods that fortune has assigned him. Thus do you rein in the wild sallies of cupidity, calm the fever of tumultuous enjoyment, free the mind from the anarchy of the passions, and raise it above those little interests which torment the mass of mankind. We ascend the eminence you afford us, and, viewing with one glance the limits of nations and the succession of ages, are inca pable of any affections but such as are sublime, and entertain no ideas but those of virtue and glory. Alas! when this un certain dream of life shall be over, what then will avail all our busy passions, unless they have left behind them the footsteps of utility ! . Ye Rums, I will return once more to attend your lessons! I will resume my place in the midst of your wide spreading soliu e. will leave the tragic scene of the passions, will love ' my species rather from recollection than actual survey, will eraP °y activity in promoting their happiness, and compose my own appines» of the pleasing remembrance that I haye hastened theirs. ��Nflrí/t- >S "X fr* 5^ b* �twj— rum * III« ili ��(11 THE RUINS: OR, '* A SURVEY OF THU REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES * CHAP. I. Th e To u r * TN the eleventh year of the reign of Abd-ul Hamid * son of I Ahmed, emperor of the Turks ? when the Nogain Tartars were driven from the Crimea, and a Mussulman prince, of the blood of Gengis Khan,f became the vassal and guard of a woman, a Christian, and a queen; I journeyed in the empire of the Ottomans, and traversed the provinces which formerly were kingdoms of Egypt and of Syria. „ Directing all my attention to what concerns the happiness of mankind in a state of society, ! entered cities, and studied the ' manners of their inhabitants; I gained admission into palaces, and observed the conduct of those who govern; I wandered over the country, and examined the condition of the peasants : and no where perceiving aught but robbery and devastation, tyranny and wretchedness, my heart was oppressed with sorrow and W Every day I found in my route fields abandoned by the plough, villages deserted, and cities in ruins. Frequently I met with antique monuments ; wrecks of temples, palaces, and fortifica tions; pillars, aqueducts, sepulchres. By these objects my * That is, 1784 of the Christian sera, and 1198 of the Hegira* The emigra tion of the Tartars took place in March, immediately on the manifesto of the empress declaring the Crimea to be incorporated with Russia. ■f It was Chahin Guerai. Geugis Khan was borne and served by the kinos -whom he conquered : Chahin, on the contrary, after selling his country for a pension of eighty thousand roubles, accepted the commission of captain of guards to Catherine ll/ He afterwards returned home, and, according to custom, was strangled by the Turks, H �2 A SURVEY OF THE thoughts were directed to past ages, and my mind absorbed in serious and profound meditatioh. * Arrived at Hamsa on the borders of the Orontes, and being at no great distance from the city of Palmyra, situated in the desert, I resolved to examine for myself its boasted monuments. After three days travel in barren solitude, and having passed through a valley filled with grottoes and tombs, my eyes were suddenly struck, on leaving this valley and entering a plain, with a most astonishing scene of ruins. It consisted of a count less multitude of superb columns standing erect, and which, like the avenues of our parks, extended in regular files farther than the eye could reach. Among these columns magnificent edifices were observeable, some entire, others in a state half demolished. The ground was covered on all sides with fragments of similar buildings, cornices, capitals, shafts, entablatures, and pilasters, all constructed of a marble of admirable whiteness and exquisite workmanship. After a walk of three quarters of an hour along these ruins, I entered the inclosure of a vast edifice which had formerly been a temple dedicated to the sun; and I accepted the hospitality of some poor Arabian peasants, who had established their huts in the very area of the temple. Here I resolved for some days to remain, that I might contemplate, at leisure, the beauty of so many stupendous works. . Every day I visited some of the monuments which covered the plain; and one evening that, my mind lost in reflection,“ I had advanced as far as the Valley of. Sepulchres, I ascended the heights that bound it, and from which the eye commands at once the whole of the ruins and the immensity of the desert.—The sun had just sunk below the horizon; a streak of red still marked the place of his descent, behind the distant mountains of Syria; the full moon, appearing with brightness upon a ground of deep blue, rose in the east from the smooth bank of the Euphrates : the sky was unclouded; the air calm and serene ; the expiring light of day served to soften the horror of approaching darkness; the refreshing breeze of the night gratefully relieved the intoler able sultriness of the day that had preceded it; the shepherds had led the camels to their stalls; the grey firmament bounded the silent landscape; through the whole desert every thing was marked with stillness, undisturbed but by the mournful cries of the brid of night, and of some chacals —The dusk increased, . * and already I could distinguish nothing more than the pale phantoms of walls and columns.—The solitariness of the situa tion, the serenity of evening, and the grandeur of the scene, impressed my mind with religious thoughtfulness. The view * An animal considerably like the fox, but less cunning, and of a frightful aspect. It lives upon dead bodies, and rocks and ruins are the places of its habitation. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 3 nf an illustrious city deserted, the remembrance qf past times, their comparison with the present state of things, all combine! o raise my heart to a strain of sublime meditation. I sat down tn the base of a column; and there, my elbow on my knee, and niv head restin«- on my hand, sometimes turning my eyes inwards tte desert, and’sometimes fixing them on the rums, I fell into a profound reverie. CHAP. II. Me d it a t io n s . i ‘ He r e , said I to myself, an opulent city °"ce /X'e^niwso was the seat of a powerful empire. Yes, e p , active desert, a living multitude formerly animated, and an activ crowd circulated in the streets whic!\at.Prese"t„?J‘;gSOIe1noi£ Within those walls, where a mournful silence reigns the noi. of the arts and the shouts of joy and “VO“Xs ly re sounded. These heaps of marble formed regular P^ces, the. prostrate pillars were the majestic ornaments of temples.Y _ ruinous galleries present the outlines of public places. T :tg a numerous people assembled for the respectab e du, e i ofts worship, or the anxious cares of its subsistence = there ,nd“st5>> the fruitful inventor of sources of enjoyment, c<d,“ted » the riches of every climate aud the purpte of Tyre was: ex changed for the precious thread of Serica the soft tissuesol ; * Cass?mere+ for the sumptuous carpets of Lydia; the‘ Baltic for the pearls and perfumes of Arabia, the o P + for the pewter of Thule. nF this And now a mournful skeleton is all that subsists of th^ onulent citv and nothing remains of its powerful goveinment bPut a vain ayAd obscure remembrance! To the tumultuous throng , which crowded under these porticos, the solitude succeeded. The silence of the tomb is substituted foi the hum of public places. The opulence of a commercial city is changed • r i •i m.rxinto hideous poverty. Tlw nalaees of kins's are become IIflrvleIne palaces oi CQnPt the nf ceptacle of deer, and unclean reptiles inhabit the sanctuaiy ol z * That is, the silk originally derived from the o^the x the great wall terminates, and which appears to have been the ciadle C tThesÉSwhich Ezekiel seems to have described under the appellation °ftCThisd comdry, which was one of the twelve Arab cantons, and which.has unsuccessfully been sought for üæ ant.quanes, has left however some trace of itself in Ôfoi, in the province PPi’Phrated bv Strabo Gulph, neighbouring on one side to the Sabeans who are celeb, ated bj shabo for their plenty of gold, and on the other to Aula or Hevfi ; ''^es a very fishery was carned’oiu See the 27th chapter of <f ^es Vtry curious and extensive picture of the commeice of s ' p l �4 A SURVEY OF THE the gods,—What glory is here eclipsed, and how many labours are annihilated !—Thus perish the works of men, and thus do nations and empires vanish away. The history of past times strongly presented itself to my thoughts. I called to mind those distant ages when twenty ce lebrated nations inhabited the country around me. I pictured to myself the Assyrian on the banks of the Tygris, the Chaldeean on those of the Euphrates, the Persian w hose power ex * tended from the Indus to the Mediterranean. I enumerated the kingdoms of Damascus and Idumea ; of Jerusalem and Samaria; and the warlike states of the Philistines ; and the commercial rupublics of Phenicia. This Syria, said I to myself, now almost depopulated, then contained a hundred flourishing cities, and ».bounded with towns, villages, and hamlets. Every where one * might have seen cultivated fields, frequented roads, and crowded habitations. Ah ! w hat are become of those ages of abundance and of life ? What are become of so many productions of the hand of man ? Where are those ramparts of Nineveh, those w alls of Babylon, those palaces of Persepolis, and those tem ples of Balbec and of J erusalem ? Where are those fleets of Tyre, those dock-yards of Arad, those work-shops of Sidon, and that multitude of mariners, pilots, merchants, and soldiers ? Where those husbandmen, those harvests, that picture of animated na ture of which the earth seemed proud ? Alas ! I have traversed this desolate country, I have visited the places that "were the theatre of so much splendour, and I have nothing beheld but solitude and desertion ! I looked for those ancient people and their works; and all I could find was a faint trace, like to what the foot of a passenger leaves on the sand. The temples are thrown down, the palaces demolished, the ports filled up, the towns destroyed, and the earth, stript of inhabitants, seems a dreary burying-place.—Great God ! from whence proceed such melancholy revolutions ? Eor what cause is the fortune of these countries so strikingly changed ? Why are so many cities de stroyed ? Why is not that ancient population reproduced and perpetuated ? - Thus absorbed in contemplation, new ideas continually pre sented themselves to my thoughts. Every thing, continued I, misleads my judgment and fills my heart with trouble and un certainty. When these countries enjoyed what constitutes the glory and felicity of mankind, they w ere an unbelieving people who inhabited them : It was the Phenician, offering human sa crifices to Moloch, w ho brought together within his walls the riches of every climate ; it wras the Chaldaean, prostrating him self before a serpentf, who subjugated opulent cities, and laid According to Josephus and Strabo, there were in Syria twelve millions of so.ulsj and the traces that remain of culture and habitation confirm the calculation. f The dragon Bel, �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 5 waste the palaces of kings and the temples of the gods : it was the Persian, the worshipper of fire, who collected the tributes of a hundred nations; they were the inhabitants of this very city, adorers of the sun and stars, who erected so many monu ments of affluence and luxury. Numerous flocks, fertile fields, abundant harvests, every thing that should have been the re ward of piety, was in the hands of idolaters : and now that a be lieving and holy people occupy these countries, nothing is to be seen but solitude and sterility. The earth under these blessed hands produces only briars and wormwood. Man sows in an guish, and reaps vexation and cares; war, famine, and pesti lence, assault him in turn. Yet, are not these the children of the prophets ? This Christian, this Mussulman, this Jew, are they not the elect of Heaven, loaded with gifts and miracles ? Why then is this race, beloved of the Divinity, deprived of the favours which were formerly showered upon the Heathen ? Why do these lands, consecrated by the blood of the martyrs, no longer boast their former temperature and fertility ? Why have those favours been banished, as it were, and transferred for so many ages to other nations and different climes ? And here, pursuing the course of vicissitudes, which have, in turn, transmitted the sceptre of the world to people so various in manners and religion, from those of ancient Asia down to the more recent ones of Europe, my native country, designated by this name, was awakened in my mind, and turning my eyes to wards it, all my thoughts fixed upon the situation in which I had left it . * I recollected its fields, so richly cultivated |, its roads, so ad mirably executedits towns inhabited by an immense multi tude f, its ships scattered over every ocean its ports filled with the produce of either India and comparing the activity of its commerce, the extent of its navigation, the magnificence of its buildings, the arts and industry of its inhabitants, with all that Egypt and Syria could formerly boast of a similar nature, I pleased myself with the idea that I had found in modern Europe the past splendour of Asia : but the charm of my reverie was presently dissolved by the last step of the comparison. Reflect ing that if the places before me had once exhibited this animated picture |( who, said I to myself, can assure me, that their present desolation will not one day be the lot of our own country ? who knows but that hereafter some traveller like myself will sit down upon the banks of the Seine, the Thames, or the Zuyder sea where now, in the tumult of enjoyment, the heart and the eyes are too slow to take in the multitude of sensations ; who knows but he will sit down solitary, amid silent ruins, and weep a people inurned, and their greatness changed into an empty name. * In the year 1/82, at the close of the American war. �0. A SURVEY OF THE The idea brought tears into ray eyes ; and covering my head with the flap of my garment, I gave myself up to the most gloomy meditations on human affair. Unhappy man ! said I m my grief, a blind fatality plays with thy destiny ! * a fatal necessity rules by- chance the lot of mortals ! But, no : they are the decrees of celestial justice that are accomplishing A mysterious God ex ercises his incomprehensible judgments ! He has doubtless pro nounced a secret malediction against the earth; he has struck with a curse the present race of men, in revenge of past genera tions. Oh ! who shall dare to fathom the depths of the Divinity ? And I remained immoveable, plunged in profound melancholy. CHAP. III. Th e Appa r it io n . In the mean time a noise struck my ear like to the agitation of a flowing robe, and the slow steps of a foot, upon the dry and rustling grass. Alarmed, I drew my mantle from my head, and casting round me a timid glance, suddenly, by the obscure light of the moon, through the pillars and ruins of a temple, I thought I saw at my left, a pale apparition, enveloped in an immense drapery, similar to what spectres are painted when issuing out of the tombs. I shuddered; and while, in this troubled state, 1 was hesitating whether to fly, or ascertain the reality of the vision, a hollow voice, in grave and solemn accents, thus ad dressed me: -n • . How long will man importune the heavens with unjust com plaint • How long, with vain clamours, will he accuse Fate as the author of his calamities ? Will he then never open his eyes to the light, and his heart to the insinuations of truth and reason ? This truth every where presents itself in radiant brightness, and he does not see it! The voice of reason strikes his ear, and he does not hear it I Unjust man ! if you can for a moment suspend the delusion which fascinates your senses, jf vour heart be capa ble of comprehending the language of argumentation, interroo-ate these ruins ! read the lessons which they present to you! And you, sacred temples! venerable tombs! w alls once glorious! the witnesses of twenty different ages, appear in the cause of nature herself! come to the tribunal of sound understanding, to bear testimony against an unjust accusation, to confound the declamations of false wisdom or hypocritical piety, and avenge the heavens and the earth of man ; w ho culminates tnem ! What is this blind fatality, that, without order or laws, sports w ith the lot of mortals ? What this unjust necessity, which con • * This is the universal and rooted prejudice of the East. “ It was written,” is there the answer to every thing, lienee result an unconcern and apathy, the most powerful impediments to instruction and civilization. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 7 founds the issue of actions, be they those of prudence or those of folly ? In what consists the maledictions of Heaven denounced against these countries ? where is the divine curse that perpetu ates this scene of desolation ? Monuments of past ages 1 say, have the heavens changed their laws, and the earth its course ? Has the sun extinguished his fires in the region of space ? Do the seas no longer send forth clouds ? Are the rain and the dew fixed in the air ?. Do the mountains retain their springs ? Are the streams dried up ? and do the plants no more bear fruit and seed ? Answer, race of falshood and iniquity! has God troubled the primitive and invariable order which he himself assigned to nature ? Has heayen denied to the earth, and the earth to its in habitants, the blessings that were formerly dispensed ? If the creation has remained the same, if its sources a.nd its instruments are exactly what they once were, w herefore should not the pre sent race haye every thing within their reach that their ancestors 'enjoyed ? Falsely do you accuse Fate and the Divinity ; injuri ously do you refer to God the cause of your evils. Tell me, ' perverse and hypocritical race ! if these places are desolate, if powerful cities are reduced to solitude, is it he that has occa sioned the ruin ? Is it his hand that has thrown down these walli, sapped these temples, mutilated these pillars ? or is it the hand of man ? Is it the arm of God that has introduced the sword into the city and set fire to the country, murdered the people, burned the harvests, rooted up the trees, and ravaged the pastures ? or is it the arm of man ? And when, after this devastation, famine has started up, is it the vengeance of God that has sent it, or the mad fury of mortals ? When, during the famine, the people are fed with unwholesome provision, and pestilence ensues, is it in flicted by the anger of Heaven, or brought about by human im prudence ? When war, famine, and pestilence united, have swept away the inhabitants, and the land is become a desert, is it God who has depopulated it ? Is it it his rapacity that plunders the labourer, ravages the productive fields, and lays waste the coun try ? or the rapacity of those who govern ? Is it his pride that creates murderous w ars ? or the pride of kings and their minis ters ? Is it the venality of his decisions that overthrows the for tune of families ? or the venality of the organs of the laws ? Are they his passions that, under a thousand forms, torment indivi duals and nations ? or the passions of human beings ? And if iji the anguish of their misfortunes they perceive not the remedies, is it the ignorance of God that isjn fault ? or their own ignorance ? Cease, then, to accuse the decrees of Fate or the judgments of Heaven ! If God is good, will he be the author of your punish ment ? If he is just, w ill he be the accomplice of your crimes ’ No, no : the caprice of which man complains, is not the caprice of destiny ; the darkness that misleads his reason, is not the dark �8 A SURVEY OF THE ness of God : the source of his calamities is not in the distant heavens, but near to him upon the earth : it is not concealed in • the bosom of the Divinity ; it resides in himself, man bears it in his heart. You murmur, and say : Why have an unbelieving people en joyed the blessings of heaven and of the earth ? Why is a holy and chosen race less fortunate than impious generations ? De luded man ! where is the contradiction at which you take offence ? Where the inconsistency in which you suppose the justice of God to be involved ? Take the balance of blessings and cala mities, of causes and effects, and tell me,—When those infidels observed the laws of the earth and the heavens, when they re gulated their intelligent labours by the order of the seasons and the course of the stars, ought God to have troubled the equili brium of the world to defeat their prudence ? When they culti vated w ith care and toil the face of the country around you, ought he to have turned aside the rain, to have withheld the fer tilizing dews, and caused thorns to spring up ? When, to render this parched and barren soil productive, their industry constructed aqueducts, dug canals, and brought the distant waters across the deserts, ought he to have blighted the harvest which art had created; to have desolated a country that had been peopled in peace; to have demolished the towns which labour had caused to flourish ; in fine, to have deranged and confounded the order established by the wisdom of man ? And what is this infidelity which fonnded empires by prudence, defended them by courage, and strengthened them by justice; which raised magnificent cities, formed vast ports, drained pestilential marshes, covered the sea with ships, the earth with inhabitants, and, like the creative spirit, diffused life and motion through the world. If such is impiety, what is true belief ? Does holiness consist in destruction ? Is then the God that peoples the air with birds, the earth with animals, and the waters w ith reptiles ; the God that animates universal nature, a God that delights in ruins and sepulchres ? Does he ask devestation for homage, and conflagra tion for sacrifice ? Would he have groans for hymns, murderers to worship him, and a desert and ravaged w orld for his temple ? Yet such, holy and faithful generation, are your works ! These are the fruits of youi’ piety! You have massacred the people, reduced cities to ashes, destroyed all traces of cultivation, made the earth a solitude; and you demand the reward of your la bours! Miracles are not too much for your advantage ! For you the peasants that you have murdered should be revived; the walls you have thrown down should rise again; the harvests you have ravaged should flourish; the conduits that you have broken xdown should be renewed ; the laws of heaven and earth, those laws which God has established for the display of his greatness �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 9 and his Magnificence, those laws anterior to all revelations and ♦ to all prophets, those laWs which passion cannot alter, and ignorance cannot pervert, should be superseded. Passion knows them not; ignorance, which observes no cause and predicts no effect, has said in the foolishness of hei heart: “ Every thing * * • Comes from chance; a blind fatality distributes good and evil Upon the earth ; success is not to the prudent, nor felicity to the wise/’ Or else, assuming the language of hypocrisy, she has said : if Every thing comes from God ; and it is his sovereign pleasure to deceive the sage, and to confound the judicious.’ And she has contemplated the imaginary scene with complacency. « Good !” she has exclaimed. “ I then am as well endowed as the science that despises me ! The Cold prudence which ever more haunts and torments me, I will render useless by a lucky intervention of Providence.” Cupidity has joined the chorus. £i I too will oppress the weak; I will wring from him the fruits of * his labour : for such is the decree of Heaven, such the omnipo tent will of Fate.”—For myself, I swear by all laws human and divine, by the laws of the human heart, that the hypocrite and the deceiver shall be themselves deceived ; the unjust man shall perish in his rapacity, and the tyrant in his usurpation : the sun shall change its course, before folly shall prevail over wisdom and science, before stupidity shall surpass prudence in the delicate art of procuring to man his true enjoyment, and of building his happiness upon aolid foundation. s * « CHAP. IV. Th e He m is ph e r e . . • ’ ■’ ’ Astonished at his discourse, and my heart agitated by a diversity of reflections, I was for some time silent. At length assuming the courage to speak, I thus addressed him : O Genius of tombs and ruins ! your sudden appearance and your severity have thrown my senses into dis order, but the justness of your reasoning restores confidence to my soul. Pardon my ignorance. Alas! if man is blind, can that which constitutes his torment be also his crime ? I was un able to distinguish the voice of reason ; but the moment it was known to me, I gave it welcome. Oh! if you can read my heart, you know how desirous it is df truth, and with what ardour it seeks it; you know that it is in this pursuit I am now found in these remote places. Alas ! I have wandered over the earth, I have visited cities and countries; and perceiving every where misery and desolation, the sentiment of the evils by which, my fellow creatures are tormented has deeply afflicted my mind ! 1 have said to myself with a sigh : Is man, then, created to be the victim of pain and anguish ? And I have meditated upon • human evils, that I might find out their remedy. I have said, Th u s spoke the Apparition. �10 A SURVEY OF THE I will separate myself from corrupt societies ; I will remove far from palaces where the soul is depraved by satiety, and from cottages where it is humbled by misery. I will dwell in solitude amidst the ruins of cities : I will enquire of the monuments of antiquity what w as the wisdom of former ages f in the very bosom of sepulchres I will invoke the spirit that formerly in Asia gave splendour to states and glory to their people : I will enquire of the ashes of legislators what causes have erected and overthrown empires; what are the principles of national pros perity and misfortune ; what the maxims upon which the peace of society and the happiness of man ought to be founded. I stopped ; and casting down my eyes, I waited the reply of the Genius. _ Peace and happiness, said he, descend upon him who practises justice ! Young man, since your heart searches after truth with sincerity; since you can distinguish her form through the midst of prejudices w hich blind the eyes, your in quiry shall not be vain : I will display to your view this truth of which you are in pursuit; I will show to your reason the knowledge which you desire; I will reveal to you the wisdom of the tombs, and the science of ages.—Then approaching me, and placing his hand upon my head, Rise, mortal, said he, and disengage yourself from that corporeal frame with which you are incumbered.—Instantly, penetrated as with a celestial flame, the ties that fix us to the earth seemed to be loosened; and lifted by the wing of the Genius, I felt myself like a light vapour conveyed in the uppermost region. There, from above the atmosphere, looking down towards the earth I had quitted, I beheld a scene entirely new, Under my feet, floating in empty space, a globe similar to that of the moon, but smaller, and less luminous, presented to me one of its faces ; and this face had * the appearance of a disk variegated with spots, some of them white and nebulous, others brown, green and grey ; and while I exerted my powers in discerning and discriminating these spots—Disciple of truth, said the Genius to me, have you any recollection of this spectacle ? O Genius, I replied, if I did not perceive the moon in a different part of the heavens, I should suppose the orb below me to be that planet; for its appearance resembles perfectly the moon viewed through a telescope at the time of an eclipse : one might be apt to think the variegated spots to ^e seas and continents. Yes, said he to me, they are the seas and continents of the yery hemisphere you inhabit. What, exclaimed I, is that the earth that is inhabited by hu41 man beings? It is, replied he. That brown space which occupies irregularly a considerable partion of the disk, and nearly surrounds it on * See Plate I. representing half the terrestrial globe �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 11 all sides is what you call the main ocean, which, from the , south pole advancing towards the equator, first forms the great o-ulf of Africa and India, then stretches to the east across the Slalay Islands, as far as the confines of Tartary, while at the west it incloses the continents of Africa and of Europe, reach ing to the north of Asia. n • *, 1 Under our feet, that peninsula of a square figure is the desert country of Arabia, and on the left you perceive that great conti nent, scarcely less barren in its interior parts, and only verdant as it approaches the sea, the inhabitants of which are dis tinguished by a sable complexion . * To the north, and on the other side of an irregular and narrow seat, are the tracts of Europe, rich in fertile meadows and in all the luxuriance of Cultivation. To the right from the Caspian, extend the rugged surface and snow-topt hills of Tartary. In bringing back the eye again to the spot over which we are elevated, you see a large white space, the melancholy and uniform desert of Gobi, cutting off the empire of China from the rest of the world. China itself is that furrowed surface which seems by a sudden obliquity to escape from the view. Farther on, those vast tongues of land and scattered points, are the peninsula, and islands of the Malayans, the unfortunate proprietors of aromatics and per fumes. Still nearer you observe a triangle which Projects strono-ly into the sea, and is the too famous peninsula of India.; You ^see the crooked windings of the Ganges, the ambitious mountains of Thibet, the unfortunate valley of Cassimere (12), the discouraging deserts of Persia, the banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris, the rough bed of Jordan (4), and the mouths of the solitary Nile. (See the Plate.) O Genius, said I, interrupting him, the organ of a mortal would in vain attempt to disinguish objects at so great a dis tance. Immediately he touched my eyes, and they became more piercing than those of the eagle ; notwithstanding which, rivers appeared to me no more than meandering, ribands, ridges, of mountains, irregular furrows, and great cities a nest of boxes varied among themselves like the squares in a chess board. 1 • X . The Genius proceeded to point out the different objects to me with his finger, and to develope them as he proceeded. These heaps of ruins, said he, that you observe in this narrow valley, laved by the Nile, are all that remains of the opulent cities that gave lustre to the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia||. Here is the * Africa. + The Mediterranean. J Of what real good has been the commerce of India to the mass of peo ple ? On the contrary, how great the evil occasioned by the superstition of this country having been added to the general superstition Ü lu the next volume of the Encyelopædia will appear a memoir respecting �12 A SURVEY OF THE monument of its splendid metropolis, Thebes with its hundred , * palaces the progenitor of cities, the memento of human frailty, the chronology of the twelve ages anteriorto the passing of Xerxesinto Greece in which I conceive myself to have proved, that Upper Egypt formerly pomposed a distinct kingdom, known to the Hebrews by the name of and to which the appellation of Ethiopia was specially given. This kingdom pre served its independence to the time of Psammeticus, at which period, bein' * United to the Lower Egypt, it Jost its name of Ethiopia, which thenceforth was bestowed upon the nations of Nubia, and upon the different hordes of Blacks, including Thebes, their metropolis. * The idea of a city with a hundred gates, in the common acceptation of the word, is so absurd, that I am astonished the equivoque has not before been felt. It has ever been the custom of the East to cal J palaces and houses of the great by the name of gates, because the principal luxury of these buildings consist^ in the singular gate leading from the street into the court, at the farthest exr tremity of which the palace is situated. It is under the vestihule of this gate that conversation is held with passengers, and a sort of audience and hospita lity given. All this was doubtless known to Homer; but poets made, no com mentaries, and readers love the marvellous. This city of Thebes, now Longsor, reduced to the condition of a miserable village, has left astonishing monuments of its magnificence, Particulars of this may be seen in the plates of Norden, in Pocock, and in the recent travels of Bruce. These monuments give credibility to all that Homer has related of its gplendoui and led us to infer of its political power and external commerce. Its geographical position was favourable to this twofold object. For, on one Side, the valley of the Nile, singularly fertile, must have early occasioned a nu merous population; apd, on the other, the Red Sea giving communication with Arabia and India, and the Nile with Abyssinia and the Mediterranean, Thebes was thus naturally allied to the richest countries on the globe ; an alliance that procured it an activity so much the greater, as Lower Egypt, at first a swamp, was nearly, if not totally uninhabited. But when at length this country had been drained by the canals and dikes which Sesostris constructed, population was introduced there, and wars arose which proved fatal to the power of 1 hebes. Commerce then took another route, and descended to the point of the Red Sea, to the canals of Sesostris (see Strabo), and wealth and activity were transferred to Memphis. This is manifestly what Diodorus means, when he tells us (Lib. I. Sect. 2.) that as soon as Memphis was established and made a wholesome and delicious abode, kings abandoned Thebes to fix themselves there. Ihus Thebes continued to decline, and Memphis to flourish, till the time of Alexander, who, building Alexandria on the border of the sea, caused Memphis to fall in its turn; so that prosperity and power seem to have desceuded historically step by step along the Nile : whence it results, both phy sically and historically, that the existence of Thebes was prior to that of the other cities. The testimony of writers is very positive in this respect. “ The lhebans, ’ says Diodorus, consider themselves as the most ancient people of the earth, and assert, that with them originated philosophy and the science of he stais. Iheir sitpation, it is true, is infinitely favourable to astronomical observation, and they have a more accurate division pf time into months and years than other nations,” tec. What Diodorus says of the Thebans, every author, and himself elsewhere, repeat of the Ethiopians, which tends more firmly to establish the identity of place o< vyhich I have spoken. “The Ethiopians conceive themselves (says Ik I u-1 t0 bf of £reatf“r antiquity than any other nation ; and it is probae that, born under the sun’s path, its warmth may have ripened them earlier than other men. They suppose themselves also to be the inventors of divine �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. IS It was there that a people since forgotten, discovered the elements of science and art, at a time when all other men were barbarous, and that a race, now regarded as the refuse of society, because their hair is woolly, and their skin is dark, explored among the phenomena of nature, those civil and religious systems which have since held mankind in awe, A little lower the dark spots that you observe are the pyramids (1) whose names have over whelmed your imagination. Farther on, the coast (3) that you behold limited by the sea on one side, and bv a ridge of moun tains on the other, was the abode of the Phenician nations ; there stood the powerful cities of Tyre, Sidon, Ascalon, Gaza, and Berytus. This stream of water, which seems to disembogue itself into no sea (4), is the Jordan ; and these barren rocks were formerly the scene of events, whose tale may not be forgotten. Here you find the desert of Horeb, and the hill of Sinai (5), where, by artifice which the vulgar were unable to penetrate, a subtle and daring leader gave birth to institutions of memorable influence upon the history of mankind. Upon the barren strip of land which borders upon this desert, you see no longer any worship, of festivals, of solemn assemblies, of sacrifices, and of every other re ligious practice. They affirm, that the Egyptians are one of their colonies, and that the Delta, which was formerly sea, became land by the conglomera tion of the earth of the higher country, which was washed down by the Nile. They have, like the Egyptians, two species of letters, hieroglyphics and the alphabet; but among the Egyptians the first was known only to the priests, and by them transmitted from father to son, whereas both species are common among the Ethiopians.” “ The Ethiopians,” says Lucian, page 985. “ were the first who invented the science of the stars, and gave names to the planets, not at random and without meaning, but descriptive of the qualities which they conceived them to pos sess; and it was from them that this art passed, still in an imperfect state, to the Egyptians. It would be easy to multiply citations upon this subject; from all which it follows, that we have the strongest reason to believe that the country neigh bouring to the tropic, was the cradle of the sciences, and of consequence that the first learned nation was a nation of Blacks, for it is incontrovertible, that by the term Ethiopians, the ancients meant to represent a people of black complexion, thick lips, and woolly hair. I am therefore inclined to believe that the inhabitants of Lower Egypt were formerly a foreign colony imported from Syria and Arabia, a medley of different tribes of Savages, originally shep herds and fishermen, who by degrees formed themselves into a nation, and who, by nature and descent, were enemies of the Thebans, by whom they were no doubt despised and treated as barbarians. I have suggested the same ideas in my Travels info Syria, founded upon the ' black complexion of the Sphinx. I have since ascertained, that the antique images of Thebais have the same characteristics ; and Mr. Bruce has offered a multitude of analogous facts: but this traveller, of whom I beard some men tion at Cairo, has so interwoven these facts, with certain systematic opinions, that we should have recourse to his narratives with caution. If is singular that Africa, situated so near us, should be the country on earth which is the least known. The English are at this moment making attempts, the success of which ought to excite our emulation. �11 A SURVEY OF THE trace of splendor ; and yet here was formerly the magazine of the world. Here were the ports of the Idumeans from whence , * the fleets of the Phenicians and the Jews, coasting the peninsula of Arabia, bent their voyages to the Persian gulf, and imported from thence the pearls of Havila, the gold of Saba and Ophir. It was here, on the side of Oman and BSrhain, that existed that site of magnificent and luxurious commerce, which, as it was transplanted from country to country, decided upon the fate of ancient nations. Hither were brought the vegetable aromatics, and the precious stones of Ceylon, the shawls of Cassimere, the diamonds of Golconda, the amber of the Maldives, the musk of * Ailah (Eloth), Atsiom-Gaber (Hesion-Geber). The name of the first of these towns still subsists in its ruins, at the point of the gulph of the Red Sea, and in the route which the pilgrims take to Mecca. Hesion has at present no trace, anv more than Quolsoum and Faran : it was, however, the harbour for the fleets of Solomon. < The vessels of this prince, conducted by the Tyrians, sailed along the coast of Arabia to Ophir in the Persian Gulph, thus opening a communication with the merchants of India and Ceylon. That this naviga* tion was entirely of Tyrian invention, appears both from the pilots and ship builders employed by the Jews, and the names that were given to the trading islands, viz. Tyrus and Aradus, now Barhain. The voyage was performed in two different inodes, either in canoes of osier and rushes, covered on the out side with skins done over with pitch: these vessels were unable to quit the Red Sea, or so much as to leave the shore. The second mode of carrying on the trade was by means of vessels with decks of the size of our long boats, which were able to pass the strait and to weather the dangers of the ocean : but for this purpose it was necessary to bring the wood from Mount Lebanus and Cilicia, where it is very fine and in great abundance. This wood was first conveyed in floats from Tarsus to Phenicia, for which reason the vessels were called ships of Tarsus: from whence it has been ridiculously inferred, that they went round the promontory of Africa as far as Tortosa in Spain. From Phenicia it was transported on the backs of camels to the Red Sea, which practice still continues, because theshores of this sea are absolutely unprovided . with wood even for fuel. These vessels spent a complete year in their voyage, that is, sailed one year, sojourned another, and did not return till the third. This teadiousness was owing, first to their cruizing from port to port, as they do at present; secondly,to their being detained by the Monsoon currents; aijd thirdly, because according to the calculation of Pliny and Strabo, it was the ordinary practice among the ancients to spend three years in a voyage of twelve hundred leagues. Such a commerce must have been very expensive, particularly as they were obliged to carry with them their provisions and even fresh water. For this reason Solomon made himself master of Palmyra, which was at 1hat time inhabited, and was already the magazine and high road of merchants by way of the Euphrates. This conquest brought Solomon much nearer to the country of gold and pearls. This alternative of a route either by the Red Sea or by the river Euphrates was to the ancients, what in latter times has been the alternative in a voyage to the Indies, either by crossingthe Isthmus of Suez or doubling the Cape of Good Hope. It appears that till the time of Moses this trade was carried on across the desert of Syria and Theais; that afterwards it fell into the hands of the Phenicians, who fixed its site upon the Red Sea, and that it was mutual jealousy that induced the kings of Nineveh and Bab) Ion Io undertake the destruction of Tyre and Jerusalem. 1 insist the more upon these facts, because I have never seen any thing reasonable upon the subject. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 15 these commodities, which constituted the opulence oi l heoes Sidon Memphis, and Jerusalem ; sometimes ascending the course of the’ TyZ and the Euphrates they awakenedth«, acbvrtof the Assyrians the Medes, the Chaldeans, and the Persians, ana according as ¿hey were used or abused, cherished or overturned the earth of Babylon (10), the ruins of which are trodden under foot of men of Nineveh (11), whose name seems to be , * threatened with the same oblivion that has overtaken Sre ** ness • of Thansacus, of Anatho, of Gerra, and of the melancholy and memorable Palmyra. O names, for fo^Xct“i * brated fields! famous countries! how replete is your aspect wiin sublime instruction ! How many profound truths are written on he Surface of this earth 1 Ye places that here ~;drt.e bfe of man, in so many different ages, alll my recollec ton while 1 endeavour to trace the revolutions of his fortune! Say, what were the motives of his conduct, and what his powers . L avert the causes of his misfortunes, teach him ^X^Sion and the experience of past ages become a mirror of insti notion, and a germ of happiness to present and future generations . CHAP. V. Co n d it io n o f Ma n in t h e Un iv e r s e . Af t e r a short silence, the Genius thus ^nmed Hs jnstau.cti on: I have already observed to you, O friend of truth, that man vainly attributes his misfortunes to obscure and imag and seeks out remote and mysterious causes, from ^‘ch to deduce his evils. In the general order of the universe, h. cond tmn » doubtless subjected to inconveniences, and u ... .. ue ruled by sunerior powers ; but these powers «re nerther the de crees ol a blind destiny, nor the .caprices of fantast e be Man is governed, like the world of which he forms a part,, by natural laws, regular in their operat.on consequent in them et. fects, immutable in tharessencejjmd these laws, the commjl 9 “• It append th« Babyfen'oecupied on the Eastern Bank.of thei Euphrates space of ground six leagues in length. Throng ou P . Helle, fa fes of Babylon, a and his veracity. “powledge ¿fa.tr.nomy * M&v ’ �16 4 SURVEY OF TIES source of good and evil, are neither written in the distant star?, or concealed in mysterious codes: inherent in the nature of all errestnal beings, identified with their existence, they are at all times and In all places present to the human mind’; they act nnnid nSeS’. inf^m th* inteIlect’ and a™ax every^actio/Ft" punishment and its reward. Let man study these laws let him understand his own nature, and the nature of the beings that /' surround him, and he will know the springs of his desturv the / causes of hI8 evils, and the remedies to b? appM b the eart^animate*tbe universe, formed the & ooe or tiieearth. he stamped on the beings which comnosed it «on''t'h1tie°K,V tha( l>eC!7C the rude °f their ^dividual achannonv of th. 11r,reclPcocal connections, and the cause of the of causes and effiJt C' !ler.<f p established a regular order “ ts’ of principles and consequences which under an appearance of chance, governs the universe “ndmain’ tains the equtlibnum of the world. Thus he -ave t o’ftre motion and activity, to air elasticity, to matter weiHit and density • he made air lighter than water, metals heaver than earth wood’lesZ cohesive than steel■ he ordered the flame to assend, the stone to fall, the plant to vegetate ; to man, whom he decreed to S ° serve^fra“" exist?0 T”7 substances> and Yet wished to preve hls trad existence, he gave the faculty of perception Rv th s faculty, every action injurious to his life gives£ 1• nd Preserve his existence. Self-love the ° happiness, and an aversion to pain, are tile essential the8"!'™ “fThe^elements aro°un'd h?m h” ™ ° * of inevitnhlo / elements around him, he is exposed to a variety severe on the JthU h“d, 'f- ™ dpCTee Mature appears too diminishing the other Qi/i? a^menting the one, and work of mv hands i “S 'Wem[n"'y «>id «» him, “ Feeble The world in whkhT nUWe J°U n°thin^’ and 1 8ive ™u life, and yet I grant you t ,e us“ it ™ y°"r Of good and evil Tt IT * \ Y»u will find in it a mixture the arbitrator of your lot; I place your destiny i„yo“r hands® ’ �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 17 —Yes, man is become the artificer of his fate ; it is himself who has created in turn the vicissitudes of his fortune, his successes and his disappointments; and if, when he reflects on the sorrows which he has associated to human life, he has reason to lament his weakness and his folly, he has perhaps still more right to presume upon his force, and be confident in his energies, when he recollects from what point he has set out, and to what height he has been capable of elevating himself. CHAP. VI. Or ig in a l St at e of Ma n . In the origin of things, man, formed equally naked both as to body and mind, found himself thrown by chance upon a land confused and savage. An orphan, deserted by the unknown power that had produced him, he saw no supernatural beings at hand to advertise him of wants that he owed merely to his senses * and inform him of duties springing solely from those wants. Like other animals, without experience of the past, without knowledge of the future, he wandered in forests, guided and governed purely by the affections of his nature. By the pain of hunger he was directed to seek food, and he provided for his subsistence; by the inclemencies of the weather, the desire was excited of covering his body, and he made himself cloathing; by the attraction of a powerful pleasure, he approached a fellow being, and perpetuated his species. Thus the impressions he received from external objects, awakening his faculties, developed by degrees his understand ing, and began to instruct his profound ignorance; his wants called forth his industry ; his dangers formed his mind to courage ; he learned to distinguish useful from pernicious plants, to resist the elements, to seize upon his prey, to defend his life; and his misery was alleviated. Thus self-love, aversion to pain, and desire of happiness, were the simple and powerful motiyes which drew man from the savage and barbarous state in which Nature had placed him: and now that his life is sown with enjoyment, that he can every day count upon some pleasure, he may applaud himself and say, “ It is I' who have produced the blessings that encompass me ; Jft am the fabricator of my own felicity ; a secure habitation, commodious raiment, an abundance of wholesome provision in rich variety, smiling valleys, fertile hills, populous empires, these are the works of my hand: but for me, the earth, given up to disorder, would have been nothing more than a poisonous swamp, a savage forest, and a hideous desert!” True, mortal creator! I pay thee homage ! Thou hast measured the extent of the heavens, and counted the stars; thou hast drawn the lightning from the D �18 A SURVEY OF THE clouds, conquered the fury of the sea and the tempest, and subjected all the elements to thy will! But oh ! how many errors are mixed with these sublime energies ! CHAP. VII. Pr in c ipl e s o f So c ie t y . In the mean time, wandering in woods and upon the borders of rivers, in pursuit of deer and of fish, the first human beings, hunters and fishermen, beset with dangers, assailed by enemies, tormented by hunger, by reptiles, and by the animals they chased, felt their individual weakness; and, impelled by a com mon want of safety, and a common sentiment of the same evils, they united their powers and their strength. When one man was exposed to danger, numbers succoured and defended him ; when one failed in provision, another shared with him his prey. Men thus associated for the security of their existence, for the augmentation of their faculties, for the protection of their enjoy ment ; and the principle of society was that of self-love. Afterwards, instructed by the repeated experience of divers accidents, by the fatigues of a wandering life, by the anxiety resulting from frequent scarcity, men reasoned with themselves, and said, “ Why should we consume our days in search of the scattered fruits which a parsimonious soil affords ? Why weary ourselves in the pursuit of prey that escape us in the woods or the waters ? Let us assemble under our hand the animals that nourish us ; let us apply our cares to the increase and defence of them. Their produce will afford us a supply of food, with their spoils we may clothe ourselves, and we shall live exempt from the fatigues of the day, and solicitude for the morrow.” And aiding each other, they seized the nimble kid and the timid sheep ; they tamed the patient camel, the ferocious bull, and the impetuous horse ; and applauding themselves on the success of their industry, they sat down in the joy of their hearts, and began to taste repose and tranquillity: and thus self-love, the prin ciple of all their reasoning, was the instigator to every art and every enjoyment. Now that men could pass their days in leisure, and the com munication of their ideas, they turned upon the earth, upon the heavens, and upon themselves an eye of curiosity and reflection. They observed the course of the seasons, the action of the elements, the properties of fruits and plants; and they applied their minds to the multiplication of their enjoyments. Remark ing in certain countries the nature of seeds, which contain within themselves the faculty of reproducing the parent plant, they employed to their own advantage this property of Nature ; they committed to the earth barley, wheat, and rice, and reaped a �r e v o l u t io n s OF EMPIRES. 19 nroduce equal to their most sanguine hopes. Thus they found Of obtaining witbin.a small . necessity of perpetual wandering, a plentiful and durable s io c k of provision:and encouraged by this discovery, they prepared for themselves fixed habitations, they constructed houses, villages, and towns' they assumed the form of tribes and of nations : and thusZs^-Le rendered the parent of everything that genius has effected or human power performed. By the sole aid then of his faculties, has man been able to raise himself to the astonishing height of his present fortune, hapnv would have been his lot, had he, scrupulously observing the law imprinted on his nature, constantly fulfilled the object o it ’ But, by a fatal imprudence, sometimes overlooking and some times transgressing its limits, he plunged in an abysss of errors an misfortunes, and self-love, now disordered, and now blind, was converted into a prolific source of calamities. iili CHAP. VIII. So u r c e of t he Ev il s o f So c ie t y . , In reality, scarcely were the faculties of men expanded, than, seized by the attraction of objects which flatter the senses, they gave themselves up to unbridled desires. The s^eet sensations which nature had annexed to their true wants, to attach them to life, no longer sufficed. Not satisfied with the fruits which the earth offered them, or their industry produced they were desirous of heaping up enjoyments, and they coveted those which their fellow-creatures possessed. A strong man rose up' ’ weak one to tear from him the profit of his labour; the weak man solicited the succour of a neighbour weak like himself, to repel the violence. The strong- man in his turn associated him self with another strong man, and they said, ‘‘ Why shoul we fatigue our arms in producing enjoyments which we find m hands of the feeble, who are unable to defend themselves . Let us unite and plunder them. They shall toil for us,, andwe shall enjoy in indolence the fruit of their exertions. The s1jong thus associated for the purpose of oppression, and the weak t resistance, men reciprocally tormented each other, and a fatal and general discord was established upon the earth, m which the passions, assuming a thousand new forms, have never cease to generate a regular train of calamities. Thus that very principle of self-love, which, when restrained within the limits of prudence, was a source of improvement and felicity, became transformed, in its blind and disordered state into a contagious poison. Cupidity, the daughter and companion of ignorance, has produced all the mischiefs that have desolat the globe. �20 A SURVEY OF THE Yes, ignorance and the love of accumulation, these are the two sources of all the plagues that infest the life of man ! Thev have inspired him with false ideas of his happiness, and promoted him to misconstrue and infringe the laws of nature, as they re lated to the connexion between him and exterior objects. Through them his conduct has been injurious to his own existence, and he has thus violated the duty he owes to himself; they have for tified his heart against compassion, and his mind against the dictates of justice, and he has thus violated the duty he owes to others By ignorance and inordinate desire, man has armed himself against man, family against family, tribe against tribe and the earth is converted into a bloody theatre of discord and robbery. They have sown the seeds of secret war in the bosom ot every state, divided the citizens from each other, and the same society is constituted of oppressors and oppressed, of mas ters and slaves. They have taught the heads of nations, with audacious insolence, to turn the arms of the society against itself and to build upon mercenary avidity the fabric of political despo tism: or they have taught a more hypocritical and deep-laid project, that imposed, as the dictate of heaven, lying sanctions and a sacrilegious yoke; thus rendering avarice the source of credulity. In fine, they have corrupted every idea of good and evil, just and unjust, virtue and vice: they have misled nations m a never ending labyrinth of calamity and mistake. Ignorance S?dJhe ?V?,0f accumulation!—These are the malevolent beino's that have laid waste the earth; these are the decrees of fate that have overturned empires; these are the celestial maledictions that have struck those walls once so glorious, and converted the splendour of a populous city into a sad spectacle of ruin!—Since thenA™ Jr°™ his own bosom a11 the evils proceeded that have vexed the life of man, it was there also he ought to have sought the remedies, where only they are to be found. CHAP. IX. Th e Or ig in of Go v e r n m e n t a n d La w s . In truth, the period soon arrived when men, tired of the ills they occasioned each other, sighed after peace; and reflecting on the nature and causes of those ills, they said, “ We mutually injure one another by our passions, and from a desire to grasD every thing we m reality possess nothing. What one rawshes to-day, another tears from him to-morrow, and our cupidity renS T °Ur °,Wn heads- Let us es^blish arbitrators, who shall decide our claims and appease our variances. When the strong rises up against the weak, the arbitrator shall repel him • and the life and property of each being under a common guaran tee and protection, we shall enjoy all the blessings of nature ” �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 21 Conventions, tacit or expressed, were thus introduced into society, and became the rule of the actions of individuals, the measure of their claims, and the law of their reciprocal relations. Chiefs were appointed to enforce the observance of the compact, and to these the people > entrusted the balance of rights, and the sword to punish violations. Then a happy equilibrium of powers and of action was esta blished, which constituted the public safety. The names of equity and justice were acknowledged and revered. Every man, able to enjoy in peace the fruits of his labour, gave himself up to all the energies of his soul; and activity, awakened and kept alive by the reality or the hopes of enjoyment, forced art and nature to display all their treasures. The fields were covered with harvests, the valleys with flocks, the hills with vines, the sea with ships, and man was happy and powerful upon the earth. The disorder his imprudence had caused, his wisdom thus re medied. But this wisdom was still the effect of the laws of na ture in the organization of his being. It was to secure his own en joyments, that he was led to respect those of another, and the de sire of accumulation found its corrective in enlightened self-love. Self-love, the eternal spring of action in every individual, was thus the necessary basis of all associations; and upon the obser vance of this natural law has the fate of every nation depended. Have the factitious and conventional laws of any society accorded with this law, and corresponded to its demands ? In that case every man, prompted by an overpowering instinct, has exerted all the faculties of his nature, and the public felicity has been the result of the various portions of individual felicity. Have these laws, on the contrary, restrained the effort of man in his pursuit of happiness ? In that case his heart, deprived of all its natural motives, has languished in inaction, a»d the oppres sion of individuals has engendered general weakness. Self-love, impetuous and rash, renders man the enemy of man, and of consequence perpetually tends to the dissolution of society. It is for the art of legislation, and for the virtue of ministers, to temper the grasping selfishness of individuals, to keep each man’s desire to possess every thing in a nice equipoise, and thus to ren der the subjects happy, in order that, in the struggle of this with any other society, all the members should have an equal interest in the preservation and defence of the common wealth. From hence it follows, that the internal splendour and pros perity of empires, have been in proportion to the. equity of their governments; and their external power respectively, in propor tion to the number of persons interested in the maintenance of the political constitution, and their degree of interest in that maintenance. On the other hand, the multiplication of men by complicating �A SURVEY OF THE 22 their ties, having rendered the demarcation of their rights a point of difficult decision; the perpetual play of the passions having given rise to unexpected incidents; the conventions that were formed having proved vicious, inadequate, or null; the authors of the laws having either misunderstood the object of them, or dissembled it, and the persons appointed to execute them, instead of restraining the inordinate desires of others, having abandoned themselves to the sway of their own avidity society has, by these causes united, »been thrown into trouble and disorder; and defective laws and unjust governments, the result of cupidity and ignorance, have been the foundatio’n of the misfortunes of the people, and the subversion of states. CHAP. X. Ge n e r al Ca u s e s of t he Pr o s pe r it y o f An c ie n t St a t es. Su c h , O man, who enquirest after wisdom, have been the causes of the revolutions of those ancient states, of which you contemplate the ruins! Upon whatever spot I fix my view, or to whatever period my thoughts recur, the same principles of eleva tion and decline, of prosperity and destruction, present them selves to the mind. If a people were powerful, if an empire nourished, it was because the laws of convention were conform able to those of nature; because the government procured to every man respectively the free use of his faculties, the equal security of his person and property. On the contrary, if an em pire has fallen to ruin or disappeared, it is because the laws were vicious or imperfect, or a corrupt government has checked their operation. If laws and government, at first rational and just, have afterwards become depraved, it is because the alternative of good and evil derives from the nature of the heart of man, from the succession of his inclinations, the progress of his knowledge, the combination of events and circumstances, as the history of the human species proves. In the infancy of nations, when men still lived in forests, all subject to the same wants, and endowed with the same faculties they were nearly equal in strength; and this equality was a circumstance highly advantageous to the formation of society. Each individual finding himself independent of every other,.no one was the slave, and no one had the idea of being master of another. Untaught man knew neither servitude nor tyranny. Supplied with the means of providing sufficiency for his sub sistence, he thought not of borrowing from strangers. Owing nothing, and exacting nothing, he judged of the rights of others y his own. Ignorant also of the art of multiplying enjoyments, he provided only what was necessary; and superfluity being unknown to him, the desire to engross of consequence remained unexcited; or if excited, as it attacked others in those posses- �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES, 23 sions that were wholly indispensable, it was resisted with energy, and the very foresight of this resistance maintained a salutary anTh^sm/rtghjaieequah\/,mwithout the aid of convention main tained personal liberty,' secured individual property, and pro duced order and good manners. Each man laboured separate y and for himself; and his heart being occupied, he wandered not in pursuit of unlawful desires. His enjoyments were few, u his^wants were satisfied: and, as nature had made these wants "tensive than his ability, the labourr of his hands soon pro duced abundance ; abundance population, the arts deveiopea themselves, cultivation extended, and the earth, covered with numerous inhabitants, was divided into different domains The relations of men becoming more complicated, the inter or order of society was more difficult to maintain. lime and in dustry having created affluence, cupidity awoke from its slum ber/and as Equality, easy between individuals, could not sub sist between families, the natural balance was destroyed It was necessary to supply the loss by means of an a^ial * a> lance • it was necessary to appoint chiefs, and establish laws, but as these were occasioned by cupidity m the experience of primitive times they could not but partake of the origin from which they sprung. Various circumstances, however, concurred to temper the disorder, and make it indispensable for govern ments to be just. , States being at first weak, and having external enemies to fear, it was in reality of importance to the chiefs not to oppress the subiect. By diminishing the interest of the citizens in their government, they would have diminished their means of resist ance- they would have facilitated foreign invasion, and thus endangered their own existence for superfluous enjoyments. Internally, the character of the people was repellant to tvranny. Men had too long contracted habits of independence ; their wants were too limited, and the consciousness of their own strength too inseparable from their minds. States being closely knit together, it was difficult to divide the citizens, in order to oppress some by means of others. lheir communication with each other was too easy, and their interests too simple and evident. Besides, every man being at once pro prietor and cultivator, he had no inducement to sell himseli, and th© despot would have been unable to find mercenaries. If dissensions arose, it was between family and family, one faction with another; and a considerable number had still one common interest. Disputes, it is true, were in this case more warm but the fear of foreign invasion appeased the discord, it the oppression of a party was effected-, the earth being open be fore it, and men still simple in their manners, finding every where the same advantages, the party migrated and carried their independence to another quarter. �24 A SURVEY OF THE prosperity and power.” enjOyed “ t’lemselves -»«ans of eorat^Te T4t" JT1 h.is(welI-'?‘>i* i" the constitution of his ^ ountry, he felt a lively interest in its preservation • and if a fn reign power invaded it, having his habitation and his field to defend, he carried to the combat the ardour of a personal cause and his patriotic exertions were prompted by self-defence ’ USeM tO the Public “Clted its esieem and tues were multiplied by^sdf-love. taIentS and C’ViI vir“ h £VCry cltlz.en was called upon indiscriminately to contriandt^t pr°P°rtl°nvof property and personal effort,7the armies a treasury of the state were inexhaustible. 6 eaPth WSS free’ and its Possession easy and secure every man was a proprietor, and the division of propertv bv rendering luxury impossible, preserved the purity of manners 7 A« every man ploughed his own field" cultivation was more œnXS^ -d “al opulent abuJdan?e of Provision rendered subsistence easv ponula ptenitSdIy '~d- “d states « arriveTaHSr’ of Aeommercé°ïarted an/reatHr ‘''“r" the consl™P‘!«b the desire actrnly, and increased their reciprocal enjoyments advantage’ of plaC6S’ Certain eP°chas< combined the avantage of good government with that of bein«- nlaced in Xr of lrOadeC,rCand‘nO„n an? ,C°““erce< ‘hey became’rifh mÎgàz.uies or rraae, and powerful seats of dominion T+ • Z“of ‘{he Nn“ “a^gX ¡S’* ‘he Sp'end0Ur of a ‘housX ’mft ™ tC-eïïs^ I retsPe<:ting these monuments, my Travels into Syria, vol. ii n 211 rom the town or village of Samaouat the course of the Fnnhrnt«^’ • compamed with a double bank, which descends as far a? in, r !'rate.s,is ac‘ Tigris, and from thence to the sea bein°- a length nf »hr. <■ Junction with the French measure. The height o'f these “arrifio Lm 2f °Ut a hundred lea&ues creases as y„„ ad™“ fS he sea ■ it >>« aheen feet. But for them, the tauda&nhe riverwild btT.ho”1™,’0 around, which is ta, to an extent of twenty or twenty“nd™“? �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 25 those conduits of Medea those fortresses of the Desert, those , * aqueducts of Palmyra, those temples, those Port^^o“^ these immense labours were little oppressive to the nafrons that completed them, because they were the fruit of the equal and united effort of individuals free to act and ardent to desìi e Thus ancient states prospered, because social were conformable to the true laws of nature, and because the subjects of those states, enjoying .liberty and the purity of their persons and their property, could display all the extent of their faculties, and all the energy of self-love. CHAP. XI. Ge n e r a l Ca u s e s o f t h e Re v o l u t io n s a n d Ru in o f An c ie n t St a t e s . In the mean time the inordinate desire of accumulation had excited- a constant and universal struggle among men ; and this struggle, prompting individuals and societies to reciprocal in vasions, occasioned perpetual commotions and successive revo- 1U At'first, in the savage and barbarous state of the first human , beings, this inordinate desire, daring and ferocious in its natuie, taught rapine, violence, and murder; and the progress of civilization, was for a long time at a stand. , Afterwards, when societies began to be formed, tne effect, ot bad habits communicating itself to laws and government, civil institutions became corrupt, and arbitrary and factitious rights notwithstanding these banks, there has been ¿n ^oder,\ timeJ to which has covered the whole triangle formed by the junction of this l ive . the Tigris, being a space of country of 130 square leagues. By the stagnation of tl'eie Outers 1 epiden.ical disease oftl.e most fatal nature was o=e< It follows from hence, 1. That all <he flat country border»? upon these tvers was originally a marsh; 2. That this marsh e°uld not have been luhcib previously to the construction of the banks m question; 3. That these bank could not have been the work but of a population prior as to date;.an t elevation of Babylon therefore must have been posterior to that ot M“en, * as I think I have chronologically demonstrated in the memoir above cited. See Encyclopedia, vol. xiii. of Antiquities. * The modern Aberbidjan, which was a part of Medea, the mountains of Kourdestan, and those of Diarbekr, abound with subterranean canals, by means of which the ancient inhabitants conveyed water to their parched soil in order to fertilize it. It was regarded as a meritorious act, and a religions duty prescribed by Zoroaster, who, instead of preaching celibacy, mortifica tions, and other pretended virtues of the Monkish sort, repeats continually in the passages that are preserved respecting him in the Sad-der and the Aenciavesta, “ That the action most pleasing to God is to plough and cultivate the earth, to water it with running streams, to multiply vegetation and living beings, to have numerous flocks, young and fruitful virgins, a multitude ot children, &c. &c.” E �26 A SURVEY OF THE were established, which gave the people depraved ideas of Justice and morality, Be.cause ®ne nj-aib for example, was stronger than another this inequality, the result of accident, was takerrfor the law of ; * nature and because the life of the weak was in his power and he did not take it from him, he arrogated over his person the absurd right of property, and individual slavery prepared the way for. the slavery of nations. 1 F Because^ the chief of a family could exercise an absolute au thority in his own house, he made his inclinations and affections the sole rule of his conduct; he conferred and withheld the conveniences and enjoyments of life without respect to the law of equality or justice, and paternal tyranny laid the foundation of political despotism+. In societies formed upon such bases, time and industry.having developed riches, inordinate desire, restricted by the laws be * came artificial without being less active. Under the mask of union and civil peace, it engendered in the bosom of every state an intestine war; in which the citizens, divided into opposite corps of orders, classes, and families, aimed to appropriate to PrXTe^thaX a“CiT1 Philos°Phie»s and politicians have Jaknrd^wT^Ta’ ave laid it down as a inciple, that mtn are born unequal, that nature has created some to be free and others to slaves. Expressions of this kind are to be found in Arktotle’ and eyen ln Plato, called the divine, doubtless in the X iías t e thV CmSlca¡ rev^nes which he promulgated. With all the people of antiquity Íí/htGof m 6 Roinan!’ lhe ¿^heñíaos, the right of the strongest was the díordeis ánd°DübHnd p01« the Pd»^P¡e are derived all the political Oisorcleis and public national crimes that al present exist. * charter0'’ We u C"'d J e“y '” ite a lo“8 «”<• Important . * cnapter. We might prove in it beyond contradictmn, that all the abuses of that0* 3 g0Veril“ent* 53Ve sPl unSfrom those of domestic government from ! th« government called patriarch,|, wWd> sup„ficia| mi'ds "¿„Hed yitbout having analyzed it. Numberless facts demonstrate, that with every w Wj i s "» rase b,carous sts,e’1110 the chi drendhV ")So!ent desP0<- The wife is his slave, wife and da i! Sfcl vanis’ This king sleeps or smokes his pipe, while his X and c?Í vWi/erfOr? a,i thedrudge“'y of the house, aXen that of such5 sXlu ? ’ as far. as occ,’patioiis of this nature are practised in allowed to beat She T'‘er iave,th£tb°yS actluired strength, than they are dff uprni them Idhl^3 Q'ani w"’" Serve ar,d wait uPon them as they peasant In n l S,mi'a*' 1.tO U1IS is the state of onr own uncivilized an J tlm co diboT!^LaS CIVll,2at,on sPreads> the manners become milder, “ me condition of the women improves, till, by a contrary excess thev �RÉVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 27 themselves, under the name of supreme power, the ability of grasping and controlling every thing at the will of their passion . ït is this spirit of rapacity, the disguises of which are rnnumerable, but its operation and end-uniformly the same, that has been the perpetual scourge of nations. . Sometimes opposing social compact, or destroying that whic already existed, it has abandoned the inhabitants of a coun y to the tumultuous shock of all their jarring principles ; and the dissolved states, under the name of anarchy, have been tormented by the passions of every individual member. . . ‘Sometimes a people jealous of its liberty, haying appointed agents to administer, these agents have assumed to themselves the powers of which they were only the guardians ; have em ployed the public funds in corrupting elections, gaming partisans, and dividing the people against itself. By these means, from temporary, they have become perpetual, from elective, hereditary magistrates ; and the state, agitated by the intrigues o ambitious, by the bribes of the wealthy leaders of factions, by the venality of the indolent poor, by the empiricism of deciaimers, has been troubled with all the inconveniences of democracy. In one country, the chiefs equal in strength, mutually afraid of each other, have formed vile compacts and coalitions, and portioning out power, rank, honours, have arrogated to them selves privileges and immunities ; have erected themselves in o separate bodies and distinct classes ; have tyrannised in common over the people, and, under the name of aristocracy the state has been tormented by the passions of the wealthy and the greaL In another country, tending to the same end by different means, sacred impostors have taken advantage of the creduli y of the ignorant. In the secrecy of temples, and behind the veil of altars, thy have made the Gods speak and act ; have delivered oracles, worked pretended miracles, ordered sacrifices, imposed offerings, prescribed endowments ; and under the name theocracy and religion, the state has been tormented by the passions oi priests. Sometimes, weary of its disorders, or of its tyrants, à nation, to diminish the sources of its evils, gave itself a single master. In that case, if the powers of the prince were limited, his only desire was to extend them ; if indefinite, he abused the trust that was confided to him; and, under the name of monarchy, the state was tormented by the passions of kings and princes. Then the factions, taking advantage of the general discontent, flattered the people with the hope of a better master ; 5^^ scattered gifts and promises, dethroned the despot to substitut» themselves in his stead; and disputes for the succession or the division^of power have tormented the state with the disorder© ' and devastations of cioil war. �28 A SURVEY OF THE In fine, among these rivals, one individual more artful or more fortunate than the rest, gainingthe ascendancy, concentred the whole power m himself. By a singular phenomenon, one man obtained the mastery over millions of his fellow creatures, against their will and without their consent; and thus the art of tyranny appears also to have been the offspring of inordinate desire. Observing the spirit of egotism that divided mankind, the ambitious adroitly fomented this spirithe flattered the vanity of one excited the jealousy of another, favoured the avarice of A third inflamed the resentment of a fourth, irritated the passions ■ - oPPosjng interests or prejudices, he sowed the seeds tlLdl.visi°lls and hatred. He promised to the poor the spoil of the rich, to the rich the subjugation of the poor; threatened this bv di.trnS h T Tiby an°ther; and isolating the citizens by distrust, he formed his own strength out of their weakness and imposed on them the yoke of opinion, the knots of which they i T r tbeirKowa hands- By means of the army he extorted conti ibuhons ; by the contributions he disposed of the armyby the corresponding play of money and places, he bound all whicPh °t£e a T cnnhat W%S nOt tO be broken’ and ^e states ™ tbJ.y composed fe11 into the slow decay of the1 fnrmdJdibnie Same Spnn®’ varyinS its action under all the forms that have been enumerated, incessantly attack the continuity of states, and an eternal circle of vicissitudes have b °m an eternal circle of passions. enualivXn!tanrSpiriii°f e^otis,m 0Pei ted two principal effects a * equally destructive : the one, that by dividing societies into all thX dh^T1?’ a StltG °f deblhty was Produced, which facilitated the ni • °n; the other, that always tending to concentre t le powei in a single hand, it occasioned a successive absorption existence? tO pe&Ce and to their coram™ nJh8* 8 +n a sblSde state? the nation had been absorbed in a « 1 Pafty ma family, and that family in an individual, ' and statT Id a^SOnPrOn °f a similar kind be^een state of nation^ Tw l W 5 aU the fllschiefe m the relative situation divPduX ’ °t iar P?duced in the civil relation of inOf thp °?e 7 subjected its neighbour city, and the result and !In? JUe a WaS# prOV1"ce Province swallowed up province: and thus produced a kingdom; between two kingdoms a con-of societies: beyimnncr 3V^1S has 111 a11 insfances been the constant progress ^great division ofYmw S 7^ a state anarchy or democracy, that is, with a monarchy Does iV’nni 1^ BaS3ed to aristocracy, and from aristocracy the“democratic for• n d° th7 those who institute states under between that and nionarchv^and^aÎ tl Uudergo afl the intervening troubles chief is the most mini-.i y ’ and *lat f ,e suPreWe administration by a single is the most natuial government, as well as that best calculated for peace ? �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 29 quest took place, and thus furnished an empire of unwieldy bulk. Did the internal force of these states increase in proportion to their mass ? On the contrary, it was diminished ; and far front the condition of the people being happier, it became every day more oppressive and wretched, by causes inevitably flowing from the nature of things. . Because, as the boundaries of states became extended, their administration became more complicated and difficult; and to give motion to the mass, it was necessary to increase the prero gatives of the sovereign, and all proportion was thus annihilated between the duty of governors and their power. Because despots, feeling their weakness, dreaded all those circumstances that developed, the force of nations, and made it their study to attenuate it. Because nations, estranged from each other by the prejudices of ignorance and the ferocity of hatred, seconded the perversity of governments, and employing a standing force for reciprocal offence, aggravated their slavery. Because, in proportion as the balance between states' was broken, it became easy for the strong to overwhelm the weak. Because, in proportion as state became blended with state, the people were stripped of their laws, their customs, everything by which they were distinguished from each other, and thus lost the great mover selfishness, which gave them energy. And despots, considering empires in the light of domains, and the people as their property, abandoned themselves to depreda tions, and the licentiousness of the most arbitrary authority. And all the force and w ealth of nations were converted into a supply for individual expence and personal caprice; and kings, in the wearisomeness of satiety, followed the dictates of every 'factious and depraved taste . * They must have gardens con structed upon arches, and rivers carried to the summit of moun tains; for them fertile fields must be changed into parks for deer; lakes formed where there was no water, and rocks elevated hi those lakes ; they must have palaces constructed of marble and * It is equally worthy of remark, that the conduct and manners of princes and kings of every country and every age, are found to be precisely the same at similar periods, whether of the formation or dissolution of empires. History every where presents the same pictures of luxury and folly ; of parks, gardfus, lakes, rocks, palaces/ pavilions, furniture, excess of the table, wine, women, concluding with brutality. The absurd rock in the garden of Versailles has alone cost three millions. I have sometimes calculated what might have been done with the expence of the three pyramids of Gizah, and 1 have found that it would easily have con structed, from the Red Sea to Alexandria, a canal 150 feet wide, and .30 deep, completely covered with cut stones and a parapet, together with a fortified and commercial town, Consisting of 400 houses furnished with cisterns. V hat difference in point of utility between such a canal and these pyramids. �30 A SURVEY OF THE porphyry, and the furniture ornamented with gold and diamonds.xttilh°ns of hands were thus employed in sterile labours • and the luxury of princes being imitated by their parasites, anil de scending-step by step to the lowest ranks, became a general source of corruption and empoverishment. And the ordinary tributes being no longer adequate to the in. satiable thirst ot enjoyment, they were augmented: the conse quence of which was, that the cultivator, finding his toil increase without any indemnity, lost his courage ; the merchant, seeing himself robbed, took a disgust to industry; the multitude, con demned to a state of poverty, exerted themselves no farther than the procurement of necessaries required, and every species of productive activity was at a stand. And the surcharge of taxes rendering the possession of lands burthensome, the humble proprietor abandoned his field, or sold it to the man of opulence ; and the mass of wealth centered in a tew individuals. As the laws and institutions favoured this accumulation, nations were divided into a small body of indolent rich, and a multitude of mercenary poor.' The people, reduced to indigence, debased themselves ; the great, cloyed with super fluity, became depraved ; and the number of citizens interested in the preservation of the state decreasing, its strength and ex istence were by so much the more precarious. In another view, as there -was nothing to excite emulation or encourage instruction, the minds of men sunk into profound ignorance. 1 The administration of affairs being secret and mysterious, there existed no means of reform or hope of better times ; and as the chiefs ruled only by violence and fraud, the people considered taem but as a faction of public enemies, and all harmony be,e governed, and the governors was at an end. 1 he states of opulent Asia became enervated by all these vices, it happened at length that the vagrant and poor inhabitants ot the deserts and the mountains adjacent, coveted the enjoy ments of the fertile plains, and, instigated by a common cupidity, they attacked polished empires, and overturned the thrones of despots Such revolutions were rapid and easy, because the policy of tyrants had enfeebled the citizens, raised the fortresses, destroyed the warlike spirit of resistance, and because the op pressed subject was without personal interest, and the mercenary soldier without courage. Hordes of barbarians having reduced whole nations to a state Of slavery, it followeu that empires, formed of a conquering and a v anquished people, united in their bosom two classes of men es sentially opposite and inimical to each other. All the principles of society were dissolved. There was no longer either a com mon interest or public spirit: on the contrary, a distinction of �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 31 easts and conditions was established, that reduced the mainten ance of disorder to a regular system ; and accordingly as a man was descended from this or that blood, he was born vassal or tyrant, live stock or proprietor. The oppressors being in this case Less numerous than the op pressed, it became necessary, in order to support this false equi librium, to bring the science of tyranny to perfection. The art of governing was now nothing more than that of subjecting the many to the few. To obtain an obedience so contrary to in stinct, it was necessary to establish the most severe penalties ; and the cruelty of the laws rendered the manners atrocious. The distinction of persons also establishing in the state two codes ofjustice, two species of rights, the people, placed between the natural inclinations of their hearts, and the oath they were obliged to pronounce, had two contradictory consciences; and their ideas of just and unjust had no longer any foundation in the understanding. Under such a system the people fell into a state of depression and despair ; and, the accidents of nature increasing the prepon derance of evil, terrified at this groupe of calamities, they re ferred the causes of them to superior and invisible powers be cause they had tyrants upon earth, they supposed there to be tyrants in heaven ; and superstition came in aid to aggravate the disasters of nations. Hence originated gloomy and misanthropic systems of reli gion, which painted the gods malignant and envious like human despots. To appease them, man offered the sacrifice of all his enjoyments, punished himself with privations, and overturned the laws of nature. Considering his pleasures as crimes, his sufferings as expiations, he endeavoured to cherish a passion for pain, and to renounce self-love ; he persecuted his senses, de tested his life, and by a self-denying and unsocial system of morals, nations were plunged in the sluggishness of death. But, as provident nature had endowed the heart of man with inexhaustible hope, perceiving his desires disappointed of hap piness here, he pursued it elsewhere ; by a sweet illusion, he formed to himself another country, an asylum, where, out of the reach of tyrants, he should regain all his rights. Hence a new disorder arose. Smitten with his imaginary world, man de spised the world of nature : for chimerical hopes he neglected the reality. He no longer considered his life but as a fatiguing journey, a painful dream ; his body as a prison that withheld him from his felicity ; the earth as a place of exile and pilgrimage, which he disdained to cultivate. A sacred sloth then established itself in the world: the fields were deserted, waste lands in creased, empires were dispeopled, monuments neglected, and every where ignorance, superstition, and fanaticism, uniting their baleful effects, multiplied devastations and ruins. �32' A SURVEY OF THE Thus, agitated by their own passions, men, whether in t<heir individual capacity or as collective bodies, always rapacious and improvident, passing from tyranny to slavery, from pride to abjectness, from presumption to despair, have been themselves the eternal instruments of their misfortunes. Such was the simplicity of the principles that regulated the fate of ancient states ; such was the series of causes and effects consecutive and connected with each other, according to which they rose or fell in the scale of human welfare, just as the phy sical causes of the human heart were therein observed or in fringed. A hundred divers nations, a hundred powerful empires, in their incessant vicissitudes, have read again and again these instructive lessons to mankind.—And these lessons are mute and forgotten ! The diseases of past times have appeared again in the present I The heads of the different governments have prac tised again, without restraint, exploded projects of deception and despotism ! The people have wandered as before in the labyrinths of superstition and ignorance 1 And what, added the Genius, calling up his energies afresh, is the consequence of all this? Since experience is useless, since salutary examples are forgotten, the scenes which were acted before are now about to be renew ed; revolutions will again agitate people and empires ; powerful thrones will, as before, be overturned; and terrible catastrophes remind the human species, that the laws of nature, and the precepts of wisdom and truth, cannot be trampled upon in vain. CHAP. XII. Le s s o n s t aught bv An c ie n t , r e pe a t e d in Mo d e r n Tim e s . In this manner did the Genius address me. Struck with the reasonableness and coherence of his discourse, and a multipli city of ideas crowding upon my mind, which, while they thwarted my habits, led my judgment at the same time captive, I remained absorbed in profound silence. Meanwhile, as in this sombre and thoughtful disposition 1 kept my eyes fixed upon Asia, clouds of smoke and of flames at the north, on the shores of the Black Sea, and in the fields of the Crimea, suddenly attracted my at tention. They appeared to ascend at once from every part of the peninsula, and passing by the isthmus to the continent, they1 pursued their course, as if driven by an easterly wind, along the miry lake of Asoph, and were lost in the verdant plains of the Coban.' Observing more attentively the course of these clouds, I perceived that they w ere preceded or followed by swarms of living beings, which, like ants disturbed by the foot of a passen ger, were in lively action. Sometimes they seemed to move to wards and rush against each other, and numbers after the com- �REVOLUTIOlSrS OF EMPIRES. S3 cussion remained motionless. Disquieted at this spectacle, I Was endeavouring to distinguish the objects, when the Genius said to me : Do you see those fires which spread over the earth, and are you acquainted with their causes and effects?—O Genius! I replied, I see columns of flame and smoke, and as it were insects that accompany them ; but discerning with difficulty, as I do, the masses of towns and monuments, how can I distinguish such petty creatures ? I can see nothing more than that these insects seem to carry oh a sort of mock battles ♦ they advance, they approach towards each other, they attack, they pursue.—■ It is no mockery, said the Genius, it is the thing itself.—And what name, replied I, shall we give to these foolish animalculae that destroy each other ? Do they live only for a day, and is this shortlife further abridged by violence and murder ?—The Genius then once more touched my eyes and my ears. Listen, said he to me, and observe.x Immediately, turning ray eyes.inthe same direction, alas I said I, transpierced with anguish, these columns of flame, these insects, 0 Genius ! they are men, and the ravages of war ! These torrents of flame ascend from towns and villages set on fire ! I see the horsemen that light them. I see them sword in hand overrun the country. Old men, women, and children, in confused multitudes, fly before them. I see other horsemen, who, with their pikes upon their shoulders, accompany and direct them : I can even distinguish by their led horses, by their kalpacks, and by their tufts of hair that they , * are Tartars ; and without doubt those who pursue them in tri angular hats and green uniforms are Muscovites. I understand the whole : I perceive that the war has just broken out afresh between the empire of the Czars and the Sultans.—Not yet, replied the Genius ; this is only the prelude. These Tartars have been, and would still be troublesome neighbours ; the Muscovites are ridding themselves of them. Their country is an object of convenience to their less uncivilized enemies; it rounds and makes complete their dominions ; and as the first step in the project that has been conceived, the throne of the Guerais is overturned. In reality I saw the Russian flag hoisted over the Crimea, and their vessels scattered upon the Euxine. Meanwhile, at the cries of the fugitive Tartars, the Mussul man empire was in commotion. “ Our brethren,” exclaimed • A Tarter horseman has always two horses^ of which he leads orie in hand. The Kalpak is a bonnet made of the skin of a sheep or other animal. The part of the head covered by this bonnet is shaved, with the exception of a tuft about the size of a crown-piece, and which is suffered to grow to the length of seven or eight inches, precisely where our priests place their tonsure. It is by this tuff of hair, worn by the majority of Mussulmans, that the a^igel of the tomb is to take the elect and carry them into Paradise. �34 A SURVEY OF THE -the children of Mahomet, ££ are driven from their habitations ; the people of the prophet are outraged ; infidels are in posses sion of a consecrated land and profane the temples of Islamism ! , * Eet us arm ourselves to,avenge the glory of God and our own cause.” A general preparation for war then took place in the two empires. Armed men, provisions, ammunition, and all the murderous accoutrements of battle, were every where assembled. My attention was particularly attracted by the immense crowds •that in either nation thronged to the temples. On one side the Mussulmans, assembled before their mosques, washed their hands and feet, pared their nails, and combed their beard : then spreading carpets upon the ground, and turning themselves to wards the south, with their arms sometimes crossed and some times extended, they performed their genuflections and prostra tions. Recollecting the disasters they had experienced during * the last war, they cried : ££ God of clemency and pity, hast thou then abandoned thy faithful people ? Why dost thou, who hast promised to thy prophet the dominion of nations, and signalized religion by so many triumphs, deliver up true believers to the sword of infidels ;” And the Imans and the Santons said to the people : “ It is the chastisement of your sins. You eat pork, you drink wine, you touch things that are unclean : God has punished you. Do penance; purify vourselvefe; say your creed ; * fast from the rising of the sun to its setting; give the tenth of your goods to the mosques ; go to Mecca; and God will make your arms victorious.” Then, assuming courage, the people gave a general shout. ££ There is but one God,” said they in a transport of rage, ££ and Mahomet is his prophet! accursed be every one that believeth not!—Indulgent God ! grant us the favour to exterminate these Christians: it is for thy glory we fight, and by our death we are martyrs to thy name.”—And having offered sacrifices, they prepared themselves for battle. On the other hand, the Russians on their knees exclaimed : ££ Let us give thanks to God, and celebrate his power : he has strengthened our arm to humble his enemies. Beneficent God! incline thine ear to our prayers. To please thee we will for three days eat neither meat nor eggs. Permit us to exterminate these impious Mahometans, and overthrow their empire, and we will give thee the tenth of the spoil, and erect new temples to thy honour.” The priests then filled the churches with smoke, * It is not in the power of the sultan to cede to a foreign power a province inhabited by TRUE BELIEVERS. The people, instigated by the lawyers, would not fail to,revolt. This is one reason which has led those who know the Turks, to regard as chimerical the ceding of Candia, Cyprus, and Egypt, projected by certain European potentates. f There is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. ft 35 and said to the people: “ We pray for you, and God accepts our incense, and blesses your arms. Continue to fast and to fight; tell us the faults you have secretly committed; bestow your goods on the church ; we will absolve you of your sins, and you shan die in a state of grace.” And they sprinkled water on the people, distributed among them little bones of departed saints to serve as amulets and talismans; and the people breathed nothing but war and destruction. Struck with this contrasting picture of the same passions, and lamenting to myself their pernicious consequences, I was re flecting on the difficulty the common Judge would find in com-, plying with such opposite demands, when the Genius, from an impulse of angeiq vehemently exclaimed. What madness is this which strikes my ear ? What blind and fatal insanity possesses the human mind ? Sacrilegious prayers, return to the earth from whence you came ! Ye concave heavens, repel these murderous vows, these impious thanksgivings ! Is it thus, O man, you worship the Divinity .’ And do you think that he, whom you call Father of all, can receive with com placence the homage of free-booters and murderers ? Ye conquerors, with what sentiments does he behold your arms reeking with blood that he has created ? Ye conquered, what hope can you place in useless moans ? Is he a man that he should change, or the son of man that he should repent ? Is he governed like you by vengeance and compassion, by rage and by weariness! Base idea, how much unworthy of the Being of Beings ! Hear these men, and you would imagine that God is a being capricious and mutable ; that now he loves, and now he hates ; that he chastises one and indulges another: that hatred is engendered and nourished in his bosom ; that Jie spreads snares for men, and delights in the fatal effects of imprudence ; that he permits ill, and punishes it; that he foresees guilt, and acquiesces ; that he is to be bought with gifts like a partial judge ; that he reverses his edicts like an undiscerning despot; that he gives and revokes his favours because it is his will, and is to be appeased only by servility like a savage tyrant. I now completely understand what is the deceit of mankind, who have pretended that God made man in his own image, and who have really made God in theirs ; who have ascribed to him their weakness, their errors, ánd their vices; and in the conclusion, surprised at the con tradictory nature of their own assertions, have attempted to cloke it with hypocritical humility, and the pretended impotence of human reason, calling the delirium of their own understandings the sacred mysteries of heaven. They have said, God is without variableness, and they pray to him to change. They have said that he is incomprehensible, and they have undertaken to be interpreters of his will. �36 A SURVEY OF THE A race of impostors has made its appearance upon the earth, who, pretending to be in the confidence of God, and taking * upon themselves the office of instructing the people, have opened the flood-gates of falsehood and iniquity. They have affixed merit to actions which either are indifferent or absurd. They have dignified w ith the appellation of virtue the observance of certain postures, and the repetition of certain words and names. They have taught the impiety of eating certain meats on certain days rather than on others. It is thus the Jew would sooner die than wo.rk on the sabbath. It is thus the Persian would endure suffocation before he would blow the fire with his breath. It is thus the Indian places supreme perfection in smearing him self with cow-dung, and mysteriously pronouncing the word * Aum : It is thus the Mussulman believes himself purified from all his sins by the ablution of his head and his arms ; and dis putes sabre in hand, whether he ought to begin the ceremony at the elbowt or the points of his fingers. It is thus the Christian would believe himself damned, were he to eat the juice of animal food instead of milk or butter. What sublime and truly celestial doctrines! What purity of morals, and how worthy of apostleship and martyrdom ! I will cross the seas to teach these admirable laws to savage people and distant nations. I will say to them : i( Children of nature, how long will you wander in the paths of ignorance ? How long will you be blind to the true principles of morality and religion ? Visit civilized nations, and take lessons of pious and learned people. They will teach you, that to please God, you must in certain months of the year faint all day with hunger and thirst. They will teach you how you may shed the blood of your neighbour, and purify yourselves from the stain, by repeating’ a profession of faith, and making a methodical ablution : how you may rob him of his goods, and be absolved from the guilt, by sharing them with certain persons whose professions it is to live in idleness upon the labour of others.’’ * This word is in the religion of the Hindoos a sacred emblem of the Divinity. It is only to be pronounced in secret, without being heard by any one. Jf is formed of three letters, of which the first, a, signifies the principle of all, the creator, Brama; the second, u, the conservator, Vichenou ; and the lasr, m, the destroyer, who puts an end to all, Chiven. It is pronounced like the monosyllable om, and expresses the unity of those three Gods. The idea is precisely that of the Alpha and Omega mentioned in the New Testament. t This is one of the grand points of schism between the partizans of Omar and those of Ali. Suppose two Mahometans to meet on a journey, and to accost each other with brotherly affection: the hour of prayer arrives; one be gins his abolution at his fingers, the other at the elbow, and instantly they aré mortal enemies. O sublime importance of religious opinions1. O profound philosophy of the authors of lhepj. ■ ' 1 �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 37 Sovereign and mysterious Power of the Universe ! secret Mover of Nature ! Universal Soul of every thing that lives 1 infinite and incomprehensible Being, whom, under so many forms, mortals have ignorantly worshipped ! God, who in the immen sity of the heavens dost guide revolving worlds, and people the abyss of space with millions of suns : say, what appearance do those human insects, which I can with difficulty distinguish upon the earth, make in thy eyes ? When thou directest the stars in their orbits, what to thee are the worms that crawl in the dust ? Of what importance to thy infinite greatness are their distinctions of sects and parties ? And how art thou concerned with the sub tleties engendered by their folly ? And you, credulous men, shew me the efficacy of your prac tices ! During the many ages that you have observed or altered them, what change have yonr prescriplions wrought in the laws of nature ? Has the sun shone with greater brilliance ? Has the course of the seasons at all varied? Is the earth more fruitful, are the people more happy ? If God be good, how can he be pleased with your penances ? If he be infinite, what can your ho mage add to his glory ? Inconsistent men, answer these questions! Ye conquerors, who pretend by your arms to serve God, what need has he of your aid ? If he wishes to punish, are not earth quakes, volcanoes, and the thunderbolt in his hand ? And does a God of clemency know no other way of correcting but by ex termination ? Ye Mussulmans, if your misfortunes were the chastisements of heaven for the violation of the fine precepts, would prosperity be showered on the Franks who laugh at these things ? If it is by the laws of the Koran that God judges the earth, what were the principles by which he governed the nations that existed be fore the prophet, the numerous people who drank wine, eat pork, and travelled not to Mecca, yet to whom it was given to raise powerful empires ? By what laws did he judge the Sabeans of Nineveh and of Babylon; the Persian, who woi’shipped fire; the Greek and Roman idolaters ; the ancient kingdoms of the Nile, and your own progenitors the Arabs and Tartars ? How does he at present judge the various nations that are ignorant of your worship, the numerous casts of Indians, the vast em pire of the Chinese, the swarthy tribes of Africa, the islands of the Atlantic Ocean, the colonies of America ? Presumptuous and ignorant men, who arrogate to yourselves the whole earth, were God to summon at once all past and pre sent generations, what proportion would those Christian andMussulman sects, calling themselves universal, bear in the vast assem blage? What would be the judgment of his fair and impartial justice respecting the actual mass of mankind? It is in estimating the general system of his government that you wander among �3S ' A SURVEY OF THE fiitiliiplied absurdities ; and it is there that, in reality, truth pre* gents itself in all its evidence. It is there that we trace the simple But powerful laws of nature and reason ; the laws of the common mover, the general cause; of a God impartial and just, who, that he might send his rain upon a country, asks not who is its prophet; who causes his sun equally to shine on all tribes of men, whether distinguished by a fair or a sable complexion, on the Jew as on the Mussulman, on the Christian as on the Hea then ; who multiplies the inhabitants of every country with whom Order and industry reign ; who gives prosperity to every empire where justice is observed, where the powerful is restrained, and the poor man protected by the laws; where the weak live in Safety, and where all enjoy the rights which they derive from nature and an equitable compact. Such are the principles by which nations are judged ! This is the true religion by which the fate of empires is regulated, and which, O Ottomans, has ever decided that of your own empire ! Interrogate your ancestors ; ask them by what means they rose to greatness, when, idolaters, few in number and poor, they came from the deserts of Tartary to encamp in these fertile countries ? Ask them if it was by islamism, at that period unknown to them, that they conquered the Greeks and Arabs; or by their courage, prudence, moderation, and unanimity, the true powers of the social state? Then the Sultan himself administered justice and maintained order-» then the prevaricating judge and the rapacious governor were punished, and the multitude lived in ease : the Cultivator was secure from the rapine of the janizary, and the fields w ere productive, the public roads were safe, and commerce flourished. It is true you were a league of robbers, but among yourselves you wore just. You subjugated nations, but you did iiot oppress them. Vexed by their own princes they preferred being your tributaries. “ Of w hat importance is it to me,” said the Christian, “ whether my master be pleased with images or breaks them in pieces, provided he is just towards me? God will judge his doctrine in heaven.” You were temperate and hardy ; your enemies soft and effeminate : you were skilled in the art of battle; they had forgotten its principles : you had experienced chiefs, warlike and disciplined troops; the hope of booty excited ardour ; bravery was recompensed ; disobedience and cowardice punished, and all the springs of the human heart were in action. You thus conquered a hundred nations, and out of the massfounded an immense empire,• x |^ut other manners succeeded. The laws of nature, however, > * 4tid not less operate in your misfortunes than in your prosperity. V ou destroyed your enemies, and your grasping ambition, still in force, preyed upon yourselves. Having become rich, you commenced an internal contest respecting the division and the �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. gg enjoyn.ent of yo.ui riches, and disorder was generated throuMi every class of your society. The Sultan, intoxicated with hi. g. eatneos, misunderstood the object of his functions ard all the vices of arbitrary power.presently unfolded themselves Meeting ' with no obstacle to his desires, he became a depraved character ** Weak, and arrogant at the same time, he spurned the Jeonle’ and would no longer be influenced and directed by their voice’ Tgnoxant, and yet flattered, he neglected all instruction all study' and sunk into total incapacity. Become himself unified these hirers ^Xed^Z”“^ ^elingsy and they stimulated and increased his; they multiplied"iXnts’ and Ins enormous luxury devoured every thin? He «W longer content with the frugal table the modest ifitj ? simple habitation of his aimestors ’the KTl a ’ a"‘l ‘,h® exhausted to satisfy his priX^XX^ tVlSTfrV Sic nty , and the munificenceparasites I? imitVo? °J?i LWer%de, tvered into the hands of and treasures of tho of empire was swallowed up in the Serai. ' . th UeaIth ■ 1° supply this inordinate luxury the slaves Qnrl sold their influence; and venality inLdSeid a general de'p™V“ Visier srfd thTempite The?VoO KT ‘° ‘Visier> a"‘! the Cadi sold justict7 The old V ‘u V ‘T” Cadi>and t!“' *StThe pXVvVpKXsed hi the cXnd of the treopV re "th” cultivation was degraded T'fX ■ P‘ the hilsl>a:idinan. and capital, hadTtXrew ii Xw h“S °f 'W became due, and he was unable tej^ £;’ XXVS �40 = A SURVEY OF THE with corporal punishment, and driven to the expedient of a Ioan 1 specie, for want of security, was withdrawn from circulation : the interest of money became enormous, and usury aggravated the misery of the poor. Inclement seasons, periods of dearth, had rendered the har vests abortive, but government would neither forgive nor post pone its demands. Distress began its career : a part of the in habitants of the villages took refuge in the cities ; the burthen upon those that remained became greater ; their ruin was con summated, and the country depopulated. Driven to the last extremity by tyranny and insult, certain villages broke out into open rebellion. The Pacha considered the event as a subject of rejoicing; he made war upon them, took their houses by storm, ransacked their goods, and carried off their cattle. The soil beceme a desert, and he exclaimed, u What care I: I shall be removed from it to-morrow.’ Yet again, the want of cultivation led one step further. Pe riodical rains or swelling tides overflowed the banks, and covered the country with swamps : these swamps exhaled a putrid air, which spread chronical diseases, pestilence, and sickness of a thousand forms, and was followed by a still farther decrease of population, by penury and ruin. • T Oh ! who can enumerate all the evils of this tyrannical sys tem of government! Sometimes the Pachas made war of themselves, and to avenge their personal quarrels, provinces are laid waste. Sometimes, dreading their masters, they aim at independence, and draw upon their subjects the chastisement of their revolt. Sometimes, tear in«3' these very subjects, they call to their aid and keep in pay foreign troops ; and to be sure of them, they indulge them in every kind of robbery. In one place, they commence an action against a rich man, and plunder him upon false pretences. In another, they suborn witnesses, and impose a fine for an lmagi•' nary offence. On all occasions they excite the hatred of sects against each other, and encourage informations for the sake of increasing their own corrupt advantages. They extort from men their property ; they attack their persons ; and when their im prudent avarice has heaped into one mass the riches of a pro vince, the supreme government, with execrable perfidy, Pr®“^ tending to avenge the oppressed inhabitants, draws to itself then spoil in the spoil of the culprit, and wantonly and vainly expiate in blood the crime of which it was itself the accomplice. O iniquitous beings, sovereigns or ministers, who sport with the life and property of the people ! was it you who gave breath to man, that you take it from him ? Is it you who fertilize the earth, that you dissipate its fruits ? Do you fatigue your arms with ploughing the fields ? Do you expose yourselves to the �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRE^. 41 heat of the sun, and endure the torment of thirst in cutting down the harvest and binding it into sheaves ? Do you watch like! the shepherd in the nocturnal dew ? Do you traverse deserts like the indefatigable merchant ? Alas! when I have reflected on the cruelty and insolence of the powerful, my indignation has been roused, and I have said in my anger, What! will there never appear upon the earth a race of men who shall avenge people and punish tyrants ? A small number of robbers devou the multitude, and the multitude suffer themselves to be de voured ! O degraded people, awake to the recognition ot your rights ! authority proceeds from you; yours is all the power.. Vainly do kings command you in the name of God and by their lance: soldiers, obey not the summons. Since God supports the Sultan, your succour is useless; since the sword of heaven: suffices him, he has no need of yours ; let4us see what he can do of himself.—The soldiers have laid down their arms; and io, the masters of the world are as feeble as the meanest of their subjects! Ye people, know then that those who govern you axe your chiefs and not your masters; your guardians appointed by yourselves, and not your proprietors; that your wealth is your own, and to you they are accountable for the administration ot it; that kings or subjects, God has made all men equal, and no human being-has a right to oppress his fellow-creature. But this nation and its chiefs acknowledge not these sacred truths.—Be it so ; they will suffer the consequences of their error. The decree is gone forth; the day approaches when this colossus of power shall be dashed to pieces, and fall, crushed by its own weight. Yes, I swear by the ruins of so many demolished em pires, that the crescent shall undergo the same fate as the states w hose mode of government it has imitated ! A foreign people shall drive the Sultans from their metropolis; the throne of Orkhan shall be subverted; the last shoot of his race shall be cut off; and the horde of the Oguzians deprived of their chief, , * shall be dispersed like that of the Nogaians. In this dissolution the subjects of the empire, freed from the yoke that held them together, will resume their ancient distinctions, anti, a genetat anarchy will take place, as happened in the empire of the So phist, till there shall arise among the Arabs, the Armenians, or * Before the Turks took the name of their chief Othman I. they bore that of Oguzians: and it was under this appellation that they were driven out ot Tartary by Gengis, and came from the borders of Gihoun to settle themselves io Anatolia. . , ,. t In Persia, after the death of. Thamas-Koulikan, each province had its chief, and for forty years these chiefs were in a constant state of war. In this view the Turks do not say without reason: “Ten years of a tyrant are less destructive than a single night of anarchy.” G �42 A SURVEY OF THE the Greeks, legislators who shall form new states. Oh! were a sagacious and hardy race of men to be found, what materials of greatness and glory are here !-But the hour of destiny is arlived The cry of war strikes my ear, and the catastrophe is about to commence. In vain the Sultan draws out his arms • his ignorant soldiers are beaten and scattered. In vain he calls upon his subjects : their hearts are callous; his subjects reply r It is decreed; and what is it to us who is to be our master ? we cannot lose by the change.” In vain these true believers ini voke heaven and the prophet, the prophet is dead, and heaven without pity answers : “ Cease to call upon me. You are the authors of your calamities, find yourselves their remedy. Na ture has established laws, it becomes you to practise them. Exa mine and reflect upon the events that take place, and profit bv experience It is the folly of man that works his destruction^ it is his wisdom that must save him. The people are ignorant let them get understanding; their chiefs are depraved, let them correct their vices and amend their lives, for such is the decree o nature: the evils of society flow from ig n o r a n c e and 1 . OEEIXATE DESIRE? men will never cease to be tormented till they N shall become intelligent and wise; till they shall practise the art of i founded °n & knowledge of the various relations in which they stand and the laws of their own organization ” * * S1"&ular'mor.al phenomenon made its appearance in Europe in the vear the enemj of hbeity , a nation friendly to the arts for a nation that detests them; a mild and tolerant nation for a persecuting and fanatic one • asocial tothe FreVh1'00 wbose chanmterisHes are gloom and misanthropy: in a woid, the French were smitten with a passion for the Turks : tbev were desirous of engaging in a war for them, and that at a time when a revolution n then- own country was just at its commencement. A man who ne.ceived the true nature of the situation, wrote a book to dissuade them fromtoe war rLl t 1™™ejl,ate,y Pretended that he was paid by the government, which in it 2 AnoH31’ aBd Whii\WaS UP°n thp Point hinTup to a state piison. Another man wrote to recommend the war: he was applauded and his word was taken in payment for the science, the politenesss and im portance of the Turks. It is true that he believed in his own thesis for he had forbmPani0nn ?em Pe°P e-Wh° CaSt a nativity> and alchemists who wined his foitune ; as he found Martimsts at Paris, who enabled him to sup with Se«os tns, and Magnetisers who concluded with destroying his ex stmice Notw th" pred1cteSd tlm fH beate" by and the Z who Tien p edicted the fall of their empire, persists in the prediction. The result of this fall will be a complete change of the political system, as far as it relates to the coast of the Mediterranean If, however, the French become important in proportion as they become free, and if they will make use of the advantaoe iuas^wch^h’ ueir progrfss may easi'y Prove ofthe most honourable sort, m»™* »Ilhb.hd;,lSreUetC2t°/a,e’ trne in,erfSt «’«- �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 43 CHAP. XIII. Wil l t h e Hu m a n Ra c e b e e v e r in a b e t t e r Co n d it io n THAN AT PRESENT ? Oppr e s s e d with sorrow at the predictions of the Genius, and the severity of his reasoning: unhappy nations, cried I, bursting into tears! Unhappy my own lot! I now despair of the felicity of man ! since his evils flow from his own heart, since he must himself apply the remedy, woe for ever to his existence ! For what can restrain the inordinate desire of the powerful? Who shall enlighten the ignorance of the weak ? Who instruct the multitude in the knowledge of its rights, and force the chiefs to discharge the duties of their station ? Individual will not cease to oppress individual, one nation to attack another nation, and never will the day of prosperity and glory again dawn upon these countries. Alas! conquerors will come; they will drive away the oppressors, and will establish themselves in their place; but, succeeding to their power, they will succeed also to their rapa city, and the earth will have changed its tyrants, without lessen ing the tyranny. Then turning towards the Genius : O Genius ! said I, de spair has taken hold of my heart. While you have instructed me ifi the nature of man, the depravity of governors, and the abjectness of those who are governed, have given me a disgust to life; and since there is no alternative but to be the accomplice or the victim of oppression, what has the virtuous man to do but to join his ashes to those of the tombs. The Genius, fixing upon me a look of severity mixed with compassion, was silent. After a few minutes he replied: Is it then in dying that virtue consists ? The wicked man is indefatig able in the consummation of vice, and the just disheartened at the first obstacle which stands in the way of doing good!—But such is the human heart: success intoxicates it to presumption, disappointment dejects and terrifies it. Always the victim of the sensation of the moment; it judges not of things by their na ture but by the impulse of passion.—Mortal, who despairs of the human race, upon what profound calculation of reasoning and events is your judgment formed? Have you scrutinized the organization of sensible beings, to determine with precision whether the springs that incline them to happiness are weaker than those which repel ? or rather, viewing at a glance the his tory of the species, and judging of the future by the example of the past, have you hence discovered with certainty, that all pro ficiency is impossible ? Let. me ask : Have societies, since their origin, made no step towards instruction and a better state of things ? Are men still in the woods, destitute of every thing, ignorant, stupid, and ferocious ? Are there no nations advanced beyond the period, when nothing was to be seen upon the face �A SURVEY.OF THE of the globe but savage freebooters or savage slaves ? If indi viduals have at certain times, and in certain places, become bet ter, why should not the mass improve ? If particular societies have attained a considerable degree of perfection, why should pot the progress of the general society advance ? If first obsta cles have been overcome, why should succeeding ones be in surmountable. But you are of opinion that the human race is degenerating? Guard yourself against the illusion and paradoxes of misanthrophy. Dissatisfied with the present, man supposes in the past a perfection which does not exist, and which is merely the dis.coloration of his chagrin, He praises the dead from enmity to the living, and employs the bones of the fathers as an instrument of chastisement against the children. To establish this principle of a retrograde perfection, it is ne cessary that we should contradict the testimony of facts and rea son, Nor is this all; the facts of history might indeed be equi vocal, but it is farther necessary that we should contradict the living fact of the nature of man; that we should assert that he is born with a perfect science in the use of his senses; that, pre vious to experience, he is able to distinguish poison from aliment; that the sagacity of the infant is greater than that of his bearded progenitor ; that the blind man can walk with more assurance than the man endued with sig’ht| that man, the creature of civi lization, is less favoured by circumstances than the cannibal; in a word, that there is no truth in the existing gradation of in struction and experience. 1 oung man, believe the voice of tombs and the testimony of monuments. There are countries which have doubtless fallen off from what they were at certain epochas : but if the under standing were to analyse thoroughly the wisdom and felicity of their inhabitants at those periods, their glory would be found to have less of reality than of splendor; it jvould be seen, that even in the most celebrated states of antiquity, there existed enormous vices and pruel abuses, the precise pause of their instability ; that in general the principles of government were atrpejous; that, from people to people, audacious robbery, barbarous wars, and implacable animosities were prevalent ; that natural right was * unknown; that morality was perverted by senseless fanaticism and deplorable superstition; that a dream, a vision, an oracle, iveie the frequent occasion of the most terrible commptiens. Na tions are not perhaps yet free from the power of these evils; but their force is at least diminished, and the experience pf past times . a IV3'** die history pf the wqrs of liome and Carthage, of Sparta and Messina, pr Athens apd Syracuse, of the Hebrews and the Phenicians : yet these are the patipns pi whiefi antiquity bo^tf being" most polished ! �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 45 has not been wholly lost. Within the three last centuries espe cially, the light of knowledge has been increased and dissemi nated ; civilization, aided by various happy circumstances, has perceptibly advanced, and even inconveniencies and abuses have proved advantageous to it: for if conquest have extended king doms and states beyond due bounds, the people of different coun tries, uniting under the same yoke, have lost that spirit of es trangement and division which made them all enemies to one another. If the hands of power have been strengthened, an ad ditional degree of system and harmony has at least been intro duced in its exercise. If wars have become more general in the mass of their influence and operation, they have been less de structive in their details. If the people carry to their combat less personality and less exertion, their struggles are less san guinary and ferocious. If they are less free, they are less tur bulent; if they are more effeminate, they are more pacific. Des potism itself seems not to have been unproductive of advantages: for if the government has been absolute, it has been less per turbed and tempestuous; if thrones have been regarded as here ditary property, they have excited less dissension, and exposed the people to fewer convulsions : in fine, if despots, with timid and mysterious jealousy, have interdicted all knowledge of their administration, all rivalship for the direction of affairs, the pas sions of mankind, excluded from the political career, have fixed upon the uarts and the sciences of nature ; the sphere of ideas has been enlarged on every side ; man, devoted to abstract studies, has better understood his place in the system of nature, and his social relations; principles have been more fully dis cussed, objects more accurately discerned, knowledge more widely diffused, individuals made more capable, manners more sociable, life more benevolent and pleasing; the species at large, particularly in certain countries, have been evidently gainers; nor can this improvement fail to proceed, since its two principal obstacles, those which have hitherto rendered it so slow, and frequently retrograde, the difficulty of transmitting ideas from age to age, and communicating thdm rapidly from man to man, have been removed. With the people of antiquity, every canton and every city, having a language peculiar to itself, stood aloof from the rest, and the result was favourable to ignorance and anarchy : they had no communication of ideas, no participation of discoveries, no harmony of interests or of will, no unity of action or conduct. Beside, the only means of diffusing and transmitting ideas being that of speech, fugitive and limited, and that of writing, slow of execution, expensive, and acquired by few, there resulted an extreme difficulty as to instrcution in the first instance, the loss pf advantages one generation might derive from the experience �A. SURVEY OF THE of another, instability, retrogradation of science, and one un varied scene of chaos and childhood. ' ^le contraOh *n modern world, and particularly in Europe, great nations having allied themselves by a sort of uni versal language, the firm of opinion has been placed upon a broad basis ; the minds of men have sympathised, their hearts have enlarged; we have seen agreement in thinking, and concord in acting : in fine, that sacred art, that memorable gift of celestial genius, the press, furnished a means of communicating, of diffus ing at one instance any idea to millions of the species, and of giving it a permanence which all the power of tyrants has been able neither to suspend nor suppress. Hence has the vast mass of instruction perpetually increased; hence has the atmosphere of truth continually grown brighter, and a strength of mind been produced that is in no fear of counteraction. And this improve ment is the necessary effect of the laws of nature; for by the law of sensation, man as invincibly tends to make himself happy, as the flame to ascend, the stone to gravitate, the water to gadi its level. His ignorance is the obstacle which misleads him as to the means, and deceives him respecting causes and effects. By force or experience he will become enlightened; by force of errors he will set nimself right; he will become wise and good, because it is his interest to be so : and ideas communicating themselves through a nation, whole classes will be instructed, science will be universally familiar, and all men will understand what are the principles of individual happiness, and of public felicity.. They will understand what are their respective rela tions, their rights, and their duties, in the social order; they will no longer be the dupes of inordinate desire ; they will perceive that morality is a branch of the science of physics, composed, it is flue, of elements complicated in their operation, but simple and invariable in their nature, as being no other, than the elements of human organization itself. They will feel the necessity of being moderate and just, because therein consists the advantage and security of each ; that to wish to enjoy at the expence of another is a false calculation of ignorance, because the result of such proceeding, are reprisals, enmity, and revenge; and that dishonesty is invariably the offspring of folly. Individual^ will feel that private happiness is allied to the happiness of society. I he weak, that instead of dividing their interests, they ought to unite, because equality constitutes their strength. The rich, that the measure of enjoyment is limited by the con stitution of the organs, and that lassitude follows satiety. . The poor, that the highest degree of human felicity consists in peace of mind and the due employment of time. Public opinion, reaching' kings on their thrones, will oblige them to keep tueraseives wiihin-flie bounds of a regular authority. �< REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 47 Chance itself, serving the cause of nations, will give them sometimes incapable chiefs, who, through weakness, will suffer them to become free ; and sometimes enlightened chiefs, who will virtuously emancipate them. Individuality will be a term of greater comprehension, and nations, free and enlightened, will hereafter become one com plex individual, as single men are now : the consequences will be proportioned to the state of things. The communication of knowledge will extend from society to society, till it compre hends the whole earth. By the law of imitation the example of one people will be followed by others, who will adopt its spirit and its laws. Despots themselves, perceiving that they can no longer maintain their power without justice and beneficence, will be induced, both from necessity and rivalship, to soften the rigour of their government; and civilization will be universal. —Among nations there will be established an equilibrium of force, which, confining them within the limits of just respect for their reciprocal rights, will put an end to the barbarous practice of war, and induce them to submit to civil arbitration the deci sion of their disputes ; and the whole species will become one * grand society, one individual family governed by the same spirit,, by common laws, and enjoying all the felicity of which human nature is capable. This great work will doubtless be long accomplishing, because it is necessary that one and the same motion should be commu nicated to the various parts of an immense body, that the same leaven should assimilate an enormous mass of heterogeneous elements : but this motion will effectually operate. Already sociafat at large, having passed through the same stages as par ticular societies have done, promises to lead to the same results. At first, disconnected in its parts, each individual stood alone; and this intellectual solitude constituted its age of anarchy and childhood. Divided afterwards into sections of irregulär size, as chance directed, which have been called states and kingdoms, it has experienced the fatal effects which result from the ine quality of wealth and conditions; and the aristocracy by which great empires have domineered over their dependencies, have formed its second age. In process of time, these paramount chiefs of the globe have disputed with each other for superiority, and then was seen the period of factions and civil broils. And now the parties, tired of their discords and feeling the want of laws, sigh for the epocha of order and tranquillity. Let but t What is a people? An individual of the society at large. What a war? A duel between two individual people. In what manner ought a society to act when two of its members fight ? Interfere and reconcile, or repress therm In the days of the Abbe de Saint Pierre this was treated as a dream, but happily for the human race it begins to be realized. �A SURVEY OF THEf 48 a virtuous chief arise, a powerful and just people appear, tfnd the earth will arrive at supreme power. It waits a legislative people ; this is the object of its wishes and its prayers, and my heart hears its voice.—Then turning to the quarter of the West : * Yes, continued he, a hollow noise already strikes my ear • the cry of liberty, uttered upon the farther shore of the Atlantic, has reached to the old continent. At this cry a secret murmur against oppression is excited in a powerful nation J a salutary , alarm takes place respecting its situation; it inquires what it is and what it ought to be ; it examines into its rights, its resources, and what has been the conduct of its chiefs.—One day, one reflection more—and an immense agitation will arise, a new age will make its appearance, an age of astonishment to vulgar minds, of surprise and dread to tyrants, of emancipation to a great people, and off hope to the whole world, CHAP. XIV, Gr and Ob s t a c l e t o Im pr o v e m e n t . Th e Genius stopt. My mind, however, pre-occupied with gloomy forebodings, yielded not to persuasion ; but fearful of offending him by opposition, I made no reply. After a short interval: fixing on me a look that transpierced my soul: You are silent, said he, and your heart is agitated with thoughts which it dares not utter!—Confused and terrified : O Genius, I made answer, pardon my weakness : truth alone has doubt less proceeded from your lips ; but your celestial intelligence can distinguish its traits, where to my gross faculties there appear nothing but clouds. I acknowledge it, conviction has not pene trated my soul, and I feared that my doubts might give you offence. And what is doubt, replied he, that it should be regarded as a crime ? Has man the power of thinking’ contrary to the im pressions that are made upon him ? If a truth be palpable, and its observance important, let us pity the man who does not per ceive it: his punishment will infallibly spring from his blindness. If it be uncertain and equivocal, how is he to find in it what does not exist ? To believe without evidence and demonstration is an act of ignorance and folly. The credulous man involves himself in a labyrinth of contradictions ; the man of sense examines and discusses every question, that he may be consistent in his opi nions ; he can endure contradiction, because from the collision evidence arises. Violence is the argument of falsehood; and to impose a creed authoritatively, is the index and proceeding of a tyrant. Emboldened by these sentiments, I replied : O Genius, since my reason is free, I strive in vain to welcome the flattering hope �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 49 with which you wbuld console me. The sensible and virtuous soul is prone enough to be hurried away by dreams of fancied happiness ; but a cruel reality incessantly reeals its attention to suffering and wretchedness. The more I meditate on the nature of man, the more I examine the present state of society, the less possible does it appear to me that a world of wisdom and felicity should ever be realized. I purvey the face of our whole hemi sphere, and no where can I perceive the germ of a happy revo lution. All Asia is buried in the most profound darkness. The Chinese, subjected to an insolent despotism * dependent for , their fortune upon the decision of lots, and held in awe by strokes of the bamboo, inslaved by the immutability of the codé, and by the irremediable vice of their language, offer to view an abortive civilization and a race of automata. The Indian, fettered by prejudice, and manacled by the inviolable institution of his casts, vegetates in an incurable apathy. The Tartar, wandering or fixed, at all times ignorant and ferocious, lives in the barbarity of his ancestors. The Arab, endowed with a happy genius, loses its force and the fruit of his labour in the anarchy of his tribes, and the jealousy of his families. The African, degraded from the state of man, seems irremediably devoted to servitude. In the North I see nothing but serfs, reduced to the level of cattle, the live stock of the estate upon which they livet. Ignorance, tyranny, and wretchedness, have every where struck the nations * The emperor of China calls himself the son of heaven, that is, of God ; for in the opinion of the Chinese, the material heaven, the arbiter of fatality, is the Deity himself. “The emperor only shows himself once in ten months, lest the people accustomed to see him, might lose their respect ; for he holds it as a maxim, that power can only be supported by force, that the people have no idea of justice, and are not to be governed but by coercion.” Narrative of two Mahometan Travellers in 851 and 877, translated by the Abbé Renaudot in 1718. Notwithstanding what is asserted by the missionaries, this situation has undergone no change. The bamboo still reigns in China, and the son of heaven bastinades, for the most trivial fault, the Mandarin, who, in his turn, bastinades the people. The Jesuits may tell us that this is the best governed country in the world, and its inhabitants the happiest of men ; but a single letter from Amyot has convinced me, that China is a Iruly Turkish govern ment, and the account of Sonnerat confirms it. See Vol. II. of Voudqe aux Indes, in 4to. J As long as the Chinese shall in writing make use of their present characters, they can be expected to make no progress in civilization. The necessary in troductory step must be the giving them an alphabet like our own, or the substituting m the room of their language that of the Tartars; the improve ment made in the latter by M. de JLengles, is calculated to introduce the change. See the Mantchou alphabet, the production of a mind truly learned in the formation of language. t When this was written the revolution in Poland had not taken place. I beg leave to apologize to the virtuous nobles and the enfightened »rince by whom it was effected. r } H �50 A SURVEY OF THE with stupor; and vicious habits, depraving the natural senses, have destroyed the very instinct of happiness and truth. In some countries of Europe, indeed, reason begins to expand its wings; but even there, is the knowledge of individual minds common to the nation ? Has the superiority of the government been turned to the advantage of the people ? And these people, who call them selves polished, are they not those who three centuries ago filled the earth with their injustice ? Are they not those who, under the pretext of commerce, laid India waste, dispeopled a new con tinent, and who at present subject Africa to the most inhumane slavery ? Can liberty spring up out of the bosom of despots, and justice be administered by the hands of rapacity and avarice ? 0 Genius ! I have beheld civilized countries, and the illusion of their wisdom has vanished from my sight. I saw riches accu mulated in the hands of a few individuals, and the multitude poor and destitute. I saw all right and power concentered in certain classes, and the mass of the people passive and depend ent. I saw the palaces of princes, but no incorporation of indi viduals as such, no common-hall of nations. I perceived the deep attention that was given to the interests of government; but no public interest, no sympathetic spirit. I saw that the w hole science of those who command consisted in prudently op pressing ; and the refined servitude of polished nations only ap peared to me the more irremediable. With one obstacle in particular my mind was sensibly struck. In surveying the globe, I perceived that it was divided into twenty different systems of religious worship. Each nation has received, or formed for itself, opposite opinions, and ascribing to itself ex clusively the truth, has imagined every other to be in error. But if, as is the fact, in this discordance the majority deceive them selves with sincerity, it follows that the human mind as readily imbibes falsehood as truth ; and in that case how is it to be en lightened ? How are prejudices to be extirpated that first take root in the mind ? How is the bandage to be removed from the eyes, when the first article in every creed, the first dogma of all religions, is the proscription of doubt, of examination, and of the right of private judgment ? How is truth to make itself known? If she resort to the demonstration of argument, pusillanimous man appeals against evidence to his conscience. If she call in the aid of divine authority, already prepossessed, he opposes an authority of a similar kind, and treats all innovation as blas phemy. Thus, in his blindness, rivetting the chains upon him self, does he become the sport of his ignorance and passions. To dissolve these fatal shackles, a miraculous concurrence of happy circumstances would be necessary. It would be necessary that a whole nation, cured of the delirium of superstition, should no longer be liable to the impressions of fanaticism; that, freed �REVOLUTIONS o f e m pir e s . 51 from the yoke of a false doctrine, it should voluntarily embrace the genuine system of morality and reason ; that it should be come at once courageous and prudent, Wise and docile ; t every individual, acquainted with his rights, should scrupulously observe their limits; and the poor should know howJo resist seduction, and the rich the allurements of avarice; that thei e should be found upright and disinterested chiefs; that its tyrants should be seized with a spirit of madness and folly; that the people, recovering their powers, should perceive their inability to exercise them, and consent to appoint delegates ; that having first created their magistrates, they should know both how to respect and how to judge them ; that in the rapid renovation oi a whole nation pervaded with abuse, each individual, removed from his former habits, should suffer patiently the pains and self denials annexed; in fine that the nation should have the courage to conquer its liberty, the wisdom to secure it, the power to de fend it, and the generosity to communicate it. Can sober judg ment expect this combination of circumstances! Should fortune in the infinite variety of her caprices produce them; is it likely that I should live to see that day ? Will not this frame long be fore that have mouldered in the tomb ? Here, oppressed with sorrow, my heart deprived me of utter ance. The Genius made no reply,; but in a low tone of voice I heard him say to himself: “ Let us revive the hope of this man; for if he who loves his fellow-creatures be suffered to despair, what is to become of nations ? The past is perhaps but too much calculated to deject him. Let us then anticipate futurity; let us unveil the astonishing age that is about to rise, that virtue, seeing the end of its wishes, animated with new vigour, my re double its efforts to hasten the accomplishment of it.” CHAP. XV. Ne w Ag e . Sc a r c e l y had the Genius uttered to himself these woids than an immense noise proceeded from the West; and turning my eyes to that quarter, I perceived at the extremity of the Mediterranean, in the country of one ot the European nations, a prodigious movement, similar to what exists in the bosom of a large city when, pervaded with sedition, an innumerable people, like waves, fluctuate in the streets and public places. My ear, struck with their cries, which ascended to the very heavens, distinguished at intervals these phrases : 4‘ What is this new prodigy ? What this cruel and mysterious scourge ? We are a numerous people, and we want strength! We have an excellent soil, and we are destitute of provision ! We are active and laborious, and we live in indigence ’. We pay �52 A SURVEY OF THE Wer“-eUattneac‘eewithn<1 T "d ‘°Id ‘hat they are "ot sufficient! safe witbi/' WhVtih’1*’ -“la °Ur Peisons and property are not From he Zrt „m" ” the Secret enemf that devours us!" plied • “Erert e of.the,c<>nc““rse, some individual voices reL useful labour« ,aru °/ fl,st[nct‘0n> and let all those who, society «rathe, r’ ?t!’‘bute,ta the support and maintenance of ■preys on your vitaT” ’ “ y°“ diSC°TCr the enemy that divTdedS.-ntndtld eracted> 11,e na* ion found itself suddenly pearance the o„o°d‘eS °f una3ual “agni‘ude and dissimilar appearance . the one innumerable and nearly inteo-ral exhibited unlurnTS1 P0™r ‘^d-ss, ¡" th’eir'me^re‘anil a X ’ th m?rks of to11 and wretchedness ; the other P y grouPe, a valueless faction, presented in their rich atare, embrotdered with gold and silver, and in their sleek and “le Sympt°“S °f laisure aad abundance 1 these men more attentively, I perceived that the anFevS V“?‘ituted of labourers, artisan^, and tradesmen“ grounetheJwerr'0" tseful.‘° socif!ty> a»d that in the lesser fommande™ of r Pnests courtiers, public accountants, Pgen^of government" * °r looked „lit. bodties- ?eing front ‘° front assembled, and bavinlooked with astonishment at each other, I saw the feelings of panFcTn X resen‘|ne“‘ spring up in the one, and a sort of P Whv V d hCr; and ’! large said t0 the small body: V hy stand you apart? Are you not of our number? nriv-?’ ?!plbed the g'rouPe; you are the people- we are a purselvel ’ ’ haVC liWSj customs and rites peculiar to wIlatK}abour do y°u Perform in the society ? llC aS+i ^i°ne : WG Hre not made to labour. p How then have you acquired your wealth ? B?' taking the pains to g’overn you. VC +r>;i " n ° govern us • an(l is this what you call governing ? dotvs 1 o,n"d y°U ?JOy; "ePf°duce. and you dissipate; wealth tinct frn ?? ? and i°U absorb ^-—Privileged men, class dis * solves t ie pe°ple? form a nation aPart a«d govern your, to *Terv soeie?^ e “• thf PeoP’e aild the indolent classes, is applicable ' m Jrt? P b 5 t.c°'lta,lis the stJeds of all the political vices and d borders devO th ’T ,hU& ? defìned 5 men Wh° d0 a"d ridhts and ex In v °f Ot 'ers ’ me,J who arrogatelo themselves particular ònt-1 of P h N0b ie ty * A?altl^PatriI- P"v'p^s of wealth and eindolence. India? the Emirs of li‘ Nairs of Compare he Mam- the Bonze the R°Ine’ Christia,J ck'gy> the Imans, theBramins, feature “’Men HvS?’ &m&C’ a“d wiil find 111 aI1 the same characteristic ieatme,— Men living m idleness at the expence of those vvho labour." �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 53 Then deliberating on their new situation, some among the «'roupe said : Let us join the people, and partake their burthens and cares; for they are men like ourselves. Others replied : To mix with the herd would be degrading and vile ; they are born to serve us, who are men of a superior race. The civil governors said : the people are mild and naturally servile; let us speak to them in the name of the King and the law, and they will return to their duty. People; the King decrees, the sove reign ordains. People. The King cannot decree any thing which the safety of the people does not demand; the sovereign cannot ordain but according to law. Civil Governors. The law calls upon you for submission. People. The law is the general will; and we will a new order. Civil Governors. You are in that case rebels. People. A nation cannot be a rebel; tyrants only are rebels. Civil Governors. The King is on our side, and he enjoins you to submit. . People. Kings cannot be separated from the nation in which they reign. Our King cannot be on your side ; you have only the phantom of his countenance. Then the military governors advanced, and they said : The people are timorous ; it is proper to threaten them ; they will yield to the influence of force.—Soldiers, chastise this insolent multitude. People. Soldiers, our blood flows in your veins ! will you strike your brothers ? If the people be destroyed, w7ho will main tain the army ? And the soldiers, grounding their arms, said to their chiefs : We are a part of the people ; we whom you call upon to fight against them. Then the ecclesiastical governors said : There is but one re source left. The people are superstitious ; it is proper to over awe them with the name of God and religion. Priests. Our dear brethren, our children, God has com missioned us to govern you. People. Produce the patent of his commission. Priests. You must have faith ; reason leads men into guilt. People. And would you govern us without reason ? Priests. God is the God of peace ; religion enjoins you to obey. . ■ v People. No : justice goes before peace , obedience implies a law, and renders necessary the cognizance of it. Priests. This world was intended for trial and suffering. People. Do you then shew us the example of suffering. Priests. Would you live without Gods or Kings ? �A SURVEY OF THE 54 People. We abjure tyranny of every kind. yourbehalfY0“ mUS‘ lnedia,or’’ Persons who act in People. Mediators with God, and mediators with the Kin»' Coiirhers and priests, your services are too expensive • hencei forth we take our affairs into our own hands. ’ Then the smaller groupe exclaimed : It is over with us • the multitude are enlightened. And the people replied : You shall not be hurt; we are enlightened, and we will commit no violence We desire nothing but our rights : resentment we cannot bui feel, but we consent to pass it by: we were slaves, we might now command; but we ask only to be free, and free we are.g CHAP. XVI. A Fr ee a nd Le g is l a t iv e Pe o pl e . IhnY'Z 1? w?“'! With mj9elf thaf Public po«'« was at a stand, that the habitual government of this people was annihilated and I shuddered at the idea of their falling into the dissolution of anarchy. But taking their affairs immediately into their con sideration, they quickly dispelled my apprehensions. It is not enough,” said they, “ that we have freed ourselves from parasites and tyrants we must prevent for ever the revival We.arehuman beings, and we know, by dearought experience, that every human being incessantly grasps * Z y’ and Wlshes to enJ°y k atthe expence of others. It theiefoie necessary to guardourselves beforehand against this unfortunate propensity, the prolific parent of discord ; it is ne! ee^aiy to establish rules by which our rights are to be deter mined and our conduct governed. But in this investigation ab^nse and difficult questions are involved, which demand all the attention and faculties of the wisest men. Occupied in our re spective callings, we have neither leisure for these studies, nor l7t ofo7sJlves tothe exercise of such functions. Let us select from our body certain individuals, to whom the emPoyment will be proper. To them let our common powers be delegated, to frame for us a system of government and lawsivilFGn8tltll ij t W rePresentatiyes of our interests and our v ilk, and that t.as representation may be as accurate as possible and have comprehended in it the whole diversity of our wihs and interests, let the individuals that comprise it be nu merous, and citizens like ourselves.” 1 The selection being made, the people thus addressed their delegates : ‘ We have hitherto lived % a society formed by chance, without used clauses, without free conventions, without tipuiation of rights, without reciprocal engagements- and a multitude of disorders and evils have been the result of this con- �REVOLUTIONS o f e m pir e s . 55 fused state of things. We would now, with mature deliberation, frame a regular compact; and we have made choice of you to draw up the articles of it. Examine with care what ought to be its basis and principles. Investigate the object and tendency of every association ; observe what are the rights which every inividual brings into it, the powers he cedes for the! Publ*c and the powers which he reserves entire to himself nicate to us equitable laws and rules of conduct. Prepaie for us a new system of government, for we feel that the pnnc.nles which to this day have guided us, are corrupt. Our fathers have wandered in the paths of ignorance, and we from habit have trod in their steps. Every thing is conducted by vlolei?P®’£r^jI2 or delusion ; and the laws of morality and reason are still buried in obscuritv. Do you unfold the chaos ; discover the time, 01der and connexion of things; publish your code of laws and rights ; and we will conform to it. . c , And the people raised an immense throne in the form of a pyramid, and seating upon it the men they had chosen, said to them : 44 We raise you this day above us, that you may take a more comprehensive view of our relations, and be exalted above the atmosphere of our passions. <c But remember that you are citizens like ourselves; that the power which we confer upon you belongs to us ; that we give it as a trust for which you are responsible, not as exclusive property, or hereditary right; that the laws which you make, you will be the first to submit to ; that to-morrow you will descend trom your stations, and rank again with us ; and that you will have acquired no distinguishing right, but the right.to our gratitude and esteem. And oh ! with what glory will the universe, that reveres so many apostles of error, honour the first assembly of enlightened and reasonable men, who shall have declared the immutable principles of justice to mankind, and consecrated, in the very face of tyrants, the rights of nations.” CHAP. XVII. Un iv e r s a l Ba s is o f a l l Rig h t a n d a l l La w . Th e s e men, chosen by the people to investigate the true prin ciples of morality and reason, then proceeded to the object ot their mission ; and, after a long examination, having discovered a universal and fundamental principle, they said to their consti tuents : 44 We have employed our faculties in the investigation you demand of us, and we conceive the following to be the prim ordial basis and physical origin of all justice and all right. « Whatever be 'the active power, the moving cause, that directs the universe, this power having given to all men the same organs, the same sensations, and the same wants, has there- �ès À SURVEY OÉ THÉ by sufficierftly declared that it has also Hven them the «ma, its anJ o^cr°?dl inasrnucI1 as this power has given to every man elearlv foItowsPthaTall”8’ Hnd mainta.lnin§’ his °wn existence, it othec,^^ ~ «r^^““hat aH men arc the u"iimited p^- te“A»ai?n tIlep,’ty,slcal Properties of inanimate nature.11 lmmU' S8SS5S S=; - '■•■ - ••'X th^othm^i^a of equiîyVnd6 justice e^Ua^i^1F^me^ a^iy^^ * * ‘V We are bound, however, to observe to von r a.^“"±0^0 'rU,t aTfreme S110Ck tâ “red in contracts must be dissolv^unjust^rgudice^lbolisbed 'im^”3 perty abXatedS.S^r?ndered>and ¡>"9^0,^'descriptions of pK perty abrogated : m fine, yon must set out once more from the ■K?e- etym°l°gy of the words themselves trace out tn <j • eçuîWrzum> equalitas, equitas are al J of F È Î ? tl,s connex>on ■ equality in the scales of a balance is f he family, and the physical idea of t In the declaration of rfJhtX.^"''06 a" the Pt liberty being placed before pninlik J Ulvfrsi°n of ideas in the first article, . defect is not to be wondered^!- th/ 0™ whlcb lt,HI reality springs. This * science it was invented yesterday bv the’°f ngl!fS °f man is a ilew perfecting it, but there vet remain« . Amencans, to-day the French are constitute it there is aY genealogical ^rd^V-0?6 JOne’. I»the ideas that equality, to the minutest and most re i W n,c ’’ from ifs basis- physical proceed in an uninterrupted series of f * brauchea,°.f government, ought to >n the second part of this work. ’«ferences. This will be demonstrated �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 57 state of nature. Consider whether you are capable of these mighty sacrifices.” . They concluded: and, while I reflected upon the inherent cupidity of the human heart, I was induced to believe that the people would reject a melioration presented under such austere colours. I was mistaken. Instantly a vast crowd of men thronged towards the throne, and solemnly abjured all riches and all dis tinctions. “ Unfold to us, (cried they), the laws of equality and liberty: we disclaim all future possession that is not held in the sacred name of justice. Equality, liberty, justice^ these are our inviolable code; these names shall inscribe our standard. Immediately the people raised a mighty standard, varied with three colours, and upon which those three words were written. They unfurled it over the throne of the legislators, and now for the first time the symbol of universal and equal justice appeared upon the earth. In front of the throne the people built an altar, on which they placed golden scales, a sword, and a book with’this legend: t o e q u a l l a w , t h e pr o t e c t o r , a n d t h e j u d g e . They then drew round the throne a vast ampitheatre, and the nation seated itself to hear the publication of the law. Millions of men, in act of solemn appeal to heaven, lifted up their hands together, and swore, “ that they would live equal, free, and just; that they would respect the rights and property of each other ; that they would yield obedience to the law and its ministers regularly appointed. A sight like this, so full of sublimity and energy, so interest ing by the generous emotions it implied, melted me into tears ; and addressing myself to the Genius, I said : “ Now may I live 1 for after this there is nothing which I am not daring enough to hope.” CHAP. XVIII. Co n s t e r n a t io n a n d Co n s pir a c y o p Ty r a n t s . Me a n w h il e , scarcely had the solemn cry of liberty and equality resounded through the earth, when astonishment and apprehension were excited in the different nations. In one place, the multitude, moved by desire, but wavering between hope and fear, between a sense of their rights and the habitual yoke of slavery, betrayed symptoms of agitation : in another, kings suddenly roused from the sleep of indolence and despotism, were alarmed for the safety of their thrones : every where those classes of civil and religious tyrants, who deceive princes and oppress the people, were seized with rage and consternation ; and, concerting plans of perfidy, they said one to another: “ Woe be to us, should this fatal cry of liberty reach the ear of the multitude, and this destructive spirit of justice be dis- �58 A SURVEY OF THE seeing the standard waving in the air • fhZ?2'7™ ?! eviIs’” cried they, “ are included in these three words . If all men are equal, where is our exclusive right to honours and power ? If all men are or ought to be free, what becomes of our slaves, our vassals, our property ? If all are ^ual in a civil capacity, where are our privileges of birth and succession, and what becomes of nobility ? If all are equal be fore God, where will be the need of mediators, and what is to come o the priesthood ? Ah ! let us accomplish, without a inoment s delay, the destruction of a germ so prolific and contagious. let us employ the whole force of our art against this Calamity. Let us sound the alarm to kings, that they may ioin in our cause. Let us divide the people ; let us engage thei in Si’ and f aside their attention by conquests and national j ousj. Let Us excite their apprehensions respecting the p wei o is free nation. Let us form a grand league against the comhion enemy. Let us pull down the sacrilegious standard, demolish this throne of rebellion, and quench this fire of revolu tion in its outset, |Jealit>r the and religious tyrants of the people entered into a general combination, and having gained, either by constraint or seduction, multitudes on thefo side, they adhost,1le1man«er against the free nation. Surround in the altar ancUhrone of natural law, they demanded, with loud cries : What is this new and heretical doctrine ? What this impious altar, this sacrilegious worship ? True believers and royal subjects ! Would you not suppose that to-day truth has been first discovered, and that hitherto you have been in volved in error! Would you not suppose that these men, more o tunate than yourselves, have alone the privilege of being use. nd you, rebel and guilty nation, do you not feel that your chiefs mislead you ? that they adulterate the principles of your faith, and overturn the religion of your fathers ? Tremble 4 Wrali °f heaven !>e lifted against you; and hasten by speedy repentance to expiate your error.” , i t.1inaccesSjble \o seduction as to terror, the free nation p si ence : it maintained an exact discipline in arms, and continued to exhibit an imposing attitude. And the legislators said to the chiefs of nations : “If when we^went on with our eyes hood-winked, our steps did not fail eenig ened, why now that the bandage is removed, should We conceive that we are involved in darkness ? If we, who pre6 <1 iPan^ind * exert their faculties, deceive and mislead ° • ’’ ? ca.n expected from those who desire only to wa ntam them in blindness ? Ye chiefs of nations, if you possess truth, communicate it: we shall receive it with gratitude : for with ardour we pursue it, and with interest shall engage in the �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 59 discovery. We are men and may be deceived ; but you also are men, and as fallible as ourselves. Assist us in this labyrinth, in which the human species has wandered fpr so many ages ; assist us to dissipate the illusion of evil habits and prejudice. Enter the lists with us in the shock of opinions which dispute for our acceptance, and engage with us in tracing the pure and proper character of truth. Let us terminate to-day the long combat of error; let us establish between it and truth a solemn contest: let us call in men of every nation to assist us in the judgment: let us convoke a general assembly of the world; let them be judges in their own cause ; and in the successive trial of every system, let no champion and no argument be wanting to the side of prejudice or of reason. In fine, let a fair exami nation of the result of the whole give birth to universal harmony of minds and opinions.” CHAP. XIX. Ge n e r al As s e m b l y o f t h e Pe o pl e . Th u » spoke the legislators of this free people; and the multi tude, seized with the spirit of admiration, which every reasonable proposition never fails to inspire, shouted their applause, and the tyrants remained alone, overwhelmed with confusion. A scene of a new and astonishing nature then presented itself to my view. All the people and nations of the globle, every race of men from every climate, advancing on all sides, seemed to assemble in one inclosure, and form in distinct groupes an immense congress. The motley appearance of this innumerable crowd, occasioned by their diversity of dress, of features, and of complexion, exhibited a most extraordinary and most attrac tive spectacle. On one side I could distinguish the European with his short and close habit, his triangular hat, smooth chin, and powdered hair; and on the opposite side the Asiatic with a flowing robe, a long beard, a shaved head, and a circular turban. Here I observed the inhabitants of Africa, their skin of the colour of ebony, their hair woolly, their body girt with white and blue fish-skin, and adorned with bracelets and collars of corals, shells, and glass-beads ; there the northern tribes, inveloped in bags of of skin; the Laplander with his piked bonnet and his snow shoes ; the Saraoiede with glowing limbs and with a strong odour; the Tongouse with his bonnet shaped like a horn, and carrying his idols pendant from his neck; the Yakoute with his freckled skin; the Calmuck with flattened nose and with little eyes, forced as it were to have ho correspondence with each other. Farther in the distance were the Chinese, attired in silk, and with their hair hanging in tresses; the Japanese of �60 A SURVEY OF THE mingled race; the Malayans with spreading ears, with a ring in their nose, and with a vast hat of the leaves of the palm-tree * and the Tatoued inhabitants of the islands of the ocean and of the continent of tl?e Antipodesd. The contemplation of one species thus infinitely varied, of one understanding thus modified with extravagance, of one organization assuming so contrary appearances, gave me a very complicated sensation, and excited in me a thousand thoughts^. I contemplated with astonishment this gradation of colour, from a bright carnation to a brown scarcely less bright, a dark brown, a muddy brown, bronze, olive leaden, copper, as far as to the black of ebony and jet. I ob served the Cassimerean, with his rose-coloured cheek, next in vicinity to the sun-burnt Hindoo; the Georgian standing by the Tartar; and I reflected upon the effect of climate, hot or cold of soil mountainous or deep, marshy or dry, wooded or open’ I compared the dwarf of the pole with the giant of the temperate Zone ; the lank Arab with the pot-bellied Hollander ; the squat figure of the Samoiede with the tall and slender form of the Sclavcmian and the Greek; the greasy and woolly head of the Negro with the shining locks of the Dane ; the flaUfaced Cal muck, with his eyes angle-wise to each other and his nose crushed, to the oval and swelling visage, the large blue eyes, and the aquiline nose, of the Circassian and the Abassin. I contrasted the painted linens of India with the workmanlike cloths of Europe ; the rich furs of Silesia : the various clothing of savage nations, skins of fishes, platting of reeds, interweavin« * of leaves and feathers, together with the blue stained figures of serpents, stars, and flowers, with which their skin is varied. Sometimes the general appearance of this multitude reminded me of the enamelled meadows of the Nile and the Euphrates, when after rains and inundations, millions of flowers unfold them’ selves on all sides ; and sometimes it resembled, in murmuring *This species oí' the palm-tree is called Latanier. Its leaf, similar to a fan mount, grows upon a stalk issuing directly from the earth. A specimen may be seen in the botanic garden, t The country of the Papons, pr New Guinea. t A hall of costumas in one of the galleries of the Louvre, would in every point of view be an interesting establishment ; it would furnish an admirable treat to the curiosity of a great number of men, excellent models to the artist, and useful subjects of meditation to the physician, the philosopher, and the legislator. Picture to yourself a collection of the various faces and figures ¿f every country and nation, exhibiting accurately colour, features and form ; what a fieid of investigation and enquiry as to the influence of climate, manners, aliment, &c 1 It might truly be styled the science, of man 1 Buffon has attempted a chapter of this nature, but it only serves to exhibit more strikingly our actual ignorance. Such a collection it is said is begun at Petersburgh, but it is said at the same time, to be as imperfect as the vocabulary of the 300 languages. The enterprize would be worthy of the French nation. ■? "■ �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 61 sound and busy motion, the innumerable swarms of grasshoppers which alight in the spring like a cloud upon the plains of Hauran. At si Hit of so many living and percipient animals, 1 recollected, on one° side, the immense multitude of thoughts and sensations which were crowded into this space ; and on the other, reflected on the contest of so many opinions and prejudices, ana the struggle of so many capricious passions ; and I was struck with astonishment, admiration, and apprehension. When the legis lators, have enjoined silence, presently fixed my attention on themselves. « Inhabitants of the earth, (said they), a free and powerful nation addresses you in the name of justice and of peace, and offers, as the sure pledge of its sincerity, its conviction and ex perience. We were for a long time tormented with the same evils as you ; we have enquired into their origin, and we have found them to be derived from violence and injustice, which the inexperience of past ages established into laws, and the pi ejudices of the present generation have supported and cherished. Then, abolishing every factious and arbitrary institution, and ascend ing to thè source of reason and of right, we perceived that there existed in the order of the universe, and in the physical constitution of man5 eternal and immutable laws^ which waited only his observance to render him happy. O men of different climes ! look to the heavens that give you light, to the earth that nourishes you ! Since they present to you all the same gifts ; since the Power that directs their motions has bestowed on you the same life, the same organs, the same wants, has it not also given you the same right to the use of its benefits ? Has it not hereby de clared you alito be equal and free ? What mortal then shall dare refuse to his fellow creature that which is granted him by nature ? O nations ! let us banish all tyranny and discord ; let us form one society, one vast family ; and, since mankind are all constituted alike, let there henceforth exist but one law, that of nature ; one code, that of reason ; one throne, that of justice ; one altar, that of union.” They ceased : and the multitude rended the skies with ap plause and acclamation ; and in their transports made the earth resound with the words equality, justice, union ! But different feelings presently succeeded to this first emotion. The doctors and chiefs of the people exciting in them a spirit of disputation, there arose a kind of murmur, which, spreading from groupe to groupe, was converted to uproar, and from uproar into disorder of the first magnitude. Every nation assumed exclusive preten sions, and claimed the preference for its own opinions and code. You are in error,” said the parties, pointing to each other ; « we alone are in possession of reason and truth : ours is the true law, the genuine rule of justice and right, the sole means �A SURVEY OF THE * ^nd PTrf€ct?on: all other men are either blind or rebellious And the agitation became extreme. 1 !he Ieglslators having proclaimed silence : “ People (said wHWh-y what ImPulse of passion are you agitated .' Where will this quarrel conduct you ? What advantage do you expect fi om this dissension? For ages has the earth been a field of disputation, and torrents of blood have been shed to decide the controveisy, what profit have you reaped from so many combats and tears? When the strong has subjected the weakTo his <’niaS therTby furthered the cause of evidence and tiuth. O nations, take counsel of your own wisdom ’ If dis putes arise between families, or individuals, by what mode do yqu leconcile them ; do you not appoint arbitrators ?” “ Yes ” exclaimed the multitude unanimously. “ Treat then the authors of your present dissensions in a similar manner. Command ymi^hd^creed tTdelVeS instructors’ and ™pose oQ y Ue r creed> to discuss in your presence the arguments on Stan?’1S1 fo,unded- Since ^ey appeal to your interests, under stand in what manner your interests are treated by them. And in fhp HrfS aiid doctoJs of the People, before you involve them in the discoi dance of your opinions, let the reasons for and Xmn T °Pimons be, iahdy discussed. Let us establish a conhoversy, a public investigation of truth, not before the tribunal of a frail individual, or a prejudiced pirtv/but in UPlted lnformation and interests of mankind * and j1udgl^IlatUral SenSe °f the Wh°le speeies our arbitrator In v e s t CHAP. XX. ig a t io n of Tr u t h . Th e . people having by shouts expressed their approbation the legislators sa.d : “ that we may proceed in this grand work wi ll order and regularity, let a spacious amphitheatre be formed of reti.d T r altaruf “mon and peace: let each system li^ion, and each particular sect, erect its proper and distxngu,shmg standard in points of the circumference; let its hiets and its doctors place themselves round it and let their *? " ris!'tline ‘<™™ted by the standard.” 11^ amphitheatre being traced out, and order proclaimed, a prodigious number of standards were instantly raised, sSar the’flaaslfVh.111/ CJ>“'1;ercia' P°rt’ wben ™ days of festivity, si-rlit of this r-e,-natl^!ls st^eanl prom a barest of masts. At G"1 ins ■ T spar ‘‘“S d*ve,?“J> 1 addressed myself to the intn 1 -caieely supposed the earth, said I, to be divided vnto moie than eight or ten different systems of relio-ion and I X,dTtt° ,c<)"«iiatio" = !’»"' caa I now'hopeforconcoi’d when I behold thousands of different parties ’ —These, how-. ' �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 63 ever, replied the Genius, are but a part of what exist; and yet they would be intolerant. As the groupes advanced to take their stations, the Genius, pointing out to me the symbols and attributes of each, thus ex plained to me then- meaning. That first groupe, said he, with a green standard, on which you see displayed a cross, a bandage, and a sabre, is formed of the followers of the Arabian prophet. To believe in a God (without knowing what he is); to have faith in the words of a man (without understanding the language in which he speaks); to travel into a desert in order to pray to the Deity (who is every where) ; to wash the hands with water (and not abstain from blood); to fast all day (and practise intemperance at night) ; to give alms of their own property (and to plunder the property of their neighbour): such are the means of perfection instituted by Mahomet, such the signals and characteristics of his true followers ; and whoever professes not these tenets, is considered as a reprobate, has the sacred anathema denounced against him, and he is devoted to the sword. A God of clemency, the author of life, has, according to them, instituted these laws of oppres sion and murder; has instituted them for the whole universe, though he has condescended to reveal them but to one man : has established them from all eternity, though they were made known by him but yesterday. These laws are sufficient for all the purposes of life, and yet a volume is added to them ; this volume was to diffuse light, to exhibit evidence, to lead to per fection and happiness, and yet, in the very life-time of its pro phet, its pages," every where abounding with obscure, ambigu ous, and contradictory passages, needed explanation and com mentaries ; and the persons who undertook to interpret them, varying in opinion, became divided into sects and parties oppo site and inimical to each other. One maintains that Ali is the true successor, and another takes the part of Omar and Aboubekre. This denies the eternity of the Koran, that the neces sity of ablutions and prayers. The Carmite proscribes pilgrim age, and allows the use of wine ; the Hakemite preaches the doctrine of transmigration, and thus are there sects to the num ber of seventy-two, of which you may enumerate the different . * standards In this discordance, each ascribing the evidence exclusively to itself, and stigmatising the rest with heresy and rebellion, has turned against them its sanguinary zeal. And this religion, which celebrates a beneficent and merciful God, the common parent of the whole human race, converted into a * The Mussulmans enumerate in common seventy-two sects ; but I read, while I resided among them, a work which gave an account of more than eighty, ail equally wise arid important. �64 A SURVEY OF THE torch of discord, and an incentive to Avar, has never ceased for twelve hundred years to whelm the earth in blood, and spread ravage and desolation from one extremity of the ancient hemi sphere to the other . * The men you see distinguished by their vast white turbans, their hanging sleeves and long rosaries, are the Imans, the Mollas, and the Muftis ; and not far from them are the Dervises with a pointed bonnet, and the Santons with their sacred tonsure. They utter with vehemence their several confessions of faith ; they dispute with eagerness respecting the more or less important sources of impurity ; the mode of performing ablu-tions ; the attributes and perfections of God ; the Chaitan and the good and evil Genii; death; the resurrection ; the interro gatory which succeeds the tomb ; the passage of the perilous bridge, and its hair-breadth escapes ; the balance of good and bad works ; the pains of hell, and the joys of paradise. By the side of these, that still more numerous groupe, with standards of a white ground strewed with crosses, consists of the worshippers of Jesus. Acknowledging the same God as the Mussulmans, founding their belief on the same books, admitting like them a first man, who lost the whole human race by eating an apple, they yet feel towards them a holy horror ; and from motives of piety, these two sects reciprocally treat each other as impious men and blasphemers. Their chief point of dissension is, that the Christian, after admitting the unity and indivisibility of God, proceeds to divide him into three persons, making of each an entire and complete God, and yet preserving an identical whole : he adds, that this Being, who fills the universe, reduced himself to the stature and form of a man, and assumed material, perishable, and limited organs, w ithout ceasing to be immaterial, eternal, and infinite. The Mussulman, on the contrary, not able to comprehend these mysteries, though he readily conceives of the eternity of the Koran, and the mission of the prophet, treats them as absurdities, and rejects them as the visions of a disordered brain. Hence result the most implacable animosities. Divided among themselves, the Christian sects are not less numerous than those of the Mussulman religion ; and the quar rels that agitate them are by so much the more violent, since the objects for which they contend being inaccessible to the senses, and of consequence incapable of demonstration, the opinions of each sectary can have no other foundation than that of his w ill * Read the history of Islamism by its own writers, and you will be convinced that one of the principal causes of the wars which have desolated Asia and Africa since the days of Mahomet, has been the apostolical fanaticism of itsdoctrine. Caesar has been supposed to have destroyed three millions of men : it would be interesting to make a similar calculation respecting every founder of a religious system. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 65 or caprice. Thus agreeing that God is an incomprehensible and unknown being, they nevertheless dispute respecting his essence, his mode of acting, and his attributes. Agreeing that his sup posed transformation into man, is an enigma above the human understanding, they still dispute respecting the confusion or the distinction of two wills and two natures, the change of sub stance, the real or fictitious presence, the mode of incarnation, &c. &c. Hence innumerable sects, of which two or three hun dred have already perished, and three or four hundred others still exist, and are represented by that multitude of colours in which your sight is bewildered. The first in order, surrounded by a groupe absurd and discordant in their attire, red, purple, black, white, and speckled, with heads wholly or partially shaved, Or with their hair short, with red caps, square caps, here with mitres, there with beards, is the standard of the Roman pontiff, who, applying to the priesthood the pre-eminence of his city in the civil order, has erected his supremacy into a point of religion, and made of his pride an article of faith. At the right, you see the Greek Pontiff, who, proud of the rivalship set up by his metropolis, opposes equal pretensions, and supports them against the Western churcn, by the superior an tiquity of that of the East. At the left, are the standards of two recent chiefs who, throwing off a yoke that was become tyran , * nical, have, in their reform, erected altars against altars, and. gained half Europe from the Pope. Behind them are the inferior sects into which these grand parties are again subdivided, the Nestorians, the Eutycheans, the Jacobites, the Iconoclasts, the Anabaptists, the Presbyterians, the Wiclifites, the Osiandrins, the Manicheans, the Pietists, the Adamites, the Enthusiasts, the Quakers, the Weepers, together with a hundred others +; all of distinct parties, of a persecuting spirit when strong, tolerant when weak, hating each other in the name of a God of peace, forming to themselves an exclusive paradise in a religion of universal charity, each dooming the rest, in another World, to endless tor ments, and realizing here the imaginary hell of futurity. Next to this groupe, observing a single standard of a hyacinth 2yr’ round which were gathered men in all the various dresses of Europe and Asia: Here, said I to the Genius, we shall at least find unanimity.—At first sight, replied he, and fr om an incidental and temporary circumstance this would seem to be the case: but do you not know what system of worship it is ?—Then perceiving in Hebrew letters the monogram of God, and branches * Luther and Calvia. T Consult upon this subject Dictionnaire des Heresies par I'abbe Pluqnet, in two voiunies, 8vo.; a work admirably calculated to inspire the mind with philosophy in the sense that the Lacedemonians taught their children tempe rance, by shewing to them the drunken Heliotes. K �66 A SURVEY OF THE of the palm-tree in the hands of the Rabbins : Are not these, said I, the children of Moses, dispersed over the earth, and who, holding every nation in abhorrence, have been themselves uni versally despised and persecuted ?—Yes, replied the Genius, and it is for this very reason that, having neither time nor liberty to dispute, they have preserved the appearance of unanimity. But in their re-union, no sooner shall they compare their principles, and reason upon their opinions, than they will be divided, as for merly, at least into two principal sects one of which, taking , * advantage of the silence of their legislator, and confining itself to the literal sense of his books, will deny every dogma not there in clearly understood, and of consequence will reject, as inven tions, the immortality of the soul, its transmigration into an abode of happiness or seat of pain, its resurrection, the la.st judgment, the existence of angels, the revolt of a fallen spirit, and the poetical system of a world to come: and this favoured people, whose perfection consists in the cutting oft a moi sei of their flesh, this atom of people, that, in the ocean of mankind, is but as a small wave, and that pretends that the whole was made for them alone, will farther reduce by one half, in consequence of their schism, their already trivial weight in balance of the universe. The Genius then directed my attention to another groupe, the individuals of which were clothed in white robes, had a veil covering the mouth, and were ranged round a standard of the colour of the clouds gilded by the rising sun. On this standaid was painted a globe, one hemisphere of which was black and the other white. The fate of these disciples of Zoroaster+, con tinued he, this obscure remnant of a people once so powerful, will be similar to that of the Jews. Dispersed as they are at present among other nations, and persecuted by all, they receive without discussion the precepts that are taught them : but so soon _ as their Mobed and their Destours | shall be restored to their full prerogatives, the controversy will be revived respecting the good and the bad principle, the combats of Ormuz, God of light, and Abrimanes, God of darkness; the literal or allegorical senses of these combats; the good and evil Genii; the worship of fire and the elements ; pollution and purification ; the resurrection of the body, or the soul, or both ||; the renovation of the pre• The Sadducees and the Pharisees. t They are the Parses, better known by the opprobrious name of’Gaures or , Guebros, ^npthep wore} for infidels. The namp oftheip pope or high priest is Mobed. J Their Destours; that is to sdy, their priests. See, respecting the rites of this religion, Henry Lord Hyde, and the Zendavesta. Their costnma is a robe with a belt of four knots, and a veii over the mouth for fear of polluting the fire with thgir breath. [| flip Zoroastrian§ are divided between two opinions, one party believing �EVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 67 S6rtt world, or the production of a new which is to succeed it. The Parses will ever divide themselves into sects, by so much the more numerous as their families shall have contracted dif> ferent manners or opinions during their dispersion, Next to these are standards, which exhibit upon a blue ground monstrous figures of human bodies, double, triple, or quadruple, with the heads of lions, boars, and elephants, and tails of fishes, tortoises, &c. These are the standards of the Indian sects,-who find their Gods amidst the animal creation, and the souls of their kindred in reptiles and insects. These men anxiously support hospitals for the reception of hawks, serpents, and rats, and look with horror upon their brethren of mankind! They purify them selves with the dung and urine of a cow, and consider themselves as polluted by the touch of a heretic! They wear a net over their mouths, lest by accident a fly should get down their throat, and they should thus interrupt the progress of a purified spirit in its purgatory; but with all this humanity in unintelligible cases, they think themselves obliged to let a Paria * perish with hunger rather than relieve him ! They worship the same Gods, but inlist themselves under hostile standards. This first standard, separated from the rest, and on which you see represented a figure with four heads, is the standard of Brama, who, though the Creator of the universe, has neither followers nor temples, and who, reduced to serve as a pedestal to the Lingam +, receives no other mark of attention than a little water sprinkled every morning over his shoulder by the Bramin, and a barren song in his praise. The second standard, on which you see pai nted a kite, his body scarlet and his head white, is that of the Vichenou, who;, though the preserver of the universe, has passed a part of his life in malevolent actions. Sometimes you see him under the hideous forms of a boar and lion, tearing the entrails of man kind ; sometimes under that of a horsej, soon to appear upon the face of the earth, with a sabre in his hand, to destroy the present inhabitants of the world, to darken the stars, to drive the planets from their spheres, to shake the whole earth, and that both soul ancl body will rise ; the other, thrft it will be the soul only. The Christians and Mahometans have embraced the most solid of the two. * According to the system of the Metempsychosis, a soul to undergo purifi cation, passes into the body of some insect or animal. It is of importance not to disturb this penance, as the work must, in that case, begin afresh.—Pari#. This is the name of a cast or tritfe' reputed unclean, because they eat of what has enjoyed life+ Brama,—reduced to serve as a pedestal to the Lingham. See Sonner&t, Voyage aux Indes, Vol. 1. j These are the incarnations of Vichenou, or metamorphoses of the sun. He is to come at the end of the world, that is, at the expiration of the great period, in the form of a horse, like the four horses of the apocalypse. �68 A SURVEY OF THE to oblige the mighty serpent to vomit a flame which shall con sume the globe. The third standard is that of Chiven, the destroyer of all things, the God of desolation, and who nevertheless has for his emblem the instrument of production ; he is the most detestable or the three, and he has the greatest number of followers. Proud of his attribute and character, his partizans in their devo * tions express every sort of contempt for the other Gods, his equals and his brothers, and imitating the inconsistency that characterises him, they profess modesty and chastity, and at the same time publicly crown with flowers' and bathe with milk and honey, the obscene image of the Lingam. Behind them came the less magnificent standards of a multi tude of Gods, male, female, and hermaphrodite, related to and connected with the three principal, who pass their lives in in testine war, and are in this respect imitate^ by their worshippers. 1 hese Gods have need of nothing, and receive offerings without ceasing. Their attributes are omnipotence and ubiquity, and a Bramin with some petty charm imprisons them in an image, or in a pitcher, and retails their favours according to his will and pleasure. At a still greater distance you will observe a multitude of other standards, which upon a yellow ground, common to them all, have different emblems figured, and are the standards of one God, who, under various names, is acknowledged by the nations of the East. The Chinese worship him under the name of Fot +; the Japanese denominate him Budso ; the inhabitants of Ceylon, Beddhou; the people of Laos, Chekia ; the Peguan, Phta ; the Siamese, Sommona-Kodom; the people of Thibet, Budd and La; all of them agree as to most points of his history; they celebrate his penitence, his sufferings, his fasts, his functions of mediator and expiator, the enmity of another God his adversary, the combats of that adversary and his defeat: but they disagree respecting the means of recommending themselves to his favour, respecting rites and ceremonies, respecting the dogmas of their * When a sectary of Chi ven hears the name of Vichenon pronounced, he stops Jus ears, flies, and purifies himself ,,anie this God is Halts, which in Hebrew signifies an egg, -lie Arabs pronounce it Baidh, giving to the dh an emphatic sound which makes it approach to dz. Kempfer, an accurate traveller, writes it Budso, which must be pronounced Boudso, whence is derived the name of Budsoist and of Bonze, applied to the priests Clement of Alexandria, in his Stromata writes it Bedov, as it is pronounced also by the Chingulais; and St. Jerome, Houdda and Benita. At Thibet they call it Budd ; and hence the name of the countjy caned Boudtan, and Tibudd: it was iii tins province that this system x f? religion was first inculcated in Upper Asia ; La is a corruption of A llak, the name of-God in the Syriac language, from which many of the Eastern laiects appear to be derived. The Chinese having neither 5 nor d9 have supplied their place by /and t, and have therefore said JW. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 69 interior and their public doctrine. Thus the Japanese Bonze, in .a yellow robe, and with his head uncovered, preaches the eternity of souls and their successive transmigration into different bodies ; while his rival, the Sintoist, denies that the soul can exist independantlv of the senses and maintains that it is the mere , * result of the organization with which it is connected, and with which it perishes, as Die sound of a flute is annihilated when you break it in peaces. Near him the Siamese, with shaved «ye-brows, and with the Talipat screen in his handf, recommends alms-giving, purifications and offerings, at the very time that li® believes in blind necessity and immutable fate. The Chinese Ho-Chang sacrifices to the souls of his ancestors, while his neighbour the follower of Confucius, pretends to discover his future destiny by the tossing of counters and the conjunction of the stars j;. Observe this infant attended by a numerous crowd of priests with yellow garments and bonnets : he is the grand Lama, and the God of Thibet has just become incarnate in his person)}. He however has a rival on the banks of the Baikal; nor is the Calmuc Tartar in this respect any way behind the Tartar of La-sa. They are agreed in this important doctrine^, that God can become incarnate only in a human body, and scorn the stupidity of the Indian, who looks down with reverence upon cow-dung, though they themselves preserye with no less awe the excrements of their pontiff^. As these standards passed, an innumerable crowd of others presented themselves to our eyes, and the Genius exclaimed; See in Kempfer the doctrine of the Sintoists, which is a mixture of that of Epicurus and of the Stoics. * t It is a Leaf of the Latanier, species of the palm-tree. Hence the Bonzes of *• larn take the appellation of Talapoin. The use of this screen is an pyrlnov« Bonzes. It is, indeed, the malady of every eastern nation. H 'Ike Grand Lama. The Delai-La-HIa, or immense high priests of La. is the same person whom we find mentioned in our old books of travels, by the name of I rester John, from a corruption of the Persian word Djehan, which sigmhes the world, to which has been prefixed the French word prestre or pretre, priest. Thus the priest world and the God world are in the Persian idiom the same. § In a recent expedition, the English have found certain idols of the Lamas "'æd >n the inside with sacred pastils from the close-stool of the high priest. Air. Hastings, and Colonel Politer, who is now at Lausanne, are living witnesses of this fact, and undoubtedly worthy of credit. It will be very extraordinary to observe, that this disgusting ceremony is connected with a Piotound philosophical system, to wit, that of the metempsychosis, admitted ny the Lamas. When the Tartars swallow these sacred relics, which they are accustomed to do, they imitate the laws of the universe, the parts of which are incessantly absorbed and pass into the substano of each other. It is upmt t ie model of the serpent who devours his tail, and this serpent is Budd and �A SURVEY OF THE 'tO I should never come to a conclusion, were I to detail to you all the different systems of belief which divide these nations. Here the Tartar Hordes adore, under the figure of animals, insects, and birds, the good and the evil Genii, who, under a principal but indolent divinity, govern the universe, by their idolatry, giving us an image of the ancient paganj^m of the western world. You see the strange dress of their Chamans, a robe of leather fringed with little bells and rattles, embroidered with idols of iron, claws of birds, skins of serpents, and heads of owls : they are agitated with artificial convulsions, and with magical cries evoke the dead to deceive the living. In this place you behold the sooty inhabitants of Africa, who, while they worship their Fetiches, entertain the same opinions. The inhabitant of Juida adores God under the figure of an enormous serpent, which for their misfortune the swine reward as a delicious morsel . * The Telutean dresses the figure of his God in a variety of gaudy colours, like a Russian soldier; and the Kamchadale, finding that every thing goes on ill in this world, and under his climate, represents God to himself under the figure of an ill-natured and arbitrary old manf, smoking his pipe and sitting in his traineau employed in the hunting of foxes and martins. In line, there are a hundred other savage nations, who, entertaining none of these ideas of civilized countries respecting God, the soul, and a future state, exercise no species of worship, and yet are no less favoured with the gifts of nature, in the irreligion to which nature has destined them. CHAP. XXI. Pr obl em o f Re l ig io u s Co n t r a d ic t io n s . Th e different groupes having taken their stations, and pro * found silence succeeding to the confused uproar of the multitude, the legislators said : “ Chiefs and doctors of the people! you perceive how the various nations of mankind, living apart, have hitherto pursued different paths, each believing its own to be * It frequently happens, that the swine devour the very species of serpents which the negroes adore, which is a source of great desolation in the country. President de Brosses has given us in his history of the Fetiche, a curious collection of absurdities ot this nature. The Teleutean dresses, fyc. 'I be Tehiteans, a Tartar nation, paint God as wearing a vesture of all colours, particularly red and green ; and as these constitute the uniform of the Russian dragoons, they compare him to this description of soldiers. The Egyptians also dress the God World in a garment of every colour. Eusebius Prap. Evang. p. 1 15, I. 3. The Teleuteans call God Bou, which is only an alteration ofBoudd, the God Egg and World. t The Kamchadale represents God under the figure of an ill-natured and arbitrary old man. Consult upon this subject a work entitled, Description des Peoples soumis a la Russe, and it will be found that the picture is not over charged. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. n that of truth. If truth, however, is one, and your opinions are . opposite, it is manifest that some of you must be in error : and since so many men deceive themselves, what individual shall dare say, I am not mistaken ? Begin, then, by being indulgent respecting your disputes and dissensions. Let us all seek truth, as if none of us had possession of it The opinions which to this day have governed the earth, produced by chance, dis seminated in obscurity, admitted without discussion, credited from a love of novelty and imitation, have in a manner clandes tinely usurped their empire. It is time, if they are founded in reality, to give them the solemn stamp of certainty, and to legitimate their existence. Let us this day cite them to a com mon and general examination ; let each make known his creed ; let the united assembly be the judge^ and let us acknowledge that to be the only true one, which is proper for the whole human race.” Then, in order of position, the first standard at the left being desired to speak : “ There can be no doubt,” said they, “that ours is the only true and infallible doctrine. In the first place, it is revealed by God himself.” “ So also is ours,” exclaimed all the other standards, “and there can be no room for doubt.” “ But it is at least necessary to explain it,” said the legis lators, “ for it is impossible for us to believe any thing of which we are ignorant.” “ Our doctrine,” resumed the first standard, is proved by nu merous facts, by a crowd of miracles, by resurrections from the dead, by torrents suddenly dried up, mountains removed from their situations, &c. &c.” “ We also,” cried the rest, “are in possession of miracles with out number;” and each began to recite the most incredible things. “ Their miracles,” replied the first standard, “are imaginary, or the prestiges of the evil spirit who has deluded them.” To this it was answered by the others : “ They are yours, on the contrary, that are imaginaryand each speaking of himself, added: “ Ours are the only true ones, all other miracles are false.” “ Have you living witnesses of their truth ?” the legislators asked.' “ No,” they universally answered : “ they are ancient facts, of which the witnesses are dead, but these facts are recorded.” k “ Be it so,” replied the legislators : “ but as they contradict each other, who shall reconcile them ?” “ Just arbiters !” cried one of the standards, “ as a proof that our witnesses have seen the truth, they died in confirmation of it; and our creed is sealed with the blood of martyrs.” So also is ours?” exclaimed the rest; “ we have thousands �A SURVEY OF THE ©f martyrs, who have died in the most agonizing tortures with* ttut in a single instance abjuring the truth.” And the Christians ot every sect, the Mussulmans, the Indians, the Japanese re counted endless legends of confessors, martyrs, penitents &c One of these parties having denied the martyrology of the ^hers: “We are ready,” cried they, “ to die ourselves to prove the infallibility of our creed.” 1 Instantly a crowd of men of every sect and of every religion pi esented themselves to endure whatever torments might be in flicted on them ; and numbers of them began to tear their arms and to beat their head and their breast, without discovering anv symptom of pain. & J But the legislator's putting a stop to this violence: “ O men!’* said they to them, « hear with composure the words we address to you. If you die to prove that two and two make four, will this truth gain additional confirmation by your death ?” iC No,” was the general answer. “ If you die to prove they are five, will this make them five No,” they again replied. w What, then, does your persuasion prove, since it makes no alteration in the existence of things. Truth is one ; your opi nions are various; many of you must therefore be mistaken, Andjince man, as is evident, can persuade himself of error, how eon his persuasion be regarded as the demonstration of evidence » Since error has its martyrs, what is the signet of truth ? Since the evil spirit works miracles, what is the distinguishing charac teristic of the Divinity ? Beside, why this uniform resort to in complete and insufficient miracles ? Why not rather, instead of v x t l 6 v io b t io n s nature, change the opinions of rational beings ? Why murder and terrify men, instead of enlightening; and in structing them ? O credulous mortals, and obstinate in your credulity ! as we are none of us certain of what passed yesterday, of what is pass ing this very day before our eyes, how can we swear to the truth ot what happened two thousand years ago ? Weak, and at the same time proud beings ! the laws of nature are immutable and profound, our understandings full of illusion and frivolity, and yet we would decide upon and comprehend every thing. Rut in reality it is easier for the whole human race to fall into error, than an atom of the universe to change its nature.” « Well then,’1 said one of the doctors, M let us leave the evi dence of facts, since such evidence is equivocal, and let us attend •to5 the proofs of reason, and the intrinsic merit of the doctrine itself..”1 An Iman of tli’e law of Mahomet, with a look of confidence, advanced in the sand, and having turned himself towards Mecca, and uttered with emphasis his confession of faith : “ Let �DEVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. God Be praised !” said he, in a grave and authoritative voice • “ the light shines in all its splendour, and the truth has no need of examination.” Then exhibiting the Koran: “ Behold the light and the truth in their genuine colours! In this book every doubt is removed, it will conduct the blind man safely, who shall receive without discussion the divine word, given to the prophet to save the simple and confound the wise. God hath appointed Mahomet to be his minister upon earth ; he has delivered up the world to him, that he might subdue by his sword such as refuse to believe in his law. Infidels dispute his authority, and resist the truth : their obduracy proceeds from God, who has hardened their hearts that he might inflict upon them the most dreadful . * chastisements ” Here a violent murmur from all sides interrupted the Iman. “ What man is this,” cried every groupe, cc who thus gratuit ously commits outrage ? By what right does he pretend, as con queror and tyrant, to impose his creed on mankind ? Has not God created us as well as him with eyes, understanding, and rea son ? Have we not an equal right to make use of them in deter mining what we ought to reject, and what to believe ? If he have the right to attack, have not we the right to defend our selves ? If he be content to believe without examination, are we therefore not to employ our reason in the choice of our creed ? <£ And what is this splendid doctrine which fears the light ? What this apostle of a God of clemency who preaches only car nage and murder ? What this God of justice who punishes a blindness which himself has caused ? If violence and persecution are the arguments of truth, mildness and charity must then be the indices of falsehood ?” A man advancing from the next grotipe, then said to the Iman : i£ Admitting that Mahomet is the apostle of the better doctrine, the prophet of the true religion, condescend to tell us, in^prdctising this doctrine, whom we are to follow, his Son-in-law Ali, or his vicars Omar and Aboubekref ?” At the mention of these names a terrible schism arose among the Mussulmans. The partisans of Omar and of Ali treating each other as heretics and blasphemers, were equally lavish of execrations. The dispute even became so violent, that it was necessary for the neighbouring groupes to interpose to prevent their coming to blows. Some degree of tranquillity being at length restored, the legisla* This passage contains the sense and nearly the very words of the first chapter of the Koran ; and the reader will observe in general, that in the * pictures that follow, the writer has endeavoured to give as accurately as possible the letter and spirit of the opinion of each party. f t These are the two grand parties info which the Mussulmans are divided * The lurks have embraced the second, the Persians the first. L �74 A SURVEY OF THE tors said to the Imans: “You see what are the consequences which result from your principles! were they carried into practice, you would by your enmity destroy each other till not an individual would remain: and is it not the first law of God, that man should live ?” Then addressingthemselves to the other groupes : “ this spirit of intolerance and exclusion,” said they, “is doubtless shocking to every idea of justice, and destroys the whole basis of morals and society: shall we not, however, before we entirely reject this code, agree to hear some of its dogmas recited, that we may not decide from forms only, without having investigated the religion itself?” ° The groupes having consented to the proposal, the Iman be gan to explain to them how God, who before time had spoken to the nations sunk in idolatry by twenty-four thousand prophets, had at length sent the last, the extract and perfection of all the lest, Mahomet, in whom was vested the salvation of peace: he informed them that to prevent the word of truth from being any more perverted by infidels, the Divine clemency had written with its own fingers the chapters of the Koran; and that the Koran, bj virtue of its character of the word of God, was, like its au thor, uncreated and eternal. He proceeded to explain to them the dogmas of Islamism ; that this book had been transmitted from heaven leaf by leaf in twenty-four thousand miraculous visions of the angel Gabriel; that the angel announced his ap proach by a small still knocking, which threw the prophet into a cold sweat; that Mahomet had in one night traversed ninety heavens, mounted upon the animal called Borak, one-half woman and one-half horse; that being endowed with the gift of miracles, he walked in the sunshine unattended by a shadow, caused with a single word trees already withered lo resume their verdure, filled the wells and the cisterns with water, and cut in two equal pacts the body of the moon; that, authorized by a commission from heaven, he had propagated, sword in hand, a religion the most worthy of God for its sublimity, the most suitable to man for the simplicity of its injunctions, consisting indeed only of eight or ten principal doctrines, such as the unity of God ; the authority of Mahomet the only prophet of God; our duty to pray five times in a day ; to fast one month in the year; to re pair to Mecca once at least in our lives; to pay the tenth of all that we possess ; to drink no wine, to eat no pork, and to make war upon the infidels ; upon which conditions every Mussulman, * being himself an apostle and a martyr, should enjoy in this life a thousand blessings, and in the world to come, after a solemn Whatever the advocates for the pbilosoph}r and civilization of the Turks may asseit, to make war upon infidels is considered by them as an obligatory pracept, and an act of religion. See lieland de Relig. Moham. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 75 aSf dXhts bathed in riven> of milk and honey, embalmed in the perfumes of India and Arabia, and live an uninterrupted eommeree with those chaste females the celestai Honr.s who present a perpetually renewed virginity to the elect, who pre SS An involuntary smile was visible in the countenance of every ont ai this relation ; and the various these articles of be^»---V^aid PMight one nTsuppose thft a chapter had just been read to us from the ^<^S^thesa„dthen^:‘‘Thepa^ of Mahomet is in my opinion excellent: but one of the:means dlin^Tuyn^eMar^to^bstain from meat and drink between taTrfsimr and setting of the sun, how in our own country is such 1 fast practicable, where the sun continues above the horizon %S?v”n'ditchaSteOfhehhronour of their prophet the Mussulman doctors denied the possibility of this; but ahP^^ ing testimony to the fact, the infallibility of Mahomet sustained d “iTis Singular,” said a European, “ that God should^con tinually havf revealed what was going on in heaven, without ever having informed us of what passes upon earth. « Their pil°rimage,” said an American, “ is to me an insuper able difficulty. For let us suppose a generation to be twenty five years and the number of males existing on the globe to be a hundred millions : in this case, each being obliged to travel to Mecca once during his life, there would be annually engaged in the pilgrimage four millions of men ; and as it would be 1mnractFcfbl! fm’ them to return in the same year, the number would be doubled, or, in other words, would ?™ou^ tO millions. Where are provisions accommodation, vessels to be found for this universal procession ? What numerous miracles would it not be necessary to work of «The proof,” said a Catholic Divine, “ that the religion oi Mahomet is not a revealed religion, is, that the majori Y ® ideas upon which it is founded existed for a long time before t, and that it is nothing more than a confused mixture formed out of the truths of our holy religion and that of ambitious man has made to serve his projects ofdominion an his worldly views. Turn over the pages of his book . you will �J6 A SURVEY OF THE see Jittle else than the histories nf fibi i xt m travestied into the most absurd ( vague and contradictory declamation a tissue of ous precepts. Analyze the snirii ndlcllIous or dangereo,dSct of their apX 'you'"'.l’L 7 S ' * ,a"d character, which to arrive »t ;g . .1 nna subtle and daring mirable skill upon the passions of riw«’ *s. true> a4It addresses itself to simple and cradulm^m ’* "'lsbe.s * 8overn. ° of prodigies : they are ¡inoran t a?d 11 tells tlle™ vanity by despising science • the jealous, and it flatters their it exátes^heiS; by Sé hop? rf E a“d faPaC¡°us’ a“d at first to give them on earth + plunder, having nothing dasta^dly^ thrlte^s wi?h\eTl-^to 8f“Pr^ . Etf ;P‘odXk “ raentof ¿ senses, and t^td^LXn ^e'^Ss^^6' and ho J:muclTdFiLüs emp^^^^^^ ! morality attests —““Vom8 inland ’intpo^VTea^"» res "tf'l V™“ “d“' ríes.” Then « Uh th eRM ve.lnve,’ted s«eh sublime mysteÉvano-elists nferil S ln one hand’ and the Four bSiní GodtofcJu ‘doctolJbega" relate that in the any- S’) conce ved » a,n e“raity without doing motive) of formino- the worfd fJeS,gjn. ^vithout aPParent in a deliothtfulhVard™ntoP aTd n® &’St P“’1' °f buman beinSs yielded tavern fa?; he' n T-h ’ ‘hat these first Parents having and of tho c beloved son, engendered without a mother t " be ,rnt n T aS ’b; ‘° deScend UP°" earth in order inaioró’’ ?f ?vb ? >’ and th‘S for the «'Ivnlion of mankind, the SFj'dF h?Ve «erertheless continued in the roéd to the son of a^woj '°n '' ‘í® * remedy tbis inconvenience, this God * ° bavin» died andbéen'F '™S a‘OnC® “ m°ther and a virSin> after ; vto„ cued and risen again, commences a new existence every �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 77 day, and under the form of a morsel of dough is multiplied a thousand-fold at the pleasure of the basest of mankind. Having explained these dogmas, he was going on to treat of the doctrine ,, of the Sacraments, of absolution and anathema, of the means of purifying men from crimes of every sort with a drop of water and the muttering half a dozen words; but he had no sooner pronounced the names of indulgence, papal prerogative, suf ficient grace, and effectual grace, than he was interrupted by a thousand voices at once. It is a horrid corruption, cried the Lutherans, to pretend to sell for money the pardon of sin ; it is .contrary to the sense of the gospel, said the Calvinists, to talk ,of the real presence in the Sacrament. The Pope, exclaimed the Jansenists, has no power to decide upon any thing without a council, thirty sects at once mutually accused each other of heresy and blasphemy, and their voices wese so confused that it .was no longer possible to distinguish a word they uttered. After some time, silence being at length restored, the Mussul mans said to the legislators : “Since you have rejected our doctrine as containing things incredible, can you possibly admit . that of the Christians, which is still more contrary to justice and < common sense ? An immaterial and infinite God to transform , himself into a man! To have a son as old as himself! This God-man to become bread, which is eaten and undergoes diges tion! What absurdities have we equal to these ? Is it to these men belong the exclusive right of exacting a blind obedience? And will you accord to them privileges of faith, to our detri ment. Some savage tribes then advanced: “What,” said they,3 because a man and a woman ate an apple-six thousand years I ago, is the whole human race to be involved in damnation ? ( And do you call God just ? What tyrant ever made the children \ p responsible for the sins of their fathers ? How can one man / answer for the actions of another ? Would not this be over-/ throwing every principle of equity'and reason ?” e h exclaimed others, “ are the witnesses and proofs pot all these pretended facts? It is impossible to receive them without evidence. The most trival action in a court of iudica.ture requires two witnesses, <tnd are we to believe all this upon \ were tradition and hearsay ?” r Jewish Rabbin then addressing the assembly, said : “ For the general facts we are indeed sureties ; but as to the form and application of those facts, the case is different, and the Christians are here condemned out of their own mouth. They cannot deny that we are the stock from which they are descended, the trunk upon which they have been grafted; from whence it follows, by dwnT1- b!6 d;lerama> that either our law is from God, and pen thens is a heresy, since it differs from ours; or our law is- �78 A SURVEY OF THE not from God, and then whatever proves its falsehood is destrue * tive of theirs.” “ But there is a proper line of distinction,” said the Christian, “to which it is necessary to attend. Your law is of God as typical and preparative, not as final and absolute ; you are but the image of which we are the reality.” £i We are not ignorant,” replied the Rabbin, “ that such are your pretensions; but they are perfectly suppositious and false. Your system rests entirely on mystical visionary, and allego , * rical interpretations. You pervert the letter of our books, substi tute continually for the true sense of a passage the most chimeri cal ideas, and find in them whatever is agreeable to your fancy, just as a roving imagination discovers figures in the clouds. You have thus imagined a spiritual Messiah, where our prophets speak only of a political king. You have interpreted into a redemption of the human race, what refers solely to the re establishment of our nation. Your pretended conception of the virgin is derived from a phrase which you have wrested from its true meaning. You construe every thing as you please. You even find in our books your doctrine of the Trinity, though they con tain not the most indirect allusion to it, and though the idea was an invention of profane nations, and admitted into your code, together with a multitude of other opinions of every worship and sect of which it is composed, during the chaos and anarchy of the three first ages.” At these words, transported with indignation, and crying out sacrilege ! blasphemy 1 the Christian doators were disposed to lay violent hands upon the Jew : and a motley groupe of monks, some in black, some in white, advancing with a standard on which pincers, a gridiron, and a funeral pile, and the words,/«stice, charity, and mercy, were paintedf, exclaimed : “ It is pro per to make an example of this impious heretic, and to burn him alive for the glory of God !” And already they had pictured to their imaginations the scene of torture, when the Mussulmans in a tone of irony said to them : “ Such is the religion of peace, * whose humble and humane spirit you have so loudly vaunted ! Such that evangelical charity which combats incredulity with no other weapon than mildness, and opposes only patience to in juries 1 Hypocrites, it is thus you deceive nations 1 It is in this * When we read the fathers of the church, and see upon what arguments they have built the edifice of religion, we are inexpressibly astonished with their credulity, or their knavery; but allegory was the rage of that period: the Pagans employed it to explain the actions of their Gods, and the Chris tian acted in the same spirit when they employed it after their fashion. t Phis description answers exactly to the colours of the Inquisition of Spanish Jacobins ; and is a proof of what has been before observed, that the writer has endeavoured to give a just picture of each party. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 79 manner you have propagated your destructive errors 1 When weak, you have preached liberty, toleration, and peace ; when power has been in your hands, you have practised violence and persecution '.’’—And they were begining to recite the wars and murders of Christianity, when the legislators, demanding silence, assuaged for a while the discord. „ m « It is not, “ replied the monks in a tone of affected mildness and humility, “ ourselves that we would avenge, we are desirous only of defending the cause and glory of God.” « And what right have you,” said the Imans, to constitute yourselves his representatives more than we ? Have you privi leges that we are not favoured with ? Are you beings of a dif ferent nature from us ?” . « To take upon ourselves to defend God, is to insult his wis dom and power,” said another groupe. “ Does, he not know better than mortals what is becoming his dignity ?” « Certainly,” rejoined the monks ; “ but his ways are secret.’ “ You, however,” said the Rabbins, “ will always find the difficulty insuperable of proving that you enjoy the exclusive privilege of comprehending them.” And the Jews, proud of finding their cause supported, fondly pleased themselves with the idea that their books would be triumphant; when the Mobed * of the Parses begged leave to speak. « We have heard,” said he to the legislators, “ the account of the Jews and Christians respecting the origin of the world, and though they have introduced various corruptions, they have related a number of facts which our religion admits ; but we deny that they are to be attributed to the Hebrew legislator. It was not he who made known to mankind these sublime dogmas, these celestial events : it was not to him that God revealed them, but to our holy prophet Zoroaster; and proofs of this are to be found in the very books in question. If you examine with attention the detail of laws, of rights, and of precepts established by Moses, you will no where find the most tacit indication of what constitutes at present the basis of the Jewish and Christian theology. You will perceive no trace either of the immortality of the soul, or a life to come, or hell, or paradise, or the revolt of the principal angel, au thor of all the evils which have afflicted the human race, &c. These ideas were unknown to Moses, and this appears from indisputable evidence, since it was not till four hundred years after him that they were first promulgated by Zoroaster in Asia +.” * High Priest. t See the Chronology of the Twelve Ages, in which I conceive myself to have clearly proved that Moses lived about 1400 years before Jesus Christ, and Zoroaster about a thousand. �80 REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. waTn:Stehde lhe these ideas appeared in you^Uf^ calCreTaatLn'rbXeen you^anceTtors^ f “« thereT§’revv * politi- of Ninlveh andBab’f"’ C°n<lUered^d d^sed byliFe kinX of ¿w Wis"nd^heyE^h}XZsP7§7ÌtOr7ìSOrted to the ba”£ trary to their law. When our kin£ Gwith aversion, as confi'om slavery, they felt attached tn ’ C£ U8’ had ,flellvered them sacred books for your Genesi« in ; * Puotication of their sawssifeaSsSSE? mons respecting the origin of the world Chaldean opi- °PP?,sin8 <° ssssWBÉsl t"'?- t s mi ’- conceived Moses to have written neither tìieT w-^? H "T7 °f <he ortllodox' the work was a compilation made hv ilio «i/i e * le Pen^aieuch, but that Mahoùmt. See IX SXi KK«r »'<«>«« <han the ancients, have turn from the captivity ; but the Drineiml av^V Jeen comPosed °ii Ihe reI meanthatexhibit. m anuh Sr of H>p h P t Pè^fs-S'-S’ *escaPed 1 shali ton ha VG" wf,ich *These strale to the tenth analysis generations of the Man called Noah°"is a°reaH? tTtS °f tbe preiended as it was know to the Hebrews at thè enèoh" /?e°g>i>phical picture of the world, by Greece or Hellas at the West mr>P » 0°^ 'G caPtn'ity, which was bounded E«- »„.1 Araliai^u X^gyp”;”i'the s'S" "Xn Ì,N<,r,h; “ ages from Adam to Abratóm orhis fathèr rr ’ uAH tbe prete,ided Persou' »tars, constellations, countries Adam isbRoot^^v3^ m-v’ ,&1,>Sical beings, Janus, Saturn: that is to sàv CanXL B 5 ,Noab ” Os7ris’ Xisbthrus the year. The Alexandrian ChrntP i n’ ?J cekstial Genius that opened supposed by the Persians to be their first ?’s''-vs e3<pressly, that Nimrod was hunting, mid that he X transla a I ,"i„ , S’ “ ?wi"« lll<‘ *rt < * name of Orion, 0 beaven> where he appears under th-» ' �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 1 E&senians, and through them became the basis of Christianity, ¿lews, Christians, Mahometans, however lofty may be your pretensions, you are, in your spiritual and immaterial system, only the blundering followers of Zoroaster !” Having thus commenced his discourse, the Mobed went on to the detail of his religion ; and supporting his sentiments by quota tions from the Zadder and the Zendavesta, he recounted in the same order as they are found in the book of Genesis, the creation of the world in six gahans ; the formation of a first man and a * first woman in a peculiar and celestial habitation, ujider the reign of perfect good ; the introduction of evil into the world by the great lizard, the emblem of Ahrimanes; the revolt and combat of this magnificent genius of darkness, against Ormuz the bene volent God of light; the distribution of angels into white and black, good and ill; their hierarchy consisting of cherubim, sera phim, thrones, dominions, &c.; the end of the world at the close of six thousand years ; the coming of the Lamb, the regenerator of nature : the new world; the life to come in an abode of felicity or anguish; the- passage of souls over the bridge of the abyss ; the celebration of the mysteries of Mithra; the unleavened bread that is set apart for the initiated: the baptism of new-born child ren ; extreme unction and auricular confessionf; in a word, he * Creation of the world or in six gahans, or periods, or into six gahan-bars, that is, six periods of time. These periods are what Zoroaster calls the tAowsands of God or of light, meaning; the six summer months. In the first, say the Persians, God created (arranged in order)the heavens; in the second the waters; in the third the earth; in the fourth trees; in the fifth animals; and in the sixth man : corresponding with the account m Genesis. For particulars,' see Hyde, ch. 9. and Henry Lord, ch. 2. On the religion of the ancient Persians.' It is remarkable, that the same tradition is found in the sacred books of the Etrurians, which relate, “that the Fabricator of all things had comprised the duration of his work in a period of twelve thousand years, which period was distributed to the twelve houses of the sun.” In the first thousand, God made heaven and earth; in the second, the firmament; m the third, the sea and the waters; in the fourth, the sun, moon, and stars; in the fifth, the soul of animals, birds, and reptiles; in the sixth, man. See Suidas, at the Tyrrhena; which shows first, the identity of their theological and astrological opinions ;■ and, secondly, the identity, or rather confusion of ideas, between absolute and* systematical creation; that is, the periods assigned for renewing the face of nature, which were at first the period of the year, and afterwards periods of 60, of 600, of 25,000, of 36,000 and of 432,000 years. t The Modern Parses and the ancient Mithriacs, who are the same sect, ob serve all the Christian sacraments, even the laying on of hands, in confirm ation. “ The priest of Mithra,” says Tertullian (de Proescriptione. c. 40.) promises absolution from sin on confession and baptism ; and, if I rightly re member, Mithra marks the soldiers in Hie forehead (with the chrism, called in Egyptian Kou.phi); lie celebrates the sacrifice of bread, whieh'is the resuorection, and presents the crown to his followers, menacing them at the same time with the sword, &c.” In these mysteries they tried the courage of the initiated with a thousand terrors, presenting fire to his face, a sword to hi« breast, &p.; they also offered M �82 A SURVEY OF THE repeated so many articles analogous to those of the three preced ing religions^ that his discourse seemed to be a commentary or a continuation of the Koran or the Apocalypse. But the Jewish, Christian, and Mahometan doctors excepted to this detail, and treating the Parses as idolatrous worshippers of fire, charged them with falsehood, invention, and alteration of fects. A violent dispute then arose respecting the dates of events, their order and succession, respecting the origin of opinions, their transmission from one people to another, the authenticity of the books which establish them, the epocha when these books were composed, the character of their compilers, the value of their testimony; and the various parties proving, each against the rest, contradictions, improbabilities, and the counterfeit na ture of their books, accused one another of having founded their creed upon popular rumours, upon vague traditions, upon absurd fables, invented by folly, and admitted without examination by unknown, ignorant, or partial writers, at doubtful periods, and different from those to which their partisans referred them. A loud rumour was now excited under the standards of the various Indian sects: and the Bramins, entering their protest against the claims of the Jew and the Parses, said: “ What ajre these upstart and almost unknown people who thus arrogantly consider themselves as the founders of nations, and the deposi tories of the sacred archieves ? To hear their calculations of five or six thousand years, one would suppose that the world was but of yesterday, whereas our monuments prove a duration of many thousand centuries. And in what respect are their books pre ferable to ours ? Are then the Vedes, the Chastres, the Pourafls, inferior to the Bible, the Zendavesta, the Sadder ? Is not the * him a crown which he refused, saying, God is my crown : and this crown is to be seen in the celestial sphere by the side of Bootes. The personages in these mysteries were distinguished by the names of the animal constellations. The ceremony of mass is nothing more than an imitation of these mysteries and those of Eleusis. The benediction the Lord, be with you, is a literal translation of the formula of admission chon-k, am,p-ak. See Beausob. Hist, du Micnû dieisme, vol. ii. v * These are the sacred volumes of thé Hindoos ; they are sometimes written Vadams, Pouranams, Chastrafis, because the Hindoos, like the Persians, are ac customed to give a nasal sound to the termination of their words, which we represent by the affixes on and an, and the Portuguese by the affixes om and ani. Many of these books have been translated, thanks to the liberal spirit of Mr. Hastings, who has founded at Calcutta a literary society and a printing press. At the same time, however, that we express our gratitude to this society, we must be permitted to complain of its exclusive spirit, the number of copies printed of each book being such that it is impossible to purchase them even in England ; they are wholly in the haudsofthe East India pro prietors. . Scarcely even is the 'Asiatic Miscellany known in Europe, and a man must be very learned in oriental antiquity before be so much as hears of the Joneses, the Wilkinses, aad the Hal beds, &c. As to the sacred books of �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. testimony of our progenitors and our Gods, of equal value with that of the Gods and progenitors of the western world ? Oh I were we permitted to reveal to profane men the mysteries of our religion ! Did not a sacred veil justly hide our doctrine from every eye.” The Bramins suddenly observing a profound silence: i( How,” said the legislators, i£ can we admit your doctrine, if you refuse to make it known ? How could its first authors propagate it, when, having sole possession of it, they regarded even their own peo ple as profane ? Has heaven revealed it that it miffht be kept a secret?” r The Bramins however persisted in their silence ; and a Euro pean at this momnt offering to speak, remarked, that their secrecy was at present an empty form, that their sacred books were ivulged and their doctrine explained: he accordingly undertook to recapitulate its several articles. Beginning with an abstract of the four Vedes, the twenty eight Pourans, and the five or six Chastres, he recounted how an immaterial, infinite, eternal and round Being, after having passed an unlimited portion of time in self-contemplation, de sirous at length of manifesting himself, separated the faculties ot male and female which were in him, and operated an act of generation of which the Lingam remains the emblem ; how t 1S ac^ were born three divine powers, of the names ot Brama, Bichen or Vichenou, and Chib or Chiven the first , * deputed to create, the second to preserve, the third to destroy or change the form of the universe. He then detailed the History of their exploits and adventures, and related how Brama, proud of having created the world and the eight Bobouns (or spheres) of probation, and of being preferred to his this pride occasioned between them a combat, in which the globes or celestial orbits were broken to pieces, as if ey had been a basket of eggs: how Brama, overcome in this the Hindoos, all that are yet in our hands are the Bhagvat Geeta, the Ezour. vedam, the Bagavadam, and certain fragments of the Chastres printed at the eiid of the Bhagvat Geeta. These books are in Indostan what the Old and testament are in Christendom, the Koran in Turkey, the Sadder and e endavesta among tfie Parses, &c. When I have taken an extensive survey of t leir contents, I have sometimes asked myself, what would be the loss to the human race if a new Omar condemned them to the flames? and unable to iscover any mischief that would ensue, I call the imaginary chest that con tains them, the box of Pandora. nanl?? are differently pronounced according to the different dialects: 118 hey say Birmah, Bremma, Brouma. Bichenhas been turned into Vichen ex5' *ange of a B for a V, and into Vichenou by means of a gran> ™ } a i ‘ ^ie same manner Chib, which is synonimous with Satan, and s«n'hes adversary, is frequently written CAii-a and Gkiv-en} he is called also Bonder and Rouffiien, that is, the destroyer. �81 A SURVEY OF THE contest, was reduced to serve as a pedestal to Chib, metamor phosed into the Lingam : how Vichenou, the preserver of the universe, had, in the discharge of his function, assumed nine animal and mortal forms, how under the first, that of a fish, he saved from the universal deluge a family by whom the earth was repeopled; afterwards, in the shape of a tortoise!-, drew from the sea of milk the mountain Mandreguii (the Pole); then, under that of a boar, tore the entrails of the giant Erenniachessen^ by whom the earth had beeu sunkin the abyss of Djole, from which he delivered it; how he became incarnate under the form of the Black Shepherd, and bearing the name of Chris-en rescued the world from the venomous serpent Calengam, whose head he crushed, after having himself received a wound in his heel. Passing to the history of the secondary Genii, he unfolded to the assembly how the Eternal, for the display of his glory, had created divers orders of angels, whose office it was to sing his praise and direct the universe : that a part of thesfe angels had revolted un der the conduct of an ambitious chief, who wished to usurp the power of God, and take the reins of government into his own hands : that God precipitated them into a world of darkness as a punishment for their misdeeds : that at last, touched with com passion, he consented to withdraw them from thence, and to re ceive them again into favour, after previously subjecting them to a long state of probation: that for this purpose, having created fifteen orbits or regions of planets, and bodies to inhabit them, he obliged these rebellious angels to undergo eighty-seven trans migrations : that the souls, thus purified, returned to their pri mitive source, to the ocean of life from which they had emanated: that as all living beings contained a portion of this universal soul, it was an act of great criminality tp deprive them of it. He was proceeding to develope the rights and ceremonies of this religion, when, speaking of offerings and libations of milk and butter to Gods of wood and of brass, he was interrupted by a universal murmur mixed with loud bursts of laughter. Each of the different groupes reasoned in its own prrticular manner respecting this system. “ They are idolaters,” said the Mussulmans, “ it is our duty to exterminate them.”—“ They are mad,” said the followers of Confucius, it is our duty to cure them.’—“ What absurd gods,” cried the rest, “ a set of fat monkeys begrimmed with smoke, whom they wash like children in clouts, and from whom they drive away the flies, lured by the taste of honey, who would otherwise defile them with their excrements.” f This is the constellation testudo, or the lyre, which was at first a tortoise, on account of its slow motion round the Pole; then a lyre, because it is the shell of this reptile on which the strings of the lyre are mounted. See aq excellent memoir of 211. Dupuis, stir I'Origine des Cptistellaiions, in ito- �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 85 At these words a Bramin, bursting with indignation, exclaimed. ■<i These are inscrutable mysteries, the profound emblems of truth, which you are not worthy to know.” u And how comes it,” replied a Lama of Tuibet, that you are more worthy than we ? Is it because you pretend to be sprung from the head of Brama, while the rest of mankind deiive the r. origin from the less noble parts of his body? If you would sup port the fable of your origin, and the vain distinctions of your casts, prove that you are of a nature different from us; prove at least by historical testimony the allegories you maintain ; nay, prove that you are really the authors of this system ; foi on our part we are able to prove, if that were necessary, that you have only stolen and disfigured it; that you have borrowed the an cient paganism of the western world, and blended it by an absurd conceit with the purely spiritual nature of our Gods a nature , * which stoops not to address itself to the senses, and was wholly unknown to the world till the mission of Beddou. , Instantly innumerable voices demanded to be infoimed of this nature, and to hear of that God w ith w'hose very name the ma jority of them were unacquainted. In pursuance of this demand, the Lama resumed : “ In the beginning,” said he, “there was one God, self exis tent, who passed through a whole eternity, absorbed in the con templation of his own reflections, ere he determined to manifest those perfections to created beings, when he produced the mat ter of the word. The four elements, at their production, lay in a state of mingled confusion, till he breathed upon the face of the waters, and they immediately became an immense bubble, shaped like an egg, which when complete became the vault or globe of the heavens in which the world is inclosed!". No sooner was the earth and the bodies of animals produced, than God, the source of motion, bestowed upon them as a living soul a portion of his * All the ancient opinions of the Egyptian and Grecian theologians aie to be found in India, and they appear to have been introduced, by means of the conjjnerce of Arabia and the vicinity of Persia, time immemorial. .• t This cosmogony of the Lamas, the Bonzes, and even the Bramins, as Henry Lord asserts, is literally that of the ancient Egyptians. “ The Egyptians, says Porphyry, “ call Kneph, intelligence, or efficient cause of the universe. 1 hey relate that this God vomited an egg, from which was produced another God named P/it/rn or Vulcan, (igneous principle, or the sun,) and they add, that this egg is tbe world.” Euseb. Prcep. Evang. p. 115. “ They represent,” says the same author in another place, the God Kneph, or efficient cause, under the form of a man in deep blue (the coloui of the sky), having in his hand a sceptre, a belt round his body, and a small bonnet royal of light feathers on his head, to'denote how very subtile and fugacious the idea of that being is.” Upon which I shall observe, that Kneph in Hebrew signifies a wing, a feather, and that this colour of 6ky-blue is to be found in the majority of the Indian Gods, aud is, under the name of Narayan, one of their most drstinguishiRg epithets. �86 A SURVEY OF THE substance. Thus the soul of every living thing bein<r onlv a fraction or separate part of the universal sSul, nf’percipient be wg is liable to perish, but merely changes its form and mould as t passes successively into different bodies. But of all the sub2 ”tlaJ forms’,tbat man is most pleasing to the Divine Being h t reseiPbling his uncreated perfections ; and man when y withdrawing himself from the commerce of the senses’ he be * comes absorbed in the contemplation of his own nature, discovers DiviSiv1” Thha- r81^8 U1 il’ aind himSelf becomes worthy <>f JJivinit}. Thus is God incessantly rendering himself incarnate ♦ years'i^6 inethend incarnation was three thousand or ’ r n Provmce of Cassimere, under the name of Fot Pu,rP°se of Caching the doctrine of self-denial and self-annihilation. The Lama proceeded to detail the his tory of Fot, observing, that he had sprung from the right intermntt1 f ithe r°yal blood’ who> when she became a mother, did not the less continue to be a virgin : that the king dPiOl’6 C°?ntry’ Jn?.asy at his birth> was desirous to put him to death, and caused all the males who were born at the same period to be massacred : that being saved by shepherds, Beddou lived in the desert to the age of thirty years, at which time he opened his commission, preaching the doctrine of truth and castino- out devils : that he performed a multitude of the most astonishing miracles, spent his life m fasting and the severest mortifications’ , at.hl? death bequeathed to his disciples the volume in which ^gfn'to’read- hlS rell§1°D are. contained- The Lama then “ He that forsaketh his father and his mother,” says Fot «to follow me shall become a perfect Samanean (a heavenly bein-L keePeth my precepts to the fourth degree of per fection, shall acquire the power of flying in the air, of moving rising aa^nheaVeD? °f Protraciin? or shortening his life, and of £i The Samanean looks with contempt on riches, and makes Te nn i °f lUjCh thingS aS are strictly necessary. He mortifies the flesh, subdues his passions, fixes his desires and affections on nothing terrestrial, meditates without ceasing upon my doerme, enuures injuries with patience, and bears no enmity a°ainst Ins neighbour. J ° « Heaven and earth,” says Fot, « shall pass away; despise there tore your bodies which are composed ofthe four perishable elements : and think only of your immortal soul. “ Hearken not to the suggestions of the flesh : fear and sor row are the produce of the passions : stifle the passions, and fear ’ gnd sorrow wall thus be destroyed. « Whosoever dies,” says Fot, « without having received my «loctnoe, becomes again and again an inhabitant of the earth, tut he shall have embraced it.” i �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 87 The Lama was going on with his extracts, when the Christians interrupted him, observing, that this religion was an alteratioii of theirs ; that F6t was Jesus himself disfigured; and that the llamas were nothing more than a degenerate sect of the Nes»tori&ns and Manicheans. But the Lama , * supported by all the Chaihans, Bonzea, * This is asserted by our missionaries, and among others by Georgi in hi« unfinished work of the Thibetan alphabet: but if it can be proved that the Manicheans were but plagiarists, and the ignorant echo of a doctrine that existed fifteen hundred years before them, what becomes of the declarations of Georgi ? See upon this subject Beausob. Hist, du Manicheisme. The eastern writers in general agree in placing the birth of Bedou 1027 years before Jesus Christ, which makes him the contemporary of Zoroaster, with whom, in my opinion, they confound him. It is certain that his doctrine notoriously existed at this epoch : it is found entire in that of Orpheus, Pytha. goras, and the Indian gymtiosophists. But the gymnosophists are cited at the Ume of Alexander as an ancient sect already divided into Brachmans and Samancatis. See Bardesanes en Saint Jerome, Epitre d Joviem. Pythagoras lived in the ninth century before Jesus Christ; see Chronology of the Twelve Ages; and Orpheus is of still greater antiquity. If, as is the case, the doctrine of Pythagoras and that of Orpheus are of Egyptian origin, that of Bedou goes hack to the common source; and in reality the Egyptian priests recite that Hermes, as he was dying, said: “I have hitherto lived an exile from my country, to which I now return. Weep not for me, I ascend to the celestial abode, where each of you will follow in his turn : there God is : this life is only death.” Clialcidius in Thimaam. Such was the profession of faith of the Samaneans, the sectaries of Orpheus, and the Pythagoreans. Farther, Hermes is no other than Bedou himself; for among the Indians, Chinese, Lamas, &o. the planet Mercury, and the corresponding day of the week (Wednesday), bear the name of Bedou: and this accounts for his being placed in the rank of my thological beings, and discovers the illusion of his pretended existence as a man, since it is evident that Mercury was not a human being, but the Genius or Decan, who, placed at the summer solstice, opened the Egyptian year: hence liis attributes taken from the constellation Syrius, and his name of Anubis, as well as that of Esculapius, having the figure of a man and the head of a dog : hence his serpent, which is the Hydra, emblem of the Nile (Hydor, humidity); and from this serpent he seems to have derived his name of Hermes* as Remes (with a soilin'}, in the oriental languages, signifies serpent Now Bedou and Hermes being the same names, it is manifest of what antiquity is the system ascribed to the former. As to the name of Samanean, it is precisely that of Chaman preserved in Tartary, China, and India. The interpretation given to it is, man of the woods, a hermit mortifying the flesh, such being the characteristic of this sect; but its literal meaning is celestial (Sainaoui), and explains the system of those who are called by it. This system is the same as that of the sectaries of Orpheus, of the Essenians, of the ancient Anchorets of Persia, and the whole Eastern country. See Porphyry, de Abstin. Animal. These celestial and penitent men, carried in India their insanity to such an extreme, as to wish not to touch the earth, and they accordingly lived in cages suspended to trees, where the people, whose admiration was not less absurd, brought them provisions. During the night there were frequent robberies, rapes, and murders, and it was at length discovered that they were committed by those meu, who, descending from their cages, thus indemnified themselves for. their restraint during the day. The B rami ns, their rivals, embraced the �86 A SURVEY OF THE? Gonitis, Talapoins of Siam, of Coylon, of Japan, and of Chin#, demonstrated to the Christians, from their own theologians, that the doctrine of the Samaneans was known through the East up wards of a thousand years before Christianity existed ; that their name was cited previous to the reign of Alexander ; and that of Boutta or Beddou could be traced to a more remote antiquity than that of Jesus—“And now,” said they, retorting upon tho Christians, “ do you prove to us that you are not yourselves degenerated Samaneans; that the man whom you consider as the author of your sect is not Fot himself in a different form. Demonstrate his existence by historical monuments of so remote a period as those which we have adduced ; for as it appears to * be founded on no authentic testimony, rve absolutely deny its truth; and we maintain, that your gospels are taken from the books of the Mithriacs of Persia, and the Essenians of Syria, who were themselves only reformed Samaneansf.” These words excited a general outcry on the part of the' Christians, and a new dispute more violent than any precedingone was on the point of taking place, when a groupe of Chinese’ , Chamans, and Talapoins of Siam came forward, petending that , opportunity of exterminating them ; and from that time their name in India has been synonymous with hypocrite. See Hist, de la Chine, in 5 vols. 4th at the note page 50 ; Hist, de Hans, 2 vols.; and Preface to the Ezour-Vedam. * There are absolutely no other monuments of the existence of Jesus Christ as a human being, than a passage in Josephus, {Antiq. Jud. lib. 18. c. 3,) a single phrase in Tacitus, {Anna!. lib. 15. c. 44) and the Gospels. But the passage in Josephus is unanimously acknowledged to be apocryphal, and to have been interpolated towards the close of the third century, '{See Trad. de. Josephe, par M. Gillet}; and that of Tacitus is so vague, and so evidently taken from the deposition of the Christians before the tribunals, that it may be ranked in the class of evangelical records. It remains to enquire of what au thority are these records. “All the world knows,” says Faustus, who, though a Manichean, was one of the most learned men of the third century; “All the world knows, that the Gospels were neither written bv Jesus Christ, nor his apostles, but by certain unknown persons, who, rightly judging that tlxty should not obtain belief respecting things which they had not seen, placed at the head of their recitals the names of contemporary apostles.” See Beausob. v<A. i. nnd Hist; des Apologistes de la Relig. Chret. par Burigni, a sagacious writer, who has demonstrated the absolute uncertainty of those foundations of the Christian religion; so that the existence of Jesus is no better proved than that of Osiris and Hercules, or that, of Fot or Bedou, with whom, says M. de Guignes, the Chinese continually confound him, for they never call Jesus by any other name than Fot. Hist, de Huns. + That is to say, from the pious romances formed out of 1he sacred legends of the Mysteries of Mithra, Ceres, Isis, &c.; from whence are equally derived the books of the Hindoos and the Bonzes. Our missionaries have long re marked a striking resemblance between those books and the Gospels. M. Wil kins expressly mentions it in a note in the Bbagvat Geeta. Ail agree that Kristia, Fot, and Jesus, leave the same characteristic features ; but religious prejudice has stood in the way of drawing from this circumstance t lie proper and »atural inference. To time and reason nfust it be left to display the truth. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 89 they could easily adjust every difference, and produce in the assembly an uniformity of opinion ; and one of them speaking for the rest, said' : “ It is time that we should put an end to all those frivolous disputes, by drawing aside the veil and exposing to your view the interior and secret doctrine which Fôt himself,; on his death-bed, revealed to his disciples * These various . theological opinions are mere chimeras ; these accounts of the attributes, actions and life of the Gods, are nothing more than allegories, and mysterious symbols, under which moral ideas,and the knowledge of the operations of nature in the action of the elements and the revolutions of the planets, are ingeniously depicted. “The truth is, that there is no reality in any thing; that all is illusion, appearance, and dream ; that the moral metemsychosis is nothing more than a figurative sense of the physical metemsychosis, of that successive motion by which the elements of which a body is composed, and which never perish, pass, when the body itself is dissolved, into a thousand others, and form new combinations. The soul is merely the vital principle resulting from the properties of matter, and the action of the elements in bodies, in which they create a spontaneous movement. To sup pose that this result of organization, which is born with it, developed with it, sleeps with it, continues to exist when organi zation is no more, is a romance that may be pleasing enough, but that is certainly chimerical. God himself is nothing more than the principal mover, the occult power diffused through every thing that has being, the sum of its laws and its properties, the animating principle : in a word, the soul of the universe ; which, by reason of the infinite diversity of its connections and opera tions, considered sometimes as simple and sometimes as multiple, sometimes as active and sotnetimes as passive, has ever presented to the human mind an insolvable enigma. What we can com prehend with great perspicuity is, that matter does not perish ; that it possesses essential properties, by which the world is governed in a mode similar to that of a living and organized being; that, with respect toman, the knowledge of its laws is what constitutes his wisdom ; that in their observance consist virtue and merit ; and evil, sin, vice, in the ignorance and viola tion of them ; that happiness and misfortune are the respective result of this observance or neglect, by the same necessity that * The Budsoists have two doctrines, the one public and ostensible, the other interior and secret, precisely like the Egyptian priests. It may be asked, why this distinction? It is, that as the public doctrine recommends offerings, expi ations, endowments, &c. the priests find their profit in teaching it to the peo ple ; whereas the other, teaching the vanity of worldly things, and attended with no lucre, it is thought proper to make it known only to adepts. Can the teachers and followers of this religion bb better classed thanUKder the heads of knavery and credulity ? �90 A SURVEY OF THE occasions light substances to ascend, heavy ones to fall, and by a fatality of causes and effects, the chain of which extends from the smallest atom to the stars of greatest magnitude and elevation ” . * A crowd of Theologians of every sect instantly exclaimed that this doctrine was rank materialism, and those who professed it impious Atheists, enemies both of God and man, who ought to be extirpated from the earth. “ Strange reasoning,” replied the Cha maos. “ Supposing us to be mistaken, which is by no means im possible, since it is one of the attributes of the human mind to be subject to illusion, what right have you to deprive beings like yourselves of the life which God has given them ? If heaven con siders us as culpable, and looks upon us with horror, why does it dispense to us the same blessings as to you ? If it treats us with endurance, what right have you to be less indulgent? Pious men,' who speak of God with so much certainty and confidence, conde scend to tell us what be is; explain, so that we may comprehend them, those abstract and metaphysical beings which you call God and the soul; substances without matter, existence without body, life without organs or sensations. If you discover these beings by means of your senses, render them in like manner perceptible to us. If you speak of them only upon testimony and tradition, show us a uniform recital, and give an identical and determinate basis to your creed.” There now arose a warm controversy between the Theologians respecting the nature of God and his mode of acting and mani festing himself; respecting the soul and its union with the body, whether it has existence previous to the organs, or from the time of their formation only; respecting the life to come and another world : and every sect, every school, every individual, differing from the re8t as to all these points, and assigning for its dissent plausible reasons and respectable but opposite authorities, they were all involved in an inextricable labyrinth of contradictions. At length, the legislators having restored silence, recalled the dispute to its true object, and said : “ Leaders and instructors of the people, you came hither for the purpose of investigating truth ; and at first every one of you, confident in his own infallibility, de manded an implicit faith : presently, however, you felt the contra riety of your opinions, and consented to submit them to a fair comparison and a common rule of evidence. You proceeded to expose your proofs : you began with the allegation of facts ; but it presently appeared that every religión and every sect had its miracles and its martyrs, and had an equal cloud of witnesses to * These are the expressions of La Loubere, in his description of the king dom of Siam and the theology of the Bonzes. Their dogmas, compared with those of the ancient philosophers of Greece and Italy, give a complete repre? sentation of the whole system of the Stoics, and Epicureans, mixed with as trological superstitions, and some traits of Pythágorism. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 91 boast, who were ready to prove the rectitude of their sentiments by the sacrifice of their lives. Upon this first point therefore the balance remained equal. “You next passed to proofs of reasoning: the same arguments were alternately applied to the support of opposite propositions; the same assertions, equally gratuitous, were successively ad vanced and repelled ; every one was found to have an equal reason for denying his assent to the system of the others. A farther con sequence that arose from thus confronting your system was, that, notwithstanding their dissimilitude in some points, their resem blance in others was not less striking. Each of you claimed the first deposit and the original discovery ; each of you taxed his neighbour with adulteration and plagiarism ; and a previous ques tion to the embracing of any of your doctrines appeared to result from the history of opinions. “A still greater embarrassment arose when you entered into the explication of your doctrines : the more assiduous were your en deavours, the more confused did they appear; they rested upon a basis inaccessible to human understanding, of consequence you had no means to judge of their validity, and you readily admitted that, in asserting them, you were the echoes of your fathers. Hence it became important to know how they had come into the hands of that former generation, who had no means of learning them different from yourselves. Thus the transmission of theo logical ideas from country to country, and their first rise in the human understanding, were equally mysterious, and the question became every moment more complicated with metaphysical sub tlety and antiquarian research. “ But as these opinions, however extraordinary, have some origin; as all ideas, even the most abstracted and fantastical, have in na ture some physical model, we must ascend to that origin in order to discover what this model is, and how the understanding came by those ideas of Deity, the soul and immaterial beings, that are so obscure, and which form the foundation of so many religious systems; we must trace their lineal descent and the alterations they have undergone in their various successions and ramifications. If, therefore, there are in this assembly men who have made these objects their peculiar study, let them come forward and endeavour to dispel, in the presence of the nations of the earth, the obscurity of opinions in which for so long a period they have all wandered.” CHAP. XXII, Or ig in a nd Ge n e a l o g y o f Re l ig io u s Id e a s . At these words a new groupe, formed in an instant, of indivi duals from every standard, but undistinguished by any, advanced in the sand; and one of the members, speaking in the name of the general body, said : �S& A SURVEY OF THE 6i Legislators, friends of evidence and of truth! “ That the subject of which we treat should be involved in so many clouds, is by no means astonishing, since, beside the difficulties that are peculiar to it, thought itself has, till this moment, ever had shackles imposed upon it, and free enquiry by the intolerance of every religious system, been interdicted. But now that thought is unrestrained, and may develope all its powers, we will expose in the face of day, and submit to the common judgment of assembled nations, such rational truths as unprejudiced minds have by long and laborious study discovered : and this, not with the design of imposing them as a creed, but from a desire of provoking new lights, and obtaining better in formation. “ Chiefs and instructors of the people, you are not ignorant of the profound obscurity in which the nature, origin, and history of the dogmas you teach are inveloped. Imposed by force and authority, inculcated by education, maintained by the influence of example, they were perpetuated from age to age, and habit and inattention strengthened their empire. But if man, en lightened by experience and reflection, summoned to the bar of mature examination the prejudices of his infamy, he presently discovers a multitude of incongruities and contradictions, which awaken his sagacity, and call forth the exertion of his reasoning powers. ° “ At first, remarking the various and opposite creeds into which nations are divided, we are led boldly to reject the in fallibility claimed by each; and arming ourselves alternately with their reciprocal pretensions, to conceive that the senses and the understanding emanating directly from God, are a law not less sacred, and a guide not less sure, than the indirect and contradictory codes of the prophets. i£ If we proceed to examine the texture of the codes themselves, we shall observe that their pretended divine laws, that is to say, laws immutable and eternal, have risen from the complexion of times, of places, and of persons; that these codes issue one from another in a kind of genealogical order, mutually borrow ing a common and similar fund of ideas, which every institutor modifies agreeably to his fancy. If we ascend to the source of those ideas, we shall find that it is lost in the nig’ht of time, in the infancy of nations, in the very origin of the world, to which they claim alliance; and there, immersed in the obscurity of chaos, and the fabulous empire of tradition, they are attended with so many prodigies as to be seemingly inaccessible to the human understanding.- But this prodigious state of things gives birth itself to a ray of reasoning, that resolves the difficulty; for if the miracles held out in sys tems of religion have actually existed; if, for instance, meta- �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 93 morphoses, apparitions, and the conversations of one or more Gods, recorded in the sacred books of the Hindoos, the He brews, and the Parses, are indeed events in real history, it follows that nature in those times was perfectly unlike the nature that we are acquainted with now ; that men of the present age are totally different from the men that formerly existed; and, consequently, that we ought not to trouble our heads about thenl. “ On the contrary, if those miraculous facts have had no real existence in the physical order of things, they must be regarded solely as productions of the human intellect : and the nature of man, at this day, capable of making the most fantastic combina tions, explains the phenomena of those monsters in history. The only difficulty is to ascertain how and for what purpose the imagination invented them. If we examine with attention the subjects that are exhibited by them, if we analyze the ideas which they combine and associate, and weigh with accuracy all their concomitant circumstances, we shall find a solution per fectly conformable to the laws of nature. Those fabulous storieg have a figurative sense different from their apparent one, they are founded on simple and physical facts : but these facts, being ill conceived and erroneously represented, have been disfigured and changed from their original nature by accidental causes dependent on the human mind, by the confusion of signs made use of in the representation of objects, by the equivocation of words, the defect of language, and the imperfection of writing. These Gods, for example, who act such singular parts in every system, are no other than the physical powers of nature, the ele ments, the winds, the meteors, the stars, all which have been per sonified by the necessary mechanism of language, and the manner in which objects are conceived by the understanding. Their life, their manners, their actions, are only the operation of the same powers, and the whole of their pretended history no more than a description of their various phenomena, traced by the first na turalist that observed them, but taken in a contrary sense by the vulgar, who did not understand it, or by succeeding generations, who forgot it. In a word, all the theological dogmas respecting the origin of the world, the nature of God, the revelation of his laws, the manifestation of his person, are but recitals of astro nomical facts, figurative and emblematical narratives of the mo tion and influence of the heavenly bodies. The very idea itself of the Divinity, which is at present so obscure, abstracted, and metaphysical, was in its origin merely a composite of the powers of the material universe, considered sometimes analytically, as they appeal' in their agents and their phenomena, and sometimes synthetically, as forming one whole, and exhibiting an harmoni ous relation in all its parts. Thus the name God has been be stowed sometimes upon the wind, upon fire, water, and the ele �94 A SURVEY OF THE ments; sometimes upon the sun, the stars, the planets, and their influences; sometimes upon the universe at large, and the mat ter of which the world is composed, sometimes upon abstract and metaphysical properties, such as space, duration, motion, and in telligence ; but m every instance, the idea of a deity has not flowed from the maraculous revelation of an invisible world but lias been the natural result of human reflection, has followed the progiess and undergone the change of the successive improve ment of intellect, and has had for its subject the visible universe and its different agents. “ It is then in vain that nations refer the origin of their reli gion to heavenly inspiration ; it is in vain that they pretend to describe a supernatural state of things as first in the order of events : the original barbarous state of mankind, attested by their own monuments * belies all their assertions. These assertions , are still more victoriously refuted by considering this great prin ciple, that man receives no ideas but through the medium of his senses + : for from hence it appears, that every system which as cribes human wisdom to any other source than experience and sensation, represents the last results of understanding as earliest in the order of time. If we examine the different religious sys tems which have been formed respecting the actions of the Gods and the origin of the world, we shall discover at every turn an anticipation in the order of narrating things, which could only be suggested by subsequent reflection. Reason, then, emboldened by these contradictions, hesitates not to reject whatever does not accord with the nature of things, and accepts nothing for his torical truth that is not capable of being established by argument and ratiocination. Its ideas and suggestions are as follow: “ Before any nation received from a neighbour nation dogmas already invented; before one generation inherited the ideas of another, none of these complicated systems had existence. The - first men, the children of nature, whose consciousness was ante rior to experience, and who brought no preconceived knowled°-e into the world with them, -were born without any idea of those articles of faith which are the result of learned contention; of those religious rites which had relation to arts and practices not yet in existence ; of those precepts which suppose the passions already developed : of those laws which have reference to a lan guage and a social order hereafter to be produced; of that God, I It is tne unanimous testimony of history, and even of legends, that the first human beings were every where savages, and that it was to civilize them, and teach them to make bread, that the Gods manifested themselves. t 1 he rock on which all the ancients have split, and which has occasioned all theii eirois, has been their supposing the idea of God to be innate and eoeternal with the soul; and hence al! the reveries developed in Plato and Jamblicus. See the linusus, the Phcdon, and De Myst. ¿Egyptiorum, sect. 1, c. 21, �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 95 whose attributes are abstractions of the knowledge of nature, and the idea of whose conduct is suggested by the experience of a despotic government; in fine, of that soul and those spiritual existences which are said not to be the object of the senses, but which, however, we must for ever have remained unacquainted with, if our senses had not introduced them to us. Previously to arriving at these notions, an immense catalogue of existing facts must have been observed. Man, originally savage, must have learned from repeated trials the use of his organs. Succes sive generations must have invented and refined upon the means of subsistence ; and the understanding, at liberty to disengage itself from the wants of nature, must have risen to the compli cated art of comparing ideas, digesting reasonings, and seizing upon abstract similitudes. Se c t . I. Origin of the idea of God: Worship of the elements, and the physical powers of nature. Ci It was not till after having surmounted those obstacles, and run a long career in the night of history, that man, reflecting on his state, began to perceive his subjection to forces superior to his own and independant of his will. The sun gave him light und warmth ; fire burned, thunder terrified, the winds buffeted, water overwhelmed him ; all the various natural existences acted upon him in a manner not to be resisted. For a long time, an automaton, he remained passive, without enquiring into the cause of this action ; but the very moment he was desirous of accounting to himself for it, astonishment seized his mind; and passing from the surprise of a first thought to the reverie of curi osity, he formed a chain of reasoning. “ At first, considering only the action of the elements upon him, he inferred, relatively to himself, an idea of weakness, of subjection, and relatively to them, an idea of power, of domina tion ; and this idea was the primitive and fundamental type of all his conceptions of the Divinity. “ The action of the natural existences, in the second place, excited in him sensations of pleasure or pain, of good or evil ; by virtue of his organization, he conceived love or aversion for them, he desired or dreaded their presence; and fear or hope was the principle of every idea of religion. “ Afterwards, judging every thing by comparison, and remark ing in those beings a motion spontaneous like his own, he sup posed there to be a' will, an intelligence inherent in that motion, pf a nature similar to what existed in himself; and hence, by way of inference, he started a fresh argument.—Having experi enced that certain modes of behaviour towards his fellow-crea tures wrought a change in their affections and governed their �96 REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. conduct, he applied those practices to the powerful beings of the? universe. “ When my fellow creature of superior strength,” said he to himself, “ is disposed to injure me, I humble myself before him, and my prayer has the art of appeasing him. I will pray to the powerful beings that strike me. I will supplicate the faculties of the winds, the planets, the waters, and they will hear me. I will conjure them to avert the calamities, and to grant me the blessings which are at their disposal. My tears will move, my offerings propitiate them, and I shall enjoy complete felicity.” “ And, simple in the infancy of his reason, man spoke to the' sun and the moon, he animated with his understanding and his passions the great agents of nature; he thought by vain sounds and useless practices to change their inflexible laws. Fatal error! He desired that the water should ascend, the mountains be re moved, the stone mount in the air ; and substituting a fantastic to a real world, he constituted for himself beings of opinion, to the terror of his mind and the torment of his race. , “Thus the ideas of God and religion sprung, like all others, from physical objects, and were in the understanding of man the produce of his sensations, his wants, the circumstances of his life, and the progressive state of his knowledge. “ As these ideas had natural beings for their first models, it resulted from hence that the Divinity was originally as various and manifold as the forms under which he seemed to act : each being was a Power, a Genius, and the first men found the universe , crowded with innumerable Gods. “ In like manner the ideas of the Divinity having had for mo tors the affections of the human heart, they underwent an order of division calculated from the sensations of pain and pleasure, of love and hatred : the powers of nature, the Gods, the Genii, were classed into benign and maleficent, into good and evil ones : and this constitutes the universality of these two ideas in every system of religion. “ These ideas, analogous to the condition of their inventors, were for a long time confused and gross. Wandering in woods, beset with wants, destitute of resources, men in their savage state had no leisure to make comparisons and draw conclusions. Suffer ing more ills than they tasted enjoyments, their most habitual sentiment was fear, their theology terror, their worship confined to certain modes of salutation, of offerings which they presented to beings whom they supposed to be ferocious and greedy like them selves. In their state of equality and independance, no one took upon him the office of mediator with Gods as insubordinate and poor as himself. No one having any superfluity to dispose of, there existed no parasite under the name of priest, nor tribute under the name of victim, nor empire under the name of altar ; their dogma and morality, jumbled together, were only self �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 97 preservation; and their religion, an arbitrary idea without influence on the mutual relations existing’ between men, was but a vain homage paid to the visible powers of nature. p/.Suen was th® first and necessary origin of every idea of th© The orator then addressing the savage nations, said: W# appeal to. you, who have received no foreign fictitious ideas, whether your conceptions have not been formed precisely in this manner? We ask you also, learned theologians, if such be not the unanimous record of all the monuments of antiquity ” ? * Se c t . II. Second system.; Worship of the Stars, or Sabeism. Bu t those same monuments offer us a more methodical and more complicated system, that of the worship of all the stars, adored at one time under their proper form, at another under emblems and figurative symbols. This worship was also the ©fiect of the knowledge of man in physics, and derived imme„ lately from the first causes of the social state; that is to say, wants and arts of the first degree, the elements as it were in tne formation of society. bookLnf eib!2^,reSUJ^S’ says1 Prom verses of Orpheus and the. sacred Greeks h T a"d Phr^ails> tha* the ancient theology, not only of the Xe onerationf nJ ”™ mOre ihan a P^ics, a picture of svmhnls in f nat«re, wrapped up in mysterious allegories and enigmatical rent than n h the. lgnOrant multitude attended rather to their appa“ the hT den m,eaning’ and even in what they understood of the latter, a S of P/LL 7 SOniet ,niS deePthaa they perceived. Fragment of The mat d P™P™- Evan. lib. 3. ch. I. p. 83. fwho livedJ in r + • 1 .°i!° Porphyry, and among others Chaeremon, been anv other M AY 6 Af8* age 01 Christianity), imagine there never to have those re^oJn^pH°h<1thhav’the °ne we,_se(h and acknowledge no other Gods of al! ' '■'itrns of the 7 r y 6 E§yPtlai?s? than such as are commonly called planets, sitting are dlaC»aad constellations; whose aspects, that is, rising and the r gdivl7on« Tth lndUen? the ^cnes of men;’ to which the/add, style lordl of S^nS?nt? decans and dispensers ‘ of time, whom they pers riiin/LA ascendant, whose names, virtues in the relieving of dist^mnacks (for he J n apr,lsaget °f future eveats’ are the sub>ts of counterpart of WnAuSerVfd’ l,hat, tberE^Ptia11 Priests had almanacks the exact the architect of Lansber s;) for when the priests affirmed that the sun was fives respeetin! T • U™e’. Chaeremon presently concludes that all their narrapaA to the Sets th ?S‘nS' l°rther With their °ther sacred fables’ ^ferred in part to the sL c X Pa ieS °fJhe m00n’ and the revolution of the sun, and in word to All X tn 1 * hendsPbe'cs, and the river Nile; in a be immaterial and i phySICaI ?ndxn1atu5al eWeiices, and never to such as mifi-ht our'wffil and h incorporeal. All these philosophers believe, that the acts"of they a e i J d £ °ur bodies’ dePead «P«« those of the stars to which which therein dl\ nd r.efer eve,-y tbinS t0 the laws of physical necessity, binds bv 1 kno S/n\0/ Paium'. suPposing a chain of causes and effects which to the sunreA -hat connection, all beings together, from the meanest atom their temnlL n ?°^r.aad PrlTry influeuce of the Godsi «> whether in r«Wr.%n-J. °"'y S“bi'“ Cf ’’««»»p i. th. power of desnr.y. k o �98 A SURVEY OF THE « When men began to unite in society, they found it necessary to enlarge the means of their subsistence, and consequently to apply themselves to agriculture; and the practice of agriculture required the observation and knowledge of the heavens . * It was necessary to know the periodical return of the same opera tions of nature, the same phenomena of the skies; it was neces sary to regulate the duration and succession of the seasons, months, and years. In order to this, it was requisite to become acquainted with the march of the sun, which in its zodiacal revo lution showed itself the first and supreme agent of all creation; then of the moon, which by its changes and returns regulated and distributed time; finally of the stars, and even of the planets, which by their appearance and disappearance on the horizon and the nocturnal hemisphere, formed the minutest divisions. In a word, it was necessary to establish an entire system of astronomy, to form an almanac; and from this labour there quickly and spontaneously resulted a new manner of considering the domi nant and governing powers. Having observed that the produc tions of the earth bore a regular and constant connection with the phenomena of the heavens; that the birth, growth, and decay o'f each plant, were allied to the appearance, exaltation, and decline of the same planet, the same group of stars; in short, that the languor or activity of vegetation seemed to depend on celestial^ influences; men began to infer from this an idea of action, of power in those bodies, superior to terrestrial beings; and the stars, dispensing scarcity or abundance, became Powers, Geniif, Gods, authors of good and evil. « As the state of society has already introduced a methodical hierarchy of ranks, employments, and conditions, men, continuino- to reason from comparison, transferred their new acquired”, notions to their theology, and the result was a complicated system of gradual Divinities, in which the sun, as the first God, was a * It continues to be repeated every day, on the indirect authority of the book of ■Genesis, that astronomy was the invention of the children of Noah. It has beer, gravely said, that while wandering shepherds in the plains of Shinar, they employed their leisure in composing a planetary system: as if shepherds had occasion to know more than the Polar star, and if necessity was not the sole motive of every invention! If the »ancient shepherds were go studious and sagacious, „how does it happen that the modern on$s are so stupid, ignorant, and inattentive ? -And it is a fact, that the Arabs of the desert know not so many as six constellations, and understand not one word of astronomy. . + It appears that by the word genius, the ancients denoted a quality, a gene rative power; for the following words, which are all of one family, convey thisv. meaning: generury, genos, genesis, genus, gens. . . The Sabear.s, ancient and modern* says Maimonides, acknowledge a principal God, the maker and inhabitant of heaven; but, on account of bis great distance, they couceive him to be inaccessible; and in imitation of the conduct Oi people towards their kings, they employ as mediators with him the planets aim tneir angels, whom they call princes and potentates, and whom they suppose to reside in those luminous bodies, as in palaces or tabernacles, &c. More-Nebuchin, purs. 3, c. %9. �DEVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 99 military chief, a political king; the moon, a queen, his consort; the planets, servants, bearers of commands, messengers; and the multitude of stars a nation, an army of heroes, of Genii, appointed to govern the world under the command of their officers; every Individual had a name, functions, attributes, drawn from its con nections and influences, and even a sex derived from the gender of its appellation. ^ * “ As the state of society had introduced certain usages and complex practices, worship, leading the van, adopted similar ones. Ceremonies, simple and private at first, became public and solemn; offerings were more rich and more numerous ; rites more methodical; places of assembly, chapels, and temples, were erected; officers, pontiffs, created to administer; formsand epochas w'ere settled ; and religion became a civil act, a political tae. But in this developement it altered not its first principles, and the idea of God was still that of physical beings, operating good or ill, that is to say, impressing- sensations of pain or plea sure : the dogma was the knowledge of their laws or modes of acting; virtue and sin the observance or infringement of those laws; and morality, in its native simplicity, a judicious practice of all that is conducive to the preservation of existence, to the well being of the individual and of his fellow-creatures^. , <Cn^ou^ ** asked at what epoch this system took birth, we shall answ’er, supported by the authority of the monuments of astronomy itself, that its principles can be traced back with cer tainty to a period of nearly seventeen thousand yearsj. Should According as the gender of the object was in the language of the nation mas culine or feminine, the Divinity who bore its name was male or female. Thus the Cappadocians called the moon God, and the snn Goddess ; a circumstance which, , gives to the same beings a perpetual variety in ancient mythology. f vVe may add, says Plutarch, that these Egyptian priests always regarded the preservation of health as a point of first importance, and as indispensably neces sary to the practice of piety and the service of the Gods. See his account of Isis and Osiris, towards the end. f The historical orator follows here the opinion of Mr. Dupuis, who, in his learned memoir concerning the origin of the constellations, has assigned many plausible •reasons to prove that Libra was formerly the sign of the vernal, and Aries of the nocturnal equinox ; that is, that since the origin of the actual astronomical system the equinoxes has carried forward by seven signs the primitive t n Zodiac; ^ow estimating the procession at about seventy years and a in it« f that \S 2,115 yClirS t0 each sign ’ and obseiving that Aries was in its fifteenth degree, 1,447 years bt fore Christ, it follows, that the first degree of i ra could not have coincided with the vernal equinox more lately than 15 104 lTQ«?efOre fhrlst,; to >vhich if JO« add 1790 years since Christ, it appears that i ¡S yTirSTOaVr P,Sed Siuce the Or5»in the Zodi0c- The vernal pq«inox coin cided with the first degree of Aries 2.504 years before Christ, had with the first J-£‘ee of 7auras 4,619 years before Christ. Now it is to be observed, that the ¡snip or .he Bull is the principal article of the theological creed of .the EgyprX’d’ ..trs,ans’ Japanese, &c. from whence it clearly follows, that some genmal rewiution took place among those nations at that time. The chronology of five book" of°pSaild. years 111 gnosis is Httle agreeable to this hypothesis; but as the Ahi .1 f GenCsls cl:llm ,0 bc considered as a history further back than that pnTcedvd™ 3t ‘ ><rty tG mUkP Whai ariaIigTmeilts wc l,kasc in the eternity V. �100 k A SURVEY OF THE we farther be asked to what people or nation it ought to be attri buted, we shall reply, that those self-same monuments, seconded by unanimous tradition, attribute it to the first tribes of Egypt. And when reason finds in that region a concurrence of all the physical circumstances calculated to give rise to it; when it finds at once a zone of heaven, in the vicinity of the tropic, equally free from the rains of the equator and the fogs of the north ; * when it finds there the central point of the antique sphere: a sa lubrious climate; an immense yet manageable river; a land fer tile without art, without fatigue ; inundated, without pestilential exhalations; situate between two seas which lave the shores of the richest countries—it becomes manifest that the inhabitant of the districts of the Nile, inclined to agriculture from the nature of his soil; to commerce, from the facility of communication ; to geometry, from the annual necessity of measuring his possessions; to astronomy, from the state of his heaven, ever open to obser vation : must first have passed from the savage to the social state, and consequently attained that physical and moral knowledge proper to civilized man. “ It was thus, upon the distant shores of the Nile, and among a nation of sable complexion, that the complex system of the worship of the stars, as connected with the produce of the soil and the labours of agriculture, was constructed. The worship of the stars, under their proper forms, or their natural attributes, was a simple process of the human understanding; but in a short time the multiplicity of objects, their relations, their action and re-action, having confounded the ideas and the signs that represented them, a consequence resulted as absurd in its nature as pernicious in its tendency. Se c t . III. Third system; Worship of Symbols, or Idolatry. 41 Fr o m the instant this agricolar race had turned an eye of observation on the stars, they found it necessary to distinguish individuals or groupes, and to assign to each a proper name. A considerable difficulty here presented itself; for, on the one hand, the celestial bodies, similar in form, offered no peculiar character by which to denominate them: and on the other hand, language, poor and in a state of infancy, had no expressions of so many new and metayhysical ideas. The usual stimulus for genius, ne cessity, conquered all obstacles. Having remarked that in the annual revolution, the renewal and periodical appearance of the productions of the earth were constantly connected with the * Mr. Bailli, in placing .the first astronomers at Selingenskoy, near the lake Baikal, paid no attention to this twofold circumstance: it equally argues against their being placet! at Axoum on account of the rains, and the Zimb-fly of which Mr. Bruce speaks. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 101 rising and setting of certain stars, and with their position rela tively to the sun, the mind, by a natural mechanism, associated in its thought terrestrial and celestial objects, which had in fact a certain alliance; and applying to them the same sign, it gave to the stars, and the groupes it formed of them, the very names of the terrestrial objects to which they bore affinity . * “ Thus the Ethiopian of Thebes called stars of inundation, or of Aquarius, those under which the river began to overflow^; stars of the ox or bull, those under which it was convenient to plough the earth; stars of the lion, those under which that animal, driven by thirst from the deserts, made his appearance on the banks of the Nile; stars of the sheaf, or of the harvest maid, those under which the harvests were got in; stars of the lambs, stars of the goat, those under which those valuable animals brought forth their young; and thus was a first part of the difficulty re solved. “ On the other hand, man, having remarked in the beings that surrounded him certain qualities peculiar to each species, and having invented a name by which to design them, speedily discovered an ingenious mode of generalizing his ideas, and transferring the name already invented to every thing bearing a similar or analagous property or agency, enriched his language with a multiplicity of metaphors and tropes. “ Thus the same Ethiopian, having observed that the return of the inundation answered constantly to the appearance of a very beautiful star towards the source of the Nile, which seemed to warn the husbandmen against being surprised by the waters, he compared this action with that of the animal, who by barking gives notice of danger, and called this star the dog, the barker (Syrw). In the same manner he called stars of the crab, those which shewed themselves when the sun, having reached the bounds of the tropic, returned backwards and sideways like the crab, or Cancer ; stars of the wild goat, those which, the sun being arrived at its greatest altitude, at the top of the horary gnomon, imitated the action of that animal, who delights in climb ing the highest rocks; stars of the balance, these which, the days and nights being of the same length, seemed to observe an equi librium like that instrument; stars of the scorpion, those which were perceptible when certain regular winds brought a burning vapour like the poison of the scorpion. In the same manner he called by the names of rings and serpents the figured traces of the orbits oi the stars and planetsj; and this was the general ♦ “ The ancients” says ftlaimoiiides, “ directing-all their attention to agriculture, g-ave names to the stars derived from their occupation durin®- the year.” UbrcNeb. pars 3. ” ' ’ t This must have been Jone. See Note * p. 99. I The ancients had verbs from the substantives crab, ffoat, tortoise as the French have at present the verbs serpcnter, coqtiet-:er. The history fef’all lan guage.«« is nearly the same, ' �102 A SURVEY OF THE means of appellation of all the heavenly bodies, taken in grouper or individually, according to their connection with rural and ter restrial operations, and the analogies which every nation found tnem to bear to the labours of the fields, and the objects of their climate and soil, “ From this proceeding it resulted, that abject and terrestrial being's entered into association with the superior and powerful beings of the heavens; and this association became more rivetted. every day by the very constitution of language and the mechan ism of the mind. Men would say, by a natural metaphor, “ The bull spreads upon the earth the germins of fecundity (in spring), and brings back abundance by the revival of vegetation. The lamb (or ram) delivers the heavens from the malevolent Genii of winter; and saves the world from the serpent (emblem of the wet season). The scorpion pours out his venom upon the earth, and spreads diseases and death, &c.” “ This language, understood by every body, was at first at tended with no inconvenience; but, in process of time, when the almanac had been regulated, the people who could do without further observation of the skies, lost sight of the motive which led to the adoption of these expressions; and the allegory still remaining in the practices of life, became a fatal stumbling-bjock to the understanding and reason. Habituated to join to symbols the ideas of their models, the mind finally confounded them; then those same animals, which the imagination had raised to heaven, descended again on the earth; but in this return, decked in the livery and invested with the attributes of stars, they im posed upon their own authors. The people, imagining that they saw their gods before them, found it a more easy task to offer up their prayers. They demanded of the ram of their flock the in fluence which they expected from the celestial ram5 they prayed the scorpion not to pour out its venom upon nature ; they revered the fish in the river, the crab of the sea, and the scarabeus of the slime ; and by a series of corrupt but inseparable analogies, they lost themselves in a, labyrinth of consequent absurdities. “ Such was the origin of this ancient and sing'ular worship of animals; such the tram of ideas by which the character of the Divinity became common to the meanest of the brute creation; and thus was formed the vast, complicated, and learned theolo gical system, which, from die banks of the Nile, conveyed fi’ftm country to country by commerce, war, and conquest, invaded all the old world; and which, modified by times, by circum stances, and by prejudices, is still to be found among a hundred nations, and subsists to this day as the secret and inseparable basis of the theology of those even who despise and reject it.” At these words, murmurs being heard in various groupes: c< I repeat it,” continued the orator. “ People of Africa! hence, for �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 103 example, has arisen among-you the adoration of your Feteches, plants, animals, pebbles, bits of wood, before which your ances tors would never have been so absurd as to prostrate themselves, if they had not seen in them talismans, partaking of the nature of the stars . * Nations of Tartary! this is equally the origin of your Aiarmousets, and of the whole train of animals with which your Chamans ornament their magic robes. This is the origin of those figures of birds and serpents, which all the savage nations, with mystic and sacred ceremonies, imprint on their skin. Indians ! it is in vain you cover yourselves with the veil of mysterythe hawk of your god Vichenou is but one of the thousand emblems, ot the sun m Egypt, and his incarnations in a fish, boar, lion, turtle, together with all his monstrous adventures, are nothingmore than the metamorphoses of the same star, which, passin" successively through the signs of the twelve animalsf, was supposed to assume their forms, and to act their astronomical partsf. Japanese! your bull, which breaks the egg of th» world, is merely that of the heavens, which, in times of vor'e. opened the age of the creation, the equinox of sprino-. Rab bins, Jews ! that same bull is the Apis worshipped in Eo-ypt and which your ancestors adored in the idol of the golden calf’ It is also your bull, children of Zoroaster! that, sacrificed ia the symbolic mysteries of Mithra, shed a blood fertilizing- to the world. Lastly, your bull of the Apocalypse, Christians» with Ins wings, the symbol of the air, has no other originyour lamb of God, immolated, like the bull of Mithra, for the salvation of the world, is the self-same sun in the sign of the celestial ram, which, in a subsequent age, opening the equinox in his turn, was deemed to have rid the world of the reign of evil, that * The ancient astrologers, says the most learned of the Jews (Maimonides) havmg sacredly assigned to each planet a colour, an animal, a tree, a meial a fruH a plant, formed from them all a figure or representation of the star, taking care to select for the purpose a proper moment, a fortunate day, such as the coinunction ot the star, or some ot her favourable aspect. They conceived, that by their magic ceremonies they could introduce into those figures or idols the influences the superior beings after which they were modelled. These were the idols that th^ Cnaldcan-Sabeans auored; and in tie performance of their worship they weroohged to be dressed in their proper colour. 7 he astrologers, by their practices’ thus introduced ido atry, desirous of being regarded as the dispensers of the fa’ vouis of heaven ; and as agriculture was the sole employment of the ancients thea tiSJlsnoSr Th‘g rT and °th " ^CSSin* °f the at tilcir disposal. Thus the whole art of agriculture was exercised by rules of n’-andclhe P!!CStS niade talismans or charms which were to drive awav locitsts, flies, &c. Matmonfdes, More-Nebuchim, pars 3, c. 29. , i 16 Pr?ests Egypt, Persia, India, &c. pretended to bind the Gods to fhp;r idols, and to make them come from heaven at their pleasure. They threatened tb<^ebediei^t0 ™ai secret mvJeri^ w XIA i^cep. VUng' P‘ 198j atld iamblicus de ^teriis t The Zodiac. t These are the very words of Iamblicus de Svmbolis .Egyptiorum c The sun was tke grind Proteus, the universal metamorphist. ’ sect 7 ’ �104 A SURVEY OF THE is to say, of the serpent, -of the large snake, the mother of winter and emblem of the Ahrimanes or ¡Satan of the Persians, your institutors. 1 es, vainly does your imprudent zeal consign idolaters to the torments of the Tartarus which they have invented: the whole basis of your system is nothing more than the worship of the star of day, whose attributes you have heaped upon your chief personage. It is the sun, which, under the name of Orus, was born, like your God, in the arms of the celestial virgin, and passed through an obscure, indigent, and destitute childhood, answering to the season of cold and frost. It is the sun, which * under the name of Osiris persecuted by Typhon and and the tyrants of the air, was put to death, laid in a dark tomb, the em blem of the hemisphere of winter, and which, rising afterwards from the inferior zone to the highest point of the heavens, awoke triumphant over giants and the destroying angels. Ye priests, from whom the murmers proceed, you wear yourselves its signs all over your bodies. Your tonsure is the disk of the sun.; your stole its Zodiac ; your rosaries the symbols of the stars and * planets. Pontiffs and prelates! your mitre, your crosier, your mantle, are the emblems of Osiris; and that crucifix of which you boast the mystery, without comprehending it, is the cross of Se-> rapis, traced by the hands of Egyptian priests on the plan of the figurative world, which, passing- through the equinoxes and die tropics, became the emblem of future life and resurrection, be cause it touched the gates of ivory and horn through which the scul was to pass in its w ay to heaven.” Here the doctors of the different groups looked with astonish ment at one another, but none of them breaking silence, the ora tor continued. “ Three principal causes concurred to produce this confusion of ideas. First, the necessity, on account of the infant stage of language, of making use of fig-urative expressions to depict the relations of things ; expressions that, passing afterwards from a proper to a general, from a physical to a moral sense, occasioned, by their equivocal and synonymous terms, a multiplicity of mis takes. “ Thus having at first said, that the sum surmounted and passed * The Arabs, says Herodotus, shave their heads in a circle and about the tem ples, in imitation of Bacchus (that is the sun,) who shaves himsell, they say, in this manner. Jeremiah speaks also of this custom. The tuft of hair which the Maho metans preserve, is also taken from the sun, who was painted by the Egyptians at the winter solstice, as having but a single hair on his head. The robes of the god dess of Syria and Diana of Ephesus, from whence are borrowed the dress of priests, have the twelve animals of the Zodiac painted on them. Rosaries are found upon all the Indian idols, constructed more than four thousand years ago: and their use in the east has been universal from time immemorial. The crosier is precisely the staff of Bootes or Osiris (See Plate II.) All the Lamas wear the mitre or cap in. the shape of a cone, which was an emblem of the sun. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 105 ni its course through the twelve animals, they afterwards sup posed chat it combated, conquered, and killed them, and from this was composed the historical life of Hercules. “ Having said that it regulated the period of rural operations of seed time and of harvest; that it distributed the seasons, ran through the climates, swayed the earth, &c. it was taken fora legislative king, a conquering warrior, aud hence they formed the stories of Osiris, of Bacchus, and other similar Gods. “ Having said that a planet entered into a sign, the conjunction was denominated a marriage, adultery, incest : having further * said, that it was buried, because it sunk below the horizon, re turned to light and gained its state of eminence, they gave it the epithet of dead, risen again, carried into heaven, &c. “ The second cause of confusion was the material figures themselves, by which thoughts were originally painted, and which, under the name of hieroglyphics, or sacred characters, were the first invention of the mind. Thus to denote an inunda tion, and the necessity of preserving one’s-self from it, they painted a boat, the vessel Argo; to express the wind, they painted a bird’s wing; to specify the season, the month, they delineated the bird of passage, insect, or animal, which made its appearance at that epoch ; to express winter they drew' a hog, or a serpent, which are fond of moist and miry places. The combination of these figures had also a meaning, and was substituted for words and phrasest. But as there was nothing fixed or precise in this * These are. the very words of Plutarch in his account of Isis and Osiris. Tiie Hebrews say, in speaking of the generations of the Patriarchs, et ingressus est in earn From this continual equivoque of ancient language, proceeds every mistake. t See the examples cited in Note f p. 98 The reader will doubtless see, with pleasure, some examples of ancient hiero glyphics “ The Egyptians (says Hor-apollo) represent eternity by the figure of the sun and moon. They designate the world by a blue serpent with yellow scales (stars, it is the Chinese Dragon). If they were desirous of expressing the year, they drew a pieture of Isis, who is also in their language called Sothis, or dog-star, one of the first constellations, by the rising of which the year commences : its inscription at Sais was, it is I that rise in the constellation of the Dog. “ They also represent the year by a palm-tree, and the month by one of its branches; because it is the nature of this tree to produce a branch every month. They farther represent it by the fourth part of an acre of land.” (The whole acre divided into four denotes the bissextile period of four years. The abbreviation of this figure of a field in four divisions, is manifestly the letter ha or het, the seventh in the Samaritan alphabet; and in general all the letters of the alphabet are merely astronomical hieroglyphics: and it is for this reason that the mode of writing is from right to left, fike the march of the stars)—“ They denote a prophet by the, image of a dog, because the dog-star (Anoubis) by its rising gives notice of the inundation, No itbi in Hebrew signifies prophet,—-They represent inundation by a lion, because it takes place under that sign: and hence, says Plutarch, the cus tom of placing at the gates of temples figures of lions with water issuing from their mouths—They express the idea of God and Destiny by a star. They also represent God, says Porphyry, by a black stone, because his nature is dark and ob scure. All white things express the celestial and luminous Gods: all circular ones P �105 A SURVEY OF THE sort of language, as the number of those figures and their com binations became excessive and burdensome to the memory, confusions and false interpretations were the first and obvious re sult. Genius having afterwards invented the more simple art of applying signs to sounds, of which the number is limited, and of painting the word instead of the thought, hieroglyphic pictures the world, the moon, the sun, the destinies: all semicircular ones, as bowsand crescents, are also descriptive of the moon. Fire and the Gods of Olympus, they represent by pyramids and obelisks: (the name of the son Baal is found in th«s latter word): the sun, -by a cone (the mitre of Osiris): the earth, by a cylinder (which revolves): the generative power of the air, by the phalus, and that of the earth, by a triangle, emblem of the female organ. Eseb. Preecep. Erap p. 98. u Clay, (says Iamblicus de Symbolis, sect. 7. c.2.) denotes- matter, the genera tive and nutrimental power, every thing which receives the warmth and mriaeatation of life. M A man sitting upon the Zofws or Nenuphar, represents the moving spirit (the sun), which, in like manner as the plant move in the water without any commu nication with clay, exists equally distinct from matter, swimming in empty space, resting on itself: it is round also in all its parts, like the leaves, the flowers, and the fruit of the Lotoe. (Brama has the eyes of the Lotos, says Chaster Neadizs«n, to denote his intelligence: his eyes swim over everv thing: like the flowers of the Lotos on the waters). A man at the helm of a ship, adds Iamblicus, is descriptive of the sun which governs all. And Porphyry tells us, that the sun is also repre sented by the man in a ship resting upon an amphibious crocodile (emblem of air and water). “ At Elephantine, they worshipped the figure of a man in a sitting posture, painted blue, having the head of a ¡ram, and the horns of a goat, which encom passed a disk ; all which represented the sun and moon’s conjunction at the sign of the ram ; the blue colour denoting the power of the moon at the period of junc tion, to raise water into clouds. Euseb. Prcecep. Brang, p. 116. “ The hawk is an emblem of the sun and of light, on account of his rapid flight, and his soaring into the highest regions of the air, where light abounds. “ A fish is the emblem of aversion, and the Hippopotamus of violence, because it is said to kill its father and ravish its mother. Hence, says Plutarch, the emble matical Inscription of the temple ofSais, where we see painted on the vestibule, 1. A child. 2. An old man. 3. A hawk. 4. A fish. 5. A hippopotamus; which signify, 1. Entrance (into life). 2. Departure. 3. Gcd. 4. Hatred. 5. Injustice. (See Isis and Osiris). “ The Egyptians, adds he, represents the world by a Scarabens, because thia in sect pushes, in a direction contrary to that in which it proceeds, a ball containing its eggs, just as the heaven of the fixed stars causes the revolution of the sun (the yolk of an egg) in an opposite direction to his own. “ They represent the world also by the number Jive, being that of the elements, which, says Diodorus, are earth, water, air, fire, and ether dr spiritus. The Indians have the same number of elements, and according to Macrobius’s Mystics, they are the supreme God, or primum mobile, the intelligence, or mens, born of him, tho soul of the world which proceeds from him, the celestial spheres and all things ter restrial. Hence, adds Plutarch, the analogy between the Greek pente, five, and pan, all. “‘The ass" says he again, “ is the emblem of Typhon, because, like that anima?, he is of a reddish colour. Noty Typhon signifies whatever is of a nylrey or clayeynature ; and in Hebrew I find the three words, c/tty, red, and ass, to fie formed from the same root hamr. lamblicus has farther told us, that clay was: the emblem of matter; and he elsewhere adds, that all evil and corruption proceeded from matter, which compared with the phrase of Macrobius, all is perishable, liable to change in the •'elestial sphere, gives us the theory, first physical, then moral, of the system of good and evil of the ancients.'” �r e v o l u t io n s o f e m pir e s . 107 by means of alphabetical writing, brought into disuse ; and from day to day their forgotten significations made way tor a variety of illusions, equivoques, and errors. « Lastly the civil organization of the first states was a third cause of confusion. Indeed, when the people began to apply themselves to agriculture, the formation of the rural calendar re quiring continual astronomical observations, it was necessary to chuseIndividuals whose province it should be to watch the ap pearance and setting of certain stars, to giVe notice of the return of the inundation, of particular winds and rains, and the proper time for sowing every species of grain. These men, on account of their office, were exempted from the common occupations, ana the society provided for their subsistence. In this situation, solely occupied in making observations, they soon penetrated the great phenomena of nature, and dived into the secret of various^ of her operations. They became acquainted with the course ot the stars and planets; the connection which their absence and return had witn the productions of the earth and the activity of vegetation: the medicinal or nutritive properties of fruits and plants • the action of the elements, and their reciprocal affinities. But as there were no means of communicating this knowledge, otherwise than by the painful and laborious one of oral instruc tion, they imparted it only to their friends and kindred; and hence resulted a concentration of science in certain families, who, on this account, assumed to themselves exclusive privileges, and a spirit or corporation and separate distinction fatal to the public weal. By this continued succession of the same laoours amt enquiries, the progress of knowledge it is true was hastened, bur, by the mystery that accompanied it, the people, plunged daily in the thickest darkness, become more superstitious and more slavish. Seeing human beings produce certain phenomena, announce, as it were at will, eclipses and comets, cure diseases, handle noxious serpents, they supposed them to have intercom se with celestial powers; and, to obtain the good or have the ills aveited which they .expected from those powers, they adopted these extraordinary human beings as mediators and interpieteis. And thus viere established in the very bosom of states, sacrilegious corporations of hypocritical and deceitful men, who arrogated to themselves every kind of power; and priests, being at once astronomers, divines, naturalists, physicians, necromancers, intei preters oi the gods, oracles of the people, rivals of kings or then accomplices, instituted under the name of religion an empire of mystery, whicn to this very hour has proved ruinous to the nations 01 mankind. At these words the priests of all the groupes interrupted the orator; with loud cries, they accused him of impiety, irreligion, blasphemy, and were unwilling he should proceed : but the legis lators having observed, that what he related was merely a naira- �A SURVEY OF THE five of historical facts ; that if those facts were false or forced, it would be an easy matter to refute them ; and that if every one were not allowed the perfect liberty to declare his opinion, it would be impossible to arrive at truth—he thus went on with his discourse: • “ Froma11 th®se causes’ ahd thè perpetual association of di®XTiar ldea8’ followed a strange mass of disorders in eo ogy, morality, and tradition. And first, because the stars were represented by animals, the qualities of the animals, their mungs, their sympathies, their aversions, were transferred to the <jods and supposed to be their actions. Thus the God Ichneumon war against thè God crocodile ; the God wolf wanted to eat he God sheep; the God stork devoured the God serpent; and tae Deity became a strange, whimsical, ferocious being, whose idea misled the judgment of man, and corrupted both his morals and his reason. “Again, as every family, every nation, in the spirit of its worship adopted a particular star or constellation for its patron, the affections and antipathies of the emblematical brute were 1t0 the sectaries of this worship ; and the partisans of the God dog were enemies to those of the God wolf; the wor shippers of the God bull abhorred those who fed upon beef, and religion became the author of combats and animosities, the sense less cause of frenzy and superstition. * “ Farther, the names of the animal stars having, on account of this same patronage, been conferred on nations, countries, moun tains, and rivers, those objects were also taken for Gods ; and hence there arose a medley of geographical, historical, and myhological beings, by which all tradition was involved in con fusion. “ In fine, from the analogy of their supposed actions the plane tary gods having been taken for men, heroes, and kings ; kings and heroes took in their turn the actions of the Gods for models, and became, from imitation, warlike, conquering, sanguinary, proud, lascivious, indolent ; and religion consecrated the crimes of despots, and perverted the principles of governments. Se c t . IV. Fourth system ; Worship of Two Principles, or Dualism. “Meanwhile the astronomical priests, enjoying in their temples peace and abundance, made every day fresh progress in the sci. These are properly the words of. Plutarch, who relates that those various worups weie given by a King o Egypt to the difiereat towns to disunite and enslave * em (and these Kings had been takes from the east of nriestsh See />ij nad ciWk « . * z i' �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 109 <&Hoes j and the system of the world gradually displaying itself bebefore their eyes, they stated successively various hypotheses as to its agents and effects, which became so many systems of the ology. . . z c « The navigators of the maritime nations, and the caravans or Asiatic and African Nomades, having given them a knowledge of the earth from the Fortunate Islands to Serica, and from the Bal tic to the sources of the Nile, they discovered, by a comparison of the different Zones, the rotundity of the globe, which gave rise to a ne v theory. Observing that all the operations of Nature * duriiirr the annual period, were summed up m two principal ones,, that of producing and that of destroying ; that upon the major part of the globe, each of these operations was eguaLy accom plished from one to the other ecjuinox; that is to say, teat during the six months of summer all was in a state of procreation and in crease, and during the six months of winter ail in a state of laiii— guor and nearly dead, they supposed nature to contain two con trary powers always struggling with and resisting each other; and considering in the same light the celestial sphere, they di vided the pictures, by which they represented it, into two halves or hemispheres, so that those constellations which appeared ip the summer heaven formed a direct and superior empire, and those in the winter heaven an opposite and inferior one. Norwas the summer constellations were accompanied with the season of long, warm, and unclouded days, together With that of fruits and harvests, they were deemed to be the powers of light, fecundity, and creation; and by transition from a physical to a moral sew. to be Genii, angels of science, beneficence, purity, virtue : in hkw manner the winter constellations, being attended with long nights and the polar fogs, were regarded as genii of darkness, destruc tion, death, and, by similar transition, as angels of wickedness, ignorance, sm, vice. By this disposal heaven was divided into two domains, two factions; and the analogy of human ideas opened already a vast career to the flights of imagination; but a particular circumstance determined, if it did not occasion, the mistake and illusion. (Consult Plate II, at the end of -the vo lume.) 6i In the projection of the celestial sphere drawn by astronomi cal priests the Zodiac and the constellations disposed in a cir, * * The ancient priests had three kinds of spheres, which it may be useful to make known to the reader. , , « Wc read in Eusebius,” says Porphyry, “ that Zoroaster was the first who, hav ing fixed upon a cavern pleasantly situated in the mountains adjacent to Persia, formed the idea of consecrating it to Mithra (the sun), creator and father of »11 things; that is to sav; having made m this cavern several geometrical divisions, representing the seaEascad the eiemeats, he imitated on a small scale-the oruer �no A SURVEY OF THE oihr order, presented their halves in diametrical opposition • the Zt nntem7 rre Tas adwrse* contrary, opposite to, bein- She ‘ P CS °f ^at <d summer* By the continued metaphor These * andi/-KC°nVeriel \nt° ‘\moral sense’ and the adveise ano-els nd Genii became rebels and enemies. * From that neriod^thp a,T"omiCa!. °f tb0 “'«telktion was ^Xd ¿o : Sdn^r hlistoU'; tne heavens became a human state, where every in happened as it does on earth. Now as the existing state/ xor the most part despotic, had their monarchs, and as The sun /em thC S0^erei3'n of the sk,es» the summer hemisphere btd "®hi)’and ‘is constellations (a nation of white anUls)’ had for km<g- an enlightened, intelligent, creative, benign O and aS every rebellious faction must have its chief, the hemis’ X °f ™f.er’ the subterraneous empire of darkness and woe) together witn its stars (a nation of black angels, giants, or demons) hvM Fd Veader a mab»nant Genius’ wbSse P « * -as assumed by the different people of the earth, to that star which appeared’ and disposition of the universe by Mithra After 7ornn«tP>- Ok,, consecrate caverns for the celebration of mystenes so thaH * to pies were dedicated to the Gods, rural altars to heroes and terrèstri^ Sie^ & subterraneous abo.ies to infernal deities, so caverns and j II at is, the ancient priests had arinillary spheres like ourseive!us u,-'d th^atÌlv’/h7 h'ld W0^' ihe Uat"re of Piate IL wi‘h Aia difference, that -»d subdccau, with* ( yn in-i at, J » t? i ’ d r .«P'1“'™ «" similar pla„s ■ „d if , ¿ic„„i ?ò'.h™p rd “ s ’ " *scr,Plwn S™» by Miger at (he rod if “M.nilius •• "V ““* “P1"«'- »f ihdr biK-oglyphics, for every ar.iX �r e v o l u t io n s o f EMPIRES. - Hi to them the most remarkable. In Egypt it was originally the Scorpion, the first sign of the Zodiac after the balance, and the hoarv chief of the wmtry signs: then it was the bear or the polar ass, called Typhon, that is to say, deluge on account of the yams , * which poured down upon the earth during tne dominion of th a., star. In Persia, at a subsequent penodf, it was the serpent, which, under the name of Abrimanes, formed the basis of the system of Zoroater; and it is the same, Christians and dews, that is become your serpent of Eve (the celestial origin), and that o the cross; ’in both cases the emblem of Satan, the great adversary of the Ancient of days, sung by Daniel. In Syria it was the hog or wild boar, enemy of Adonis, because iu that country the oftce of the Northern bear was made to devolve upon the animal whose fondness for mire and dirt is emblematical of winter And it is for this reason that you, children of Moses and Mahomet, hold this animal in abhorrence, in imitation of the priests of Memphis and Balbec, who detested him as the murderer of their God the sun. This is likewise,, O Indians 1 the type of your Chio-en, which was once the Pluto of your brethren the Greeks and Ro mans : your Brama also, (God the creator,) is only tne 1 ersian Ormuzd, and the Osiris of Egypt, whose very name expresses a creative power, producer of forms. And these Gods were woishipoed in a manner analogous to their real or fictitious attri butes, and this worship, on account of the difference of its objects, was divided into two distinct branches. In one, the benign God received a worship of joy and love, whence are derived all relw o-ious acts of a sray nature festivals, dances, banquets, offerings , * of flowers, milkT honey, perfumes; in a word, of everything that delights the senses and the soul. In the other, the malign God, on the contrary, received a worship of fear and pam ; whence * It was for this reason the Persians always wrote the name of Ahrimanes inVqViypboX3pv»Ro?«^d Touphan by the Greeks, is precisely the Tmipkw of the Arabs 'which signifies deluge ; and these deluges in my thology are nothing mo.-e Sian wSian/the rains, o? thb overflowing of the Nile; aS their pre ended fire which are to destroy the world, are simply the summer season, ^ditis tor tine reason that Aristotle (De Meteor lib. i. e. XI^ tha\^V F ’^avs cyclic year is a deluge; and its summer a conflagration. The E^Ptia"s’ ,® / i Porphyry, “ employ every year a talisman in remembrance or the world : at die „um' mersoUice they mirk them houses, flocks, and trees with red, supposing that on .hat day the whole world had been set on fire. It was also at the same permd tl.aUey celebrated the pyrric or fire dance.” (And this illustrates the origin of punfie tmVs by fire and by water: for having denominated the tropic o. Cancer the saU i heaven, and of genial heat of celestial fire, and that of Capricorn the ^ «f deluge er of water, it was imagined that the spirits of souls who passed through these gates in their way to and from heaven, were roasted or bathed : hence the baptism if Mithra, and the passage through flames, observed throughout the East long bct That is when the ram became the eouinoyial sign, or rather, when the aktra tion of the skies shewed that it was no longer the Bull. Sc® Note * p. 1-0. �112 a su r v ey 'Of Th e enginatea all religious acis of the SOmbre kind . tears ~ii¥r * «Troxf\^tniaL truel kcrifiX’. intn ™ i • souree floued íbe Vision of terrestrial behms into pure and impure, sacred or abominable, accordingas S Cod fTnd amon^t3;e respective constellations of the two God, and made a part of their domains. This produced on one S t XXTX P°i,UtiOn a"d and °n ’he « Yon nn\v 1 d eflicaeious virtues of amulets and talismans. self m tL l r e5 nid’ contmued tbe orator addressing himself to the Indians, Persians, Jews, Christians, and Mussulmans * rebenionWwhidcTStandnhe Or’S3n of those ideas °f combats and You n ’ • h Í e<Iuany pervade your respective mythology. You perceive what is meant by white and black ano-els • by the dm n 8 anj Se.jaPhs Tth heads of an eaSk, a bon or a bull * eq Deus, devils or demons with horns of goats and tails of ther¿ronfs ñnd dominionsb ranged in seven orders or gradations, like the seven spheres of the planets; all of them the Vedaf”heb Ib T Pa£%Jariakiog ob * attribuies in we vedas, the Bibles, or the Zendavasta: whether their chief be S^íd0rrBra?a,iryPbí)il or Chib-en, Michael or Satan • whe^erpentTorX ofG g,a”tS * í¡Undred arms and ’feet of ■ erpenis, or that of Gods metamorphosed into lions, storks bulls <md cats, as they appear in the sacred tales of the Greeks and’ Egyptians : you perceive the successive genealogy of these ideas and how in proportion to their remoteness from their source? n?rifiSdthe 7mÍ °f ?an became refined, their gross forms were purified and reduced to a state less shocking and repulsive. ... • ibe/^siein of two oPPosde principles or deities engmatea in that of symbols ; in the same manner you will fid a new system spring out of this, to which it served in its turn as as a foundation and support.1’ Se c t . V. Mystical or Moral Worship, or the System of a Future State. *■ refeiitiy; Wien the vul§ar heard talk of a new heaven and Xis’ WO-?5 thT7,80011 §'avo a body to these fictions; they ected on it a solid stage and real scenes ; and their notions of geography and astronomy served to strengthen, if they did not give rise to the allusion. ' * On the one hand, the Phenician navigators, those who passed «f^dÌccrintion1 Sa,tVe7vCHng ^ht’ retnrn and rxaltati™ sun wee passate (Pascha') of wTT tb<; hllarta of the Roman calendar at the period of thè Those o?X ^q"ln<>X- nThC danCCS Wcre Citations of the march mose of the Dervises still represent it to this day. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. tie pillars of Hercules to fetch the pewter of Thule and the t amber of the Baltic, related that at the extremity of the world, the boundaries of the ocean (the Mediterranean), where the sun sets to the countries of Asia, there were fortunate islands, the abode of an everlasting- spring-; and at a farther distance, hyperborean regions, placed under the earth (relatively to the tropics), where reigned an eternal night. * From these stories, badly understood, and no doubt confusedly related, the imagina tion of the people composed the Elysian Fields t, delightful sports in a world below, having- their heaven, their sun, and their stars: and Tartarus, a place of darkness, humidity, mire, and chillin«- frost. Now, inasmuch as mankind, inquisitive about all that of which they are ignorant, and desirous of a protracted existence, had already exerted their faculties respecting what was to become of them after death, inasmuch, as they had early reasoned upon that principle of life which animates the body, and which quits it without changing the form of the body, and had conceived to themselves airy substances, phantoms and shades; they loved to believe that they should resume in the subterranean world that life which it was so painful to lose; and this abode ap peared commodious for the reception of those beloved objects which they could not prevail on themselves to renounce. « On the other hand, the astrological and phdosophical priests told such stories of their heavens as perfectly quadrated with these fictions. Having, in their metaphorical language, deno minated the equinoxes and solstices the gates of heaven, or the entrance of the seasons, they explained the terrestrial phenomena by saying, that through the gate of horn (first the bull, after wards the ram,) vivifying fires descended, which, in spring, gave life to vegetation, and aquatic Spirits, which caused, at the sol stice, the overflowing of the Nile: that through the gate of ivory, (originally the Bowman, or Sagittarius, then the Balance,) and through that of Capricorn, or the urn, the emanations or influences of the^heavens returned to their source and re-ascended to their origin; and the Milky Way which passed through the doors of the solstices, seemed to them to have been placed there on purpose to be their road and vehicle f. The celestial scene farther presented, according to their Atlas, a river (the Nile, designated by the windings of the Hydra) ; together with a barge (the vessel Arg-o), and the dog Sirius, both bearing relation to that river, of which they foreboded the overflowing, These circumstances, added to • * Nights of six months duration,f AKz, in the Phoenician or Hebrew language signifies dancing and joyous, * j-See Jfatrofr. Sow. Scfp. c. 12 5 and Note * p. 120. Q �114 A SURVEY OF THE “ The inhabitants of Egypt having remarked that the putrefac tion or dead bodies became in their burnino- climate the source of on.,™« ot burning pestilence and diseases, the custom was introduced in a «rent number of states, of burying the dead at a distance from the in habited districts, m the desert which lies at the West. To arrive there it was necessary to cross the canals of the river in a boat and to Bay a toll to the ferrvmnn nfhornrica the body, ____ • • * pay ferryman, otherwise remaining unburied, would have been left a prey to wild beasts. Th£ custom suggested to her civil and religious legislators, a powerful means ot affecting the manners of her inhabitants ; and addressing savage and uncultivated men with the motives of filial piety and reverence for the dead, they introduced, as a necessary condition., the undergoing that previous trial, which should decide whether the deceased deserved to be admitted nnnn tlw. family honours into the black city. Such an idea too well accoided with the rest of the business not to be incorporated with ? n1lajCOrd^1§’ly eniered for an article into religious creeds, and feen had its Minos and its Radamanthus, with the wand, the chair the guards and the uro, after the exact model of this civil transact lion. The Divinity then, for the first time, became a subject of inoral and political consideration; a legislator, by so much the more formidable as, while his judgment was final and his de crees without appeal, he was unapproachable to his subjects. This mythological and fabulous creation, composed as it was of scattered and discordant parts, then became a source of future punishment and rewards, in which divine justice was supposed to correct the vices and errors of this transitory state. A spiritual mystical system, such as I have Mentioned, acquired so much the more credit as it applied itself to the mind by every argument suited to it. The oppressed looked thither for an indemni fication, and entertained the consoling hope of vengeance; the oppressor expected by the costliness of his offerings to secure to himself impunity, and at the same time employed this principle to inspire the vulgar with timidity; kings and priests, the heads ot the people, saw in it a new' source of power, as they reserved to themselves the privilege of awarding the favours or the censure . the great Judge of all, according to the opinion they should inculcate of the odiousness of crimes and the meritoriousness of virtue. “ thus,, the», an invisible and imaginary world entered into �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. competition with that which was real. Such, O Persians ! was the origin of your renovated earth, your city of resurrection., placed under the equator, and distinguished from all other cities by this singular attribute, that the bodies of its inhabitants cast no * shade. Such, 0 Jews and Christians ! disciples of the Persians, was the source of your new Jerusalem, your paradise and your heaven, modelled upon the astrological heaven of Hermes. Meanwhile, your hell, O ye Mussulmans! a subterraneous pit surmounted by a bridge, your balance of souls and good works, your judgment pronounced by the angels Monkir and Nekir, derives its attributes from the mysterious ceremonies of the cave of Mithraf; and your heaven is exactly coincident with that of Osiris, Ormudz, and Brama.’’ * There is on this subject a passage in Plutarch, so interesting and explanatory’ of the whole of this system, that we shall cite it entire. Having observed that the theory of good and evil had at all times occupied the attention of philosophers and theologians, he adds: “ Many suppose ther e to be two Gods of opposite in clinations, one delighting in good the other in evil; the first of these is called par ticularly by the name of God, the second by that of Genins Or Demon. Zoroaster has denominated them Oromaze and Ahrimanes, and has said that, of whatever falls under the cognizance of our senses, light is the best representation of the one, anp darkness and ignorance of the other. He adds that Mithra is an intermediate being, and it is for this reason that the Persians call Mithra the mediator or inter mediator. Each of these gods has distinct planets and animals consecrated to him; for example, dogs, birds and hedge-hogs, belonging to the good Genius, and aji aquatic animals to the evil one. “ The Persians also say, that Oromaze was born or formed out of the purest light; Ahrimanes, on the contrary, out of the thickest darkness; that Oroiaaze made six Gods as good as himself, and Ahrimanes opposed to him six wicked ones » that Oromaze afterwards multiplied himself threefold (Hermes Tfismegistus), and removed to a distance as remote from the sun as the sun is remote from the earth ; that he there formed stars, and among others, Syrius, which he placed in the heavens as a guard and centinel. He made also twenty-four other Gods, which he .inclosed in an egg; but Ahrimanes created an equal number on his part, who broke the egg, and from that moment good and evil were mixed (in the universe). But Ahrimanes is one day to be conquered, and the earth to be made equal and smooth^ that all men may live happy. Theopompus adds, from the books of the Magi, that one of these Gods reigns in turn every three thousand years, during which the other is kept in subjection; that they afterwards contend with equal weapons during a similar portion of time, but that in the end the evil Genius will fall (never to rise again). Then men will be come happy, and their bodies cast no shade. The God who meditates all these things reclines at present in repose, waiting till he shall be pleased to execute them.” (See [sis and Osiris'). There is an apparent allegory through the whole of this passage. The egg is the fixed sphere, the world ; the six Gods of Oromaze are the six sigus of summer, those of Ahrimanes the six signs of winter. The forty-eight other Gods arc the forty eight constellations of the ancient sphere, divided equally between Ahrimanes and Otomaze. The office of Si/riizs, as guard and centinel, tell us that the origin of these ideas was Egyptian: finally, the expression that the earth is to become equal and smooth, and that the bodies of happy beinghare to cast no shade, proves that the equator was considered as their true paradise. t In the caves which priests every where constructed, they celebrated .mysterifs �116 A SURVEY OF THE lAX Se c t . VI. Sixth System: The Animated World, or Worship 'op the Universe under different Emblems. <e Vk h il e the nations were losuig themselves in the dark laby rinth of mythology and fables, the physiological priests, pursuing their Studies and enquiries about the order and disposition of the universe, came to fresh results, and set up fresh systems of powers and moving causes. * 1 “ Long confined to simple appearances, they had only seen in the motion of the stars an unknown play of luminous bodies, which they supposed to roll round the earth, the central point of all the spheres ; but from the moment they had discovered the rotundity of our planet, the consequences of this first fact led. them to other considerations, and from inference to inference they rose to the highest conceptions of astronomy and physics. “ In truth, having conceived the enlightened and simple idea, that the celestial globe is a small circle inscribed in the greater circle of the heavens, the theory of the concentrai circles na turally presented itself to their hypothesis, to resolve the un known circle of the terrestrial globe by known points of the celestial circle ; and the measure of one or several degrees of the meridian, gave precisely the total circumference. Then taking for compass the diameter of the earth, a fortunate genius de scribed with auspicious boldness the immense orbits of the hea vens; and, by an unheard of abstraction, man, who scarcely peoples the grain of sand of which he is the inhabitant, embraced the infinite distances of the stars, and launched himself into thé abyss of space and duration. There a new order of the universe presented itself, of which the petty globe that he inhabited no longer appeared to him to be the centre : this important part was transferred to the enormous mass of the sun, which became the which consisted (says Origen against Celsus) in imitating the motion of the stars, the planets, and the heavens. The initiated took the name of constellations, and assumed the figures of animals. One was a lion, another a raven, and a third a ram. Hence the use of masks in the first representation of the drama. See Ant. Devoile, vol. ii. p. 244. “ In the mysteries of Ceres, the chief in the procession called himself the creator; the bearer of the torch was denominated the sun: the person nearest the altar, the moon : the herald or deacon, Mercury. In Egypt there was a festival in which the men and women represented the year, the age, the sea sons, the different parts’of the day, and they walked in procession after Bacchus. .Aiken, lib. v. c. 7. Jn the eave of JVIithra was a ladder with'severi steps, represent ing the seven spheres of the planets, by means of which souls ascended and de scended. This is precisely the ladder in Jacob’s vision, which shows that at that epocha the whole system was formed. There is in the French’ iune’e library a su perb volume of pictures of the Indian Gods, in which the ladder is represented with the souls of men mounting it.” •< • ■ rtsift .■ » �DEVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 117 inflamed pivot of eight circumjacent spheres, the movements of which were henceforward submitted to exact calculation. * « The human mind had already done a great deal, by undertakino- to resolve the disposition and order of the great beings of nature; but not contented with this first effort, it wished also to resolve its mechanism, and discover its origin and motive princi ple. And here it is that, involved in the abstract and metaphysi cal depths of motion and its first cause—of the inherent or com municated properties of matter, together with its successive forms and extent, or, in other words, of boundless space and time, these physiological divines lost themselves in a chaos of subtle arguments and scholastic controversy. The action of the sun upon terrestrial bodies, having first led them to consider its substance as pure and elementary fire, they made it the focus and reservoir of an ocean of igneous and luminous fluid, which, under the name of ether, filled the uni verse, and nourished the beings contained therein. They after wards discovered, by the analysis of a more accurate philosophy, ibis fire, or a fire similar to it, entering into the composition of ail bodies, and perceived that it was the grand agent in that spon taneous motion, which in animals is denominated life, and in plants vegetation. From hence they were led to conceive of the mechanism and action of the universe, as of a homogeneous w h o l e , a single body, whose parts, however distant in place, had a reciprocal connection with each otherj-; and of the world as a living substance, animated by the organical circulation of an igneous or rather electrical fluidj, which by an analogy borrowed from men and animals, was supposed to have the sun for its heart §. « Meanwhile, among the theological philosophers, one sect be ginning from these principles, the result of experiment, said: That* § * Consult the ancient astronomy of M. Bailly, and you will find our assertions respecting the knowledge of the priests amply proved. f These are the very words of Jamblicus. De Myst. ¿Egypt. t The more I'consider what the ancients understood by ether and spirit, and what the Indians call aAmcfte; the stronger do I find the analogy between it and electri cal fluid. A luminous fluid, principle of warmth and motion, pervading the uni verse, forming the matter of the stars, having small round particles, which insinu ate themselves into bodies, and fill them by dilating itself, be their extent what it will, what can more strongly resemble electricity ? .. § Natural philosophers, says Macrobius, cal! the sun the heart of the world. AW Scrp. c. 20. The Egyptians, says Plutarch, calls the East the /ace, the North trie right side, and the South the left side of the world, because there the heart is placed. They continually compare the universe to a man; and hence the cele brated microcosm of the Alchvmists. We observe, by the bye, that the Alchymist«, Cabaiists, Freemasons, Magnetisers, Martinists, and every other such sort of vi sionaries, are but the mistaken disciples of this ancient school: we say mistaken, because in spite of their pretensions, the thread of the O8cult science is broken. �118 A SURVEY OF THE nothing- was annihilated in the world: that the dements were unpeusbable; that they changed their combinations, but not 5• ihvl,fe and death of bein§s were nothing more than the vmied modifications of the same atoms; that matter contained in itself properties, which were the cause of all its inodes of existing; that the world was eternal , * having no bounds either of space or duration, ~ Others said: Tha? the whole universe was God; and, according to them, God was at once effect and cause, agent and patient, moving principle and thing moved, having for laws the invariable properties which constitute fatality; apd they designated their idPea Lmedmlsby ^ emblem Ox Pa n (the g r e a t a l l ) ; or of Jupiter, with a starry front, a pmnetaiy body, and feet of animals; or by the symbol of the Orphic eggf, whose yolk suspended in the middle of a liquid encompassed by a vault, represented the glob© of the sun swimming m ether in the middle of the vault of heaven or by ; * the emblem or a large round serpent, figurative of the heavens, where they placed the first principle of motion, and for that rea son of an azure colour, studded with gold spots (the stars), and devouring hisHail that is, re-entering into Weifs by winding continually like the revolution of the spheres ; or by the emblem of a man, with his feet pressed and tied together to denote im mutable existence, covered with a mantle of all colours, like the appearance of nature, and wearing on his head a sphere of gold? figurative of the sphere of the planets; or by that of another man sometimes seated upon the flower of Lotos, borne upon the abyss of the waters; at others reclined upon a pile of twelve cush- signifying the twelve celestial s gns. And this, O nations of India, Japan, Siam, Thibet, aud China! is the theology, which invented by the Egyptians, has been transmitted down and pre-’ served among yourselves, in the pictures you gave of Brama, Beddou, Sommanacodom, and Omito. This, 0 ye Jews and Christians ! is the counterpart of an opinion, of which you have* § . ^e.the Pythagorean Ocellus Lucanus. f Vide CEdip. JEgypt. tom II » 205 * This comparison of the sun with the yolk of an egg refers, 1. To its round and yellow figure; 2 To its central situation; 3. To the germ or principle of life con tained in the yolk. May not the oval form of the egg- allude to the ellipsis of tire orbs ; l am inclined to this opinion. The word Orphic offers a flrthef observa toon. Macrobius says (Som. Scip. c. 11. and c. 20), that the sun is the brain of the universe, and that it is from analogy that the skull of a human being is round, like the planet the seat of intelligence. Now the word Orph (with «in) signifies in He and'the Rblain 3ad <iS SEat ’ OrPheus’ then, is «he same.as Bedou or Baits; and the Bonzes are those very Orphics vthich Plutarch represents as quacks, who ate no meat, vended talismans, and little stones, and deceived individuals, and even go * 11 ™ », Orpki^., Ac'iid. § See Porphyry in Eusebuis. Prop. Etun, lib, 3.p. 115, �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 119 retained a certain portion, when you describe God as the breath of life moving upon the face of the waters, alluding to the wind * which at the origin of the world, that is, at the departure of the spheres from the sign of the Crab, announced the overflowing of the Nile, and seemed to be tile preliminary of creation.” Se c t . VII. Seventh System: Worship of the So u l of the Wo r l p ; that is, the Element of Fire, the Vital Principle of the Universe. * « But a third sect of the theological philosophers, disgusted with the idea of a being at once effect and cause, agent and pa tient, and uniting in one and the same nature all contrary attri butes, distinguished the moving principle from the thing moved; and laying it down as a datura that matter was in itself inert, they * pretended that it received its properties from a distinct agent, of which it was only the envelope or case. Some made this agent the igneous principle, the acknowledged author of all motion ; others made it the fluid called ether, because it was thought to be more active and subtile: now’, as they denominated the vital and motive principle in animals, a soul, a spirit; and as they always reasoned by comparison, and particularly by comparison with human existence, they gave to the motive principle of the wrhole universe the name of soul, intelligence, spirit; and God was the vital spirit, which, diffused through all being, animated the vast body of the wrorld. This idea was represented sometimes by Jupiter or You-piter, essence of motion and animation, principle of existence, or rather existence itself f ; at other times by V ulcan, of Phtha, elementary principle of fire, or by the altar of Vesta, placed centrally in her temple, like the sun in the spheres ; and again by Kneph, a human being dressed in deep blue, holding in his hands a sceptre and a girdle (the Zodiac), wearing on his head a cap with feathers, to express the fugacity of thought, and producing from his mouth the great egg . * M As a consequence from this system, every being containing in itself a portion of the igneous or etherial fluid, the universal and common mover ; and that fluid, soul of the world, being the JDeity, it follow ed that the souls of all beings w7ere a part of God himself, partaking of all his attributes, that is, being an ittdivi* The Northern or F.lisian wind, which commences regularly at the solstice with the inundation. _ . h This is the true pronunciation of the Jupiter of the Latins. This is the sig nification of the word you. See note in follow ing NWher, commencing “ Sm h is the true pronunciation of the Jehovahei the lncguinis. ’ J See note , p. 8a. . �120 A SURVEY ÔF THÉ sible simple, and immortal substance: and hence is derived titr whole system of the immortality of the soul, which at first was eternity . Hence also its transmigrations known by the name metempsychosis, that is to say; passage ot the vital principle from one body to another; an idea which sprung from the real trans migration of the material elements. Such O Indians, Budsoists, Christians, Mussulmans, was the origin of all your ideas of the spintuallity of the soul ! Such was the source of the reveries of Fythag'oras and Plato, your institutorsj and who were them selves but the echoes of another, the last sect of visionary phi losophers that it is necessary to examinefi ■ In the system of the first spiritualists, the soul was not created with, or at the same tune as the body, in order to be inserted in it: its existence was supposed to be anterior and from ali eternity. Such, in a few words, is the doctrine of Macrobius on this head. Som. Scip. Passim. 1 here exists a luminous, igneous, subtle fluid, which, under the name of ether a , ,s.PlrltJls.’ ”, "lc universe. It is the essential principle and agent of motion and life; it is the Deity. Vi hen an earthly body is to be animated, a small round ^particle of this fluid gravitates through the miiky way towards the lunar sphere, where, w hen it arrives, it unites with a grosser air, and becomes fit to associate with matter: it then enters and entirely fills the body, animates it, suffers, grows, in creases, and diminishes with it: lastly, when the body dies, and its gross elements dissolve, this incorruptible particle takes its leave of it, and returns to the grand ocean of ether, if not retained by its union with the lunar air: it is this air or o-as, which, retaining- the shape of the body, becomes a phantom or ghost, the perfect Tepiesentation of the deceased. The Greeks called this phantom the image or idol of the soul; the Pythagoreans, its chariot, its frame; and the Rabbinical school, its vessel, or boat. When a man had conducted himself well in this world, his whole soul, that is, its chariot and ether, ascended to the moon, where a separation took place: the chariot lived in the lunar Elysium, and the ether returned to the fixed sphere, that is, to God ; for the fixed heaven, says Macrobius, was by many called by the uame of God, (c. 14.) If a man had not lived virtuously, the soul remained cm earth to undergo purification, and was to wander to and fro, like the ghosts of Homer, to which this doctrine must have been known, since he wrote after the time of Pherecydes and Pythagoras, who were its promulgators in Greece. Herodotus, upon tuis occasion, says, that the whole romance of the soul and its transmigra tions was invented by the Egyptians, and propogated in Greece by men, who pre tended to be its authors. 1 know their names, adds he, but shall not mention them, (ho 2.J Cicero, however,has positively informed us, that it wasPherecydes, master cf Pythagoras. Tescul. lib. I. sect. 16. Now admitting that this system was at that period a novelty, it accounts for Solomon’s treating it as a fable, who lived 130 years before Pherecydes. “ Who knoweth,” says he. “ the spirit of a man that it goeth upwards ? 1 said in my heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of man, befalleth beasts-; even one thing befalletltthem; as the one dieth so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath, so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast, for all is vanitv ” Eccles, c. i ii. V. 18. 3 And such had been the opinionofMoses, as a translator of Herodotus, (M. Archer,, of the Academy of Inscriptions,) justly observes in note 389 of the second book, where he says also, that the immortality of the soul was not introduced among tine Hebrews, till their intercourse with the Assyrians. In other respects, the whole Pythagorean system, properly analysed, appears to be merely a system of physics badly understood. + All the arguments of the spiritualists arc founded on this .See JJacrahiiw, at the end of the second book, and Plato with the comments of Sfareitfatt FMnyj. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 121 Eighth System: The World a Machine: Worship of the Demi-ourgos, or Supreme Artificer, Se c t . VIII. “ Hit h e r t o the theologians, in exercising their faculties on the detached and subtile substances of ether and the igneous prin ciple, had not however ceased to treat of existences palpable and perceptible to the senses, and their theology had continued to be the theory of physical powers, placed sometimes exclusively in the stars, and sometimes disseminated through the universe. But at the period at which we are arrived, some superficial minds, lasing the chain of ideas which had directed these profound enSuiries, or ignorant of the facts which served as their basis, renered abortive all the results that had been obtained from them, by the introduction of a strange and novel chimera. They pretended that the universe, the heavens, the stars, the sun, «. differed in no respect from an ordinary machine; and applying to this hypothesis a comparison drawn from the works of ait, they erected an edifice of the most whimsical sophisms, “ A machine,” said they, “ cannot form itself, there must be a work man to construct it; its very existence implies this:—The world is a machine : it has therefore an artificer.”* Hence the Demi-ourgos, or supreme artificer, the autocrator and sovereign of the universe. It was in vain that the ancient philosophy objected to the hypothesis, that this artificer did not stand in less need of parents and an author, and that a scheme, which added only one link to the chain, by taking the attribute of eternity from the world and giving it to the creator, was of little value. These innovators, not contented with a first paradox, added a second, and applying to their artificer the theory of hu man understanding-, pretended that the Demi-ourgos fashioned hjs machine upon an archetype or idea extant in his mind. In a word, just as their masters, the natural philosophers, had placed the Primum mobile in the sphere of the fixed stars, under the appellation of intelligence and reason, so their apes, the spiritual ists, adopting the same principle, made it an attribute of the Demi-ourgos, representing this being as a distinct substance, necessarily existing, to which they applied the term of Mens or Logos; in other words, understanding and speech. Separately from this being, they held the existence of a solar principle, or soul of the world, which, taken with the preceding, made three gradations of divine personages; first the Demi-ourgos or supreme artificer; secondly, the Logos, understanding or speech: and ' * See Nate j- at the bottom of the preceding page. R �122 A SURVEY OF THE thirdly, the spirit or soul of the world * And this, O Christians , is the fiction on which you have founded your doctrine of the Trinity; this is the system, which, born a Heretic in the Egyptian temples, transmitted a Heathen to the schools of Greece and Italy, is now Catholic or Orthodox by the conversion of its partisans, the disciples of Pythagoras and Plato, to Christianity. “ Thus the Deity, after having been originally considered as the sensible a'.d various action of meteors and the elements ; then as the combined power of the stars, considered in their relation to terrestrial, objects; then as those terrestrial objects themselves, in consequence of confounding symbols with the things they represented; then as the complex power of Na ture, in her two principal operations of production and de struction ; then as the animated world without distinction of agent and patient, cause and effect; then as the solar principle or element of fire acknowledged as the sole cause of motion — the Deity, I say, considered under all these different views, became at last a chimerical and abstract being; a scholastic subtlety of’ substance without form, of body without figure; a true delirium of the mind beyond the power of reason at all to comprehend. But in this its last transformation, it seeks in vain to conceal itself from the senses: the seal of its origin is indelibly stamped upon it. All its attributes, borrowed from the physical attributes of the universe, as immensity, eternity, indivisibility, incompre hensibleness ; or from the moral qualities of man, as goodness, justice, majesty; and its very names f, derived from the physical ♦ These are the real types of the Christian Trinity. In our last analysis we found all the names of the Deity to be derived from some material object in which it was supposed to reside. We have given a consi derable number of instances; let us add one more relative to our word God. This is known to be the Dens of the Latins, and the Theos of the Greeks. Now, by the confession of Plato, (in Cratylo,') of Macrobius (Saturn, lib. 1. c. 24.), and of Plu tarch (Isis and Osyris), its root is thein, which signifies to wander, like planein, that is to say, it is synonimous with planets; because all our authors, both the ancient Greeks and barbarians, particularly worshipped the planets. I know that such inquiries into etymologies have been much decried; but if, as is the case, words are the representative signs of ideas, the genealogy of the one becomes that of the other, and a good etymological dictionary would be the most perfect history Of the human understanding. It would only be necessary, in this inquiry, to observe certain precautions, which have hitherto been neglected, and particularly to make an exact comparison of the value of the letters of the different alphabets, but, t» continue our subject, we shall add, that in the Phoenician language, the word thah, (with ain) signifies also to wander, and appears to be the derivation of thein. If we suppose Deus to be derived from the Greek Zeus, a proper name of You-piter having sate, 1 live, for its root, its sense will be precisely that of you, and will mean soul of the world, igneous principle. See Note -f, p. 124. Div-us, which only signifies Ge nius, God of the second order, appears to me to come from the oriental word div substituted for dib, wolf and chacal, one of the emblems of the sun. At Thebes, says Macrobius, the sun was painted under the form of a wolf or chacal, for there �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 123 beings tvhich were its types, particularly the sun, the planets, and the world, present to us continually, in spite of those who would corrupt and disguise it, infallible marks of its genuine nature. “ Such is the chain of ideas through which the human mind had already run at a period anterior to the positive recitals of history; and since their systematic form proves them to have been the result of one scene of study and investigation, every thing inclines us to place the theatre of investigation, where its primi tive elements were generated, in Egypt. There their progress was rapid, because the idle curiosity of the theological philoso phers had, in the retirement of the temples, no other food than the enigma of the universe, which was ever present to their minds ; and because, in the political dissensions which long dis united that country, each state had its college of priests, who, being in turns auxiliaries or rivals, hastened by their disputes the progress of science and discovery . * are no wolves in Egypt. The reason of this emblem, doubtless is that the chacal, like the cock, announces by its cries the sun’s rising; and this reason is confirmed by the analogy of the words likos, wolf, and tyke, light of the morning, whence comes lux. Dius, which is to be understood also of the sun, must be derived from dih, a hawk. “ lhe Egyptians,” says Porphyry, (Euscb. Prcecep. Evang. p. 92.) “ represent the sun under the emblem of a hawk, because this bird soars to the highest regions of air where light abounds. And in reality we continually see at Cairo large flights of these birds, hovering in the air, from whence they descend not but to stun us with their shrieks, which are like the monosyllable dih: and here, as in the pre ceding example, we find an analogy between the words dies, day, light, and Dim, God, Sun. * One of the proofs that all these systems were invented in Egypt, is, that this is the only country where we see a complete body of doctrine formed from the remotest antiquity. Clements Alexandrinus has transmitted to us (Stromat. lib. 6.) a curious detail of the forty-two volumes which were borne in the procession of Isis. “ The priest,” says he, “ or chanter, carries one of the symbolic instruments of music, and two of the books of Mercury; one containing hymns of the Gods, the other the list of kings. Next to him the Horoscope (the regulator of time), carries a palm and a dial, symbols of astrology ; he must know by heart the four books of Mercury, which treat of astrology : the first on the order of the planets ; the second on the risings of the sun and moon, and the two last on the rising and aspect of the stars. Then comes the sacred author, with feathers on his head, (like Knepli) and a bookin his hand, together with ink, and a reed to write with (as is still the practice among the Arabs.) He must be versed in hieroglyphics, must understand the description of the universe, the course of the sun, moon, stars, aud planets ; be acquainted with the division of Egypt into 36 nowtei, with the course'of the Nile, with instruments, measures, sacred ornaments and sacred places. Next comes the stole bearer, who carries the cubit of justice, or measure of the Nile, and a cup for the libations; he bears also in the procession ten volumes on the subject of sacrifices, hymns, prayers offerings, ceremonies, festivals. Lastly arrives the prophet, bearing in his bosom a «pitcher, so as to be exposed to view: he is followed bv persons carrying bread (as at the marriage of Cana). This prophet, as president of the mysteries, learns ten other sac red volumes, which treat of the laws, the Gods, and the discipline of the priests. Now there are in all forty-two volumes, thirty-six of which are studied, and got by �124 ' A SURVEY OF THE “ On the borders of the Nile there happened at that distant period, what has since been repeated all over the globe. In pro portion as each system was formed, it excited by its novelty quar rels and schisms: then gaining credit even by persecution, it either destroyed anterior ideas, or incorporated itself with and modified them. But political institutions taking place, all opinions, by the aggregation of statesand mixture of different people, were at length confounded; and the chain of ideas being lost, theo logy, plunged in a chaos, became a mere logogryph of old tradi tions no longer understood. Religion, losing its object, was now nothing more than a political expedient by which to rule the cre dulous vulgar; and was embraced either by men credulous themselves and the dupes of their own visions, or by bold and energetic spirits, who formed vast projects of ambition.” Se c t . IX. Religion of Mose.% or Worship of the Soul of the World (You-piter). “ Of this latter description was the Hebrew legislator, who, desirous of separating his nation from every other, and of forming a distinct and exclusive empire, conceived the design of taking for its basis religious prejudices, and of erecting’ round it a sacred rampart of rites and opinions. But in vain did he proscribe the worship of symbols, the reigning religion at that time in Lower Egypt and Phenecia : his God was not on that account the less * an Egyptian God, of the invention of those priests whose disciple Moses had been, and Yahouh'Y, detected by his very name, which heart by these personages, and the remaining six are set apart to be consulted by the pastophores: they treat of medicine, the construction of the human body (anatomy), diseases, remedies, instruments, &c.” « We leave the reader to deduce all the consequences of such an Encyclopedia, It is ascribed to Mercury; but Jamblicus tells us that each book, composed by priests, was dedicated to that God, who, on account of, his title of Genius, orfcoin opening the Zodiac, presided over every enterprise. He is the Janus of the Romans and the Guiunesa of the Indians, and it is remarkable that 1 anus and Guianes are homonymous. In short, it appears that these books are the source of all that has been transmitted to us by the Greeks and Latins in every science, even in alcbymy, necromancy, &c. What is most to be regretted in their loss, is that pait which related to the principles of medicine and diet, in which the Egyptians appear to have made a considerable progress, and to have delivered many useful observations. * “ At a certain period,” says Plutarch (rZe Iside), “ all the Egyptians have their animal Gods painted. The Thebans are the only people who do not employ pain ters, because they worship a God whose form comes not under the senses, and can not be represented.” And this is the God whom Moses, educated at Heliopolis, adopted; but the idea was not of his invention. . • * y Such is the true pronunciation of the Jehovah of the moderns, who violate in this respect every rule of criticism; since it is evident, that the ancients, particu larly the Eastern Syrians and Phenecians were acquainted neither with the Je nor �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 125 means essence of beings, and by his symbol, the fiery bush, is i * th signification tobe.the one of the dialects of the common language of Lo-U, Yahouh is the ’participle of existing; inotberwords,thepnnciple of l‘^the^fclth°e Greeks an(1 ¿atinS! (.xpiaia T-lbeX)- ^EevntifnJ” says Diodorus, after Manatho, priest of Mem- !Sui:0§f^ the vital principle m animals; and tor this reason tneycul* , f en the generator of beings.” For the same reason Homer says, Father, and king oimen “! <&£££ liVh“ «¿»s - .0 wd« Y.b-pita; as th. sol. bf ” Hence the woX of Virgil: “Muses, let us begin with You-piter; the world is full nf Von niter-” /'’Sown. Sc':p. ch. 17 J And in the Saturnalia he says, Jupitei toe sun himself ” It was this also which made Virgil say: “ The spirit nourishes; to e life (of beings), and the soul diffused through the vast members kof the umveise,, ao-itates the whole mass, and forms but one immense body. _ . . Ioupiter ” says the ancient verses of the Orphic sect, which originated in Egvp, „r,e°“oikct.a by Onom.crit.s i. the toys of Piei.tr.tus, 1 loupurr » repr.su.kd IS?ihonder in hisb.ud, is the beginning, origin, «1. “d™’ddU “f ‘^'t“ 'te bod) . U eydare if sun and moon; he is space and eternity; in fine the world the universe, that which constitutes the essence and lite of all ba . Now ” continues the same author, “ as philosophers differed 111 opinion respectng toe nature and constituent parts of this God, and as ^ey could imreiff no figure that should representall his attributes, they painted him in the .j .uj of mat., t asiting posture, in allusion to his immutabe essence: the upper pan of bis body is uncovered, because it is in the upper regions of the umvere (the stars), tort he most conspicuously displays himself He is covered from the waist to, k because respecting tereestrial things, he is more secret and concealed. He holds a «eeptrTiiihis left hand, because on the left side is the heart, and the heart, is toe Ut of the understanding, which (in human beings) regulates every action. Eu- and Strabo, amoves An-iM as to the identity of the ideas of Moses, and those of t.ic heathen tneolo .^ns. . . “ Moses, who was one of the Egyptian priests, taught his an e°-gregious error to represent the Deity under the rorm of animals, as toe E p £ns did or in the shape of man, as was the practice of the Greeks and Ate cans. That alone, is the Deity, said he, which constitutes heaven, earth, and cveiy Lying thing- that which we call the world the sum. of all things, nature; and no abIeSperson will think of representing such a being by the image of any one o. tie 5 ects around us. It is for this reason, that, rejecting every species of images ar ?dols Moses wished the Deity to be worshipped without emblems and according to Xis proper nature; and he accordingly ordered a temple worthy of him to be erected, 6 The toSJvftcf Mores LVthmi^diffemHn no re that is to saygfrom the Stoics and Epicureans, who consider toe Deity <.s the .out * of Xe world5 This philosophy appears to have taken birth, or to have been oisSXS wh.u Ab^han, ?am. into Egypt. (MO.y.ar. bfto M.,«, -j. he quitted his system of idols for that of tee God Fa.toito; so that we may pia.e its . �126 A SURVEY OF THE nothing more than the soul of the wnrM , which Greece shortly after adontod 1’ PnnciP]e °f motion, in her You-piter, generative nrinei Sa”?e denomination existence* • which the Tbok Principle, and under that of Fi which Sails uXr °th tbe ”ame <>f A / * this inscription, / JK X/L ? embl«m of Isis veiledf and no mortal is.’ ^d all that honoured under the appellation of ^¿7 which Pythagoras philosophy defined witXrerissmn , an(? which the Stoic &e. ik vain did Moses to bloyfr“1^ * PrinciPJe < * could bring to remembrance the wnrfl/”1 X [eh£,on whatever Phcity of traits in spite of hl ixeX^iH it out: the seven lamps of the orcat re.™flned to point stones or signs of the fel oftlmhXk^1 ibe twelve two equinoxes, each of whiclatth'f P^’?6 feast of the the ceremony of the laml7orcelelia^X:« degree; lastly the name of Osiris f>ve>n « ’ ben,a! lts fifteenth and the ark or coffer an Pres®rYed m his seng+, was inclosed; all these remain tn h u *” wbicil that God his ideas, and their derivatio^f^ Se c t . X. Religion of Zoroaster. step™whoWfive ceutuJL after'm X"'6 T® b?Id a”d energetic ;>vived and moralized ;XngThe Da’id> L?ypuan System of Osiris, ’under the ““ T'hole Anrimanes. He called thl c mes of Ormuzd and the reign of winter, sin and evil’ the ’rOTSon^f’1"1. g°°d ! of ihe’con^inetion^resurrection *” rr® ]n secular periods ™ the Tartarus and Elysi^o^ w , 7 ^ncient astrologers and and 40?« kX before Christ; which cor says, 34 counhy was full of foreigners, and that Moses num °f ^arth> wben t5»e ^í.™"ra^ l¡,is «ppom.nUy of «,w¡£¿ i f A •It. W1 seem Paradoxical to assert that 600 (inn „ 7 the rnoun,a">s of ducted thither ought to he reduced to 6 000 but1 eT 7^ 7™ who,n W conmen whom he many proofs drawn fro.m the books themselves X it wi?I a "* aSSCrtion b-v 80 -- .... .,j errorThis wasPthe nXsyulbi’ v^iS^on th"1^?1 11 Wli* ‘libéis, to correct an ■ which appears to have arican »6 ? necessary ■y * tarch hrs made it the subject of a dissertaíon.g °f DclPho) Plu. >s. works of Tsourare perke^^o^T^^h^00^ °f Deuterononiy> ch. 32. “The its proper signkXn isU Osiris in Plutarch. 8 jormst and this is one of the definitions of �' REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 127 geographers; in a word, he only consecrated the already-existmg reveries of the mystic system.’^ Se c t . XI. Budoism, or religion of the Samaneans. « In the same rank must be included the promulgators of the sepulchral doctrine of the Samaneans; who, on the basis of the metempsychosis, raised the misanthrophic system of self-renauciation and denial; who, laying it down as a principle, that the body is only a prison where the soul lives in impure confinement; that life is but a dream, an illusion, and the world a place of pas sage to another country, to a life without end; placed virtue ami perfection in absolute insensibility, in the abnegation of physical organs, in the annihilation of all being; whence resulted tae^fa&is, penances, macerations, solitude, contemplations, and all the ueplorable practices of the mad-headed Anchorets.''’ Se c t . XII. Braminism, or the Indian System. « Fin a l l y , of the same cast were the founders of the Indian system; who, refining after Zoroaster upon the two principles of creation and destruction, introduced an intermediate one, that of conservation, and upon their trinity in unity, of Brama, Chivcn, and Bichenou, accumulated a multitude of traditional allego ries, and the alembicated subtleties of their metaphysics. 4- These are the materials, which, scattered through Asia, existed there for many ages, when, by a fortuitous course of events and circumstances, new combinations of them were introduced on the banks of the Euphrates and on the shores of the Mediterranean. ’ Christianity, or the Allegorical Worship of tire Sun, under the Cabalistical Names 0/’Ch r is e s or Ch r is t , and Yesus ar Je s u s . Se c t . XIII. « In constituting a separate people, Moses had vainly imagined that he should guard them from the influence of every foreign idea: but an invincible inclination, founded on affinity of origin, continually called back the Hebrews to the worship of the neigh bouring nations; and the relations of commerce that necessarily subsisted between them, tended every day to strengthen the pro pensity. While the Mosaic institution maintained its ground, the coercion of the government and the laws was a considerable ob stacle to the inlet of innovations; yet even then the principal places were full of idols, and God the sun had his chariot and horses painted in the palaces sof k’mgs, and in the very temple �128 A SURVEY OF THE Ya'ioiih : but when the conquest of the kings of Nineveh and + f/ OU I* 1* dissolved the bands of public power, the people left ' to themselves, and solicited by their conquerors,’no longer kept a restranit ou th ir inc]iuatioHS> and profa^e opinions werf openFy StnX 7 u ° m AS firSVhe Assyriaa colonies, placed in the the d D °f °i( t”bes> fil!ed tbe kingdom of Samaria with he dogmas of the Magi, which soon penetrated into Judea. Ahcrwaids Jerusalem having been subjugated, the Eoyptians Syrians and Arabs, entering this open country, introduced their tenets, and the religion of Moses thus underwent a second alreiation. In like manner, the priests and great men, removing to jabylon, and educated in the science of the Chaldeans, imbibed, a re?idenee seventy years, every principle of their Weology, and from that moment the dogmas of the evil Genius G>atm), of the archangel Michael of the Ancient of Days (Or, * inudz), of the rebellious angels, the celestial combats, the immor a ltj of the soul, and the resurrection ; dogmas unknown to 1 oses, oi 1 ejected by him, since he observes a perfect silence respectmo- them, became naturalized among the Jews. . , ibeir return to their country, the emigrants brought back with taem these ideas: and at first the innovations occasioned disputes between their partisans, the Pharisees, and the adherents to the ancient national worship, the Sadducees: but the former, seconded by the inclination of the people, and the habits they had aiready contracted, and supported by the authority of the Persians, their deliverers, finally gained the ascendancy, and the theology of Zoroaster was consecrated by the children of Moses f. A fortuitous analogy between two leading ideas, proved par ticularly favorable to this coalition and formed the basis of a last system, not less surprising in its fortune than in the causes of its formation. dle thnethat the Assyrians had destroyed the kingdom of Samaria, some sagacious spirits foresaw, announced, arid pre'icte the same fate to Jerusalem: and all their predictions were ' K). n Ve names °f the aiJgels and of the months, such as Gabriel, Michael, Yar, C.UU‘VroiU PabRlon Wlth the JewfY says expressly the Talmud of Jciusalem. See Beausob. Hut. du Munich. Vol. II. p. 624. where he proves that tire saints of the Almanac are in imitation of the 365 angels of the Persians, and .amoiicus in his Egyg’tian Mysteries, sect. 2. c. 3. speaks of angels, archangels, seraphims, kc. like a true Christian. t “ The whole philosophy of the gymnosophists,” says Diogenes Laertius on the ^7 °Tan an7ellt wylter’ “ is derived from that of the Magi, and many assert a 0 ne-e'’s to have the same origin.” laZ>. 1. c. 9. Majasthenes, an historian of repute is the days of Seleucus Nicanor, and who wrote particularly upon India, ™ Phdosophy of the ancients respecting natural things, puts the Brachthe Jews precisely on the same footing . * �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 12£t stamped by this particularity, that they always concluded with prayers for a happy re-establishment and regeneration, which were in like manner spoken of in the way of prophecies. The enthu siasm of the Hierophants had figured a royal deliverer, who was to re-establish the nation in its ancient glory: the Hebrews were again to become a powerful and conquering people, and Jerusalem the capital ®f an empire that was to extend over the whole world. “ Events having realized the first part of those predictions, the ruin of Jerusalem, the people clung to the second with a firmness of belief proportioned to their misfortunes; and the afflicted Jews waited with the impatience of want and of desire for that victorious king and deliverer that was to come, in order to save the nation of Moses, and restore the throne of David. “ The sacred and mythological traditions of preceding times bad spread over all Asia a tenet perfectly analagous. A great mediator, a final judge, a future saviour was spoken of, who, as king, God, and victorious legislator, was to restore the golden age upon earth to deliver the world from evil, and regain for , * mankind the reign of good, the kingdom of peace and happiness. These ideas and expressions were in every mouth, and they con soled the people under that deplorable state of real suffering into which they had been plunged by successive conquests and conquei ors, and the barbarous despotism of their g’overnments.__ This resemblance between the oracles of different nations and the predictions of the prophets, excited the attention of the Jews; and the prophets had doubtless been careful to infuse into their pictures, the spirit and style of the sacred books employed in the Pagan mysteries. The arrival of a great ambassador, of a final saviour, was therefore the general expectation in Judea, when at length a singular circumstance was made to determine the precise period of his coming. r was lecoided in the sacred books of the Persians and the Chaldeans, that the world, composed of a total revolution of twelve thousand periods, was divided into two partial revolu tions, of which one, the age and reign of good was to terminate at the expiration of six thousand, and the other, the age and reign of evil, at the expiration of another six thousand. heir fiist authors had meant by these recitals, the annual revolution of the great celestial orb (a revolution composed of twelve months or signs, each divided into a thousand parts), and the<wo systematic periods of winter and summer, each consistin»' *.ThjS ,is thefeas°n °f the application of the-m&ny Pagan oracles to Jesus, and particularly the fourth eclogue of Virgil, and the Sybilline verses so celebrated a montne ancients. ® s �ISO A SURVEY OF THE equally of six thousand. But these equivocal expressions' having? been erroneously explained, and having- received an absolute and moral, instead of their astrological and physical sense, the re sult was, that the annual was taken for a secular’ world, the thou sand periods for a thousand years ; and judging, from the ap pearance of things, that the present was the age of misfortune, they inferred that it would terminate at the the expiration of the six thousand pretended years. * * We have already seen, (p. 81, note *), this tradition current among the Tuscans, it was disseminated through most nations, and shews us what we ought to think of all the pretended creations and terminations of the world, which are merely thè beginnings and ending^ of astronomical periods invented by astrologers. That of the year or solar revolution being the most simple and perceptible, served as a model to the rest, and its comparison gave rise to the most whimsical ideas. Of this description is the idea of the four ages of the world among the Indians. Origi nally these four ages were merely the four seasons ; and as each season was under the supposedinfluence of a planet, it bore the name of the metal appiopiiated to that planet : thus spring was the age of the sun, or of gold: summer the age of the moon, or of silver; autumn the age of Venus, or of brass; and winter the age of Mars, or of iron. Afterwards, when astronomers invented the great year of 25 and 36 thousand common years, which had for its object the bringing back all the stars to one point of departure and a general conjunction, the ambiguity of the terras introduced a similar ambiguity of ideas ; and the myriads of celestial signs and periods of duration which were thus measured, were easily converted into so many revolutions of the sun. Thus the different periods of creation which have been so great a source of difficulty and misapprehension to curious inquirers, were in reality nothin«- more than hypothetical calculations of astronomical periods In the same maniier the creation of the world has been attributed to different seasons of the year, just as these different seasons have served for the fictitious period of these conjunctions : and of consequence has been adopted by different nations for tite commencement of an ordinary year. Among the Egyptians this period fell upon the summer solstice, which was the commencement of their year ; and the depar ture of the spheres, according to their conjectures, fell, in like manner, upon the period when the sun enters Cancer. Among the Persians the year commenced, at first in the spring, or when the sun enters Aries; and from thence the first Christ ians were led to suppose that God created the world in the spring: this opinion is also favoured by the book of Genesis ; and it is further remarkable, that the world is not there said to be created by the God of Moses (Yahouli), but by the Elohiva or gods in the plural, that is, by the angels or genii, for so the word constantly means in the Hebrew books. If we farther observe that the root of the word Elohim signifies strong or powerful, and that the Egyptians called their decaws strong and powerful leaders, attributing to them the creation of the world, we shall presently perceive that the book of Genesis affirms neither more nor less than that the world was created by the decans, by those very genii whom, according to Sanchonlathon, Mercury existed against Saturn, and who were called Elohim. It may be further asked, why the plural substantive Elohim is made to agree with the singular verb bara (the Elohim creates)? The reason is, that after the Babylonish captivity the unity of the Supreme Being was the prevailing opinion of th® Jews; it was there fore thought proper to introduce a pious solecism in language, which it is evident had no existence before Moses : thus in the names of the children of Jacob many them are compounded of a plural verb to which Elohim is the nominative case un derstood, as (Reuben), they have looked upon me, and Sawmomu (Simeon), they have granted me my prayer, to wit, the Elohim. The reason of this etymology is to be found in the religious creeds af the wives of Jacob, whose gods were the /crrapJttni of Laban, that is, the angels of the Persians and the Egyptian decans. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 131 <« No t t , according to the Jewish computation, six thousand years had already nearly elapsed since the supposed creation of the world This coincidence produced considerable fermentation . * in the minds of the people. Nothing was thought of but the ap proaching termination. The Hierophants were interrogated, and their sacred books examined. The great Mediator and final Judge \ was expected, and his advent desired, that an end might be put to so many calamities. This was so much the subject of conversation, that some one was said to have seen him, and a rumour of this kind was all that was wanting to establish a general certainty. The popular report became a demonstrated fact; the imaginary being was realized ; and all the circumstances of mythological tradition being in some manner connected with this phantom, the -result was an authentic and regular history, which from hence forth it was blasphemy to doubt. « In this mythological history the following traditions were recorded : “ That, in the beginning, a man and a woman had, by their fall brought sin and evil into the world'’ (Examine plate II.) “ By this was denoted the astronomical fact of the celestial Vir gin, and the herdsman (Bootes) who, setting heliacally at the au tumnal equinox, resigned the heavens to the wintry constellations, and seemed, in sinking below the horizon, to introduce into the world the genius of evil, Ahrimanes, represented by the constel lation of the serpentf. That the woman had decoyed and seduced the rrtanf. And in reallity, the Virgin setting first, appears to draw the Herdsman (Bootes) after her. That the woman had tempted him, by offering him fruit plea sant to the sight and good for food, which gave the knw ledge of good and evil” * According to the computation of the Seventy, the period elapsed consisted of about 5,600 years, and this computation was principally followed. It is well known how much, in the first ages of the church, this opinion of the end of the world agitated the minds of men. In the sequel, the general councils, encouraged by finding that the general conflagration did not come, pronounced the expectation that prevailed heretical, and its believers were called Millenarians ; a circumstance curious enough, since .it is evident from the history of the Gospels that Jesus Christ was a Mil leñ arían, and of consequence a heretic. f The Persians,” says Chardin, “call the constellation of the serpent Ophiucus, serpent of Eve; and this serpent Ophiucus or Ophionev.s plays a similar part in the theology of the Pheuicians for Pherecydes, their disciple, and the master of Py thagoras, said “that Ophioneus serpentinus had been chief of the rebels against Jupiter.” See Mars, Ficin. Apol. Socratj.p. m. 797. cel. 2. I shall add, that aiphah (with ain) signifies in Hebrew serpent. J In a physical sense to seduce, sednccre, means only to attract, to draw after us, �132 A SURVEY OF THE “ Manifestly alluding to the Virgin, who is depicted holding a bunch of fruit in her hand, which she appears to extend to wards the Herdsman ; in like manner the branch, emblem of au tumn, placed in the picture of Mithra on the front of winter and * summer, seems to open the door, and to give the knowledge, the key, of good and evil. “ That this couple had been driven from the celestial garden, and that a cherub with a flaming sword had been placed at the door to guard it.” “And when the Virgin and the Herdsman sink below the W es tern horizon, Perseus rises on the opposite sidef, and sword in hand, this Genius may be said to drive them from the summer heaven, the garden and reign of fruits and flowers. “ That from this virgin would be born, would spring up a shoot, a child, that should crush the serpent’s head, and deliver the worldfrom sin.” “ By this was denoted the Sun, which at the period of the summer solstice, at the precise moment that the Persian Magi drew the horoscope of the new year, found itself in the bosom of the Virgin, and which, on this account, was represented in their astrological pictures, in the form of an infant suckled by a chaste virgin^, and afterwards became, at the vernal equinox the Ram * See this picture in Hyde, page 111, edition of 1760. •f Rather the head of Medusa; that head of a woman, once so beautiful, which Perseus cut off, and which he holds in his hand, is only that of the virgin, whose head sinks below the horizon at the very moment that Perseus rises; and the ser pents which surround it are Ophiucus and the Polar Dragon, who then occupy the Zenith. This shews us in what manner the ancients composed all their figures and fables. They took such constellations as they found at the same time on the circle of the horizon, and collecting the different parts, they formed groupes which served them as an almanack in hieroglyphic characters. Such is the secret of all their pic tures, and the solution of all their mythological monsters. The Virgin is also Andromeda, delivered by Perseus from the whale that pursues her (prosequitor.) f Such was the picture of the Persian sphere, cited by Aben Ezra in the Cesium, Foeticum of Blacu, p. 71. “ The picture of the first decan of the Virgin,” says that writer, u represents a beautiful virgin with flowing hair, sitting in a chair, with two ears of corn in her hand, and suckling an infant, called Jesus by some nations, and Christ in Greek.”—In the library of the King of France is a manuscript in Arabic, marked 1165, in which is a picture of the 12 signs; and that of the Virgin repre sents a young woman with an infant by her side: the whole scene, indeed, of the birth of Jesus, is to be found in the adjacent part of the heavens. The stable is the constellation of the charioteer and the goat, formerly Capricorn ; a constellation called prasepe Jovis Henioehi, stable of lou ; and the word lou is found in the name of louseph (Joseph). At no great distance is the ass of Typhon (the great she-bear) and the ox or bull, the ancient attendants of the manger. Peter the por ter, is Janus with his keys and bald forehead; the twelve apostles are the genii of of the twelvemonths, &c. This Virgin has acted very different parts in the various systems of mythology; she has been the Isis of the Egyptians, who said of her in ©ne of their inscriptions cited by Julian, thefruit I have brought forth is the sun. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 133 or Lamb, conqueror of the constellation of the Serpent, which dis appeared from the heavens. That in his infancy, this restorer of the divine or celestial nature, would lead a mean, humble, obscure, and indigent life’* “ By which was meant, that the winter sun was humbled, depres- • sed below the horizon, and that this first period of his four a«-es or the seasons, was a period of obscurity and indigence, of ^st ing and privation. . That being put to death by the wicked, he would gloriously rise again, ascend from hell into heaven, where he would reian jo t ever. J “ By these expressions was described the life of the same Sun, Wj career at the winter solstice, when Typhon and_ the rebellious angels exercised their sway, seemed to be put to death by them; but shortly after revived and rose again in * the firmament, where he still remains. These traditions went still farther, specifying his astrological and mysterious names, maintaining that he was called sometimes Chris, or Conservatorf; and hence the Hindoo God, Chris-en, 5rai« dr?WU b/ Platarch aPP7 t0 in the same manner as those of Osins apply to Bootes: also the seven principal stars of the she-bear called Dayiu s chariot, were called the chariot of Osiris (See Kirher,') and the crown that is situated behind, formed of ivy, was Called Chen Osiris, the tree of Osiris The Virgin has likewise been Ceres, whose mysteries were the same with those of Iris and M thra: she has been the Diana of tlie Ephesians; the great Goddess of Syria, Cy bele, drawn by lions; Minerva, the mother of Bacchus; Astrea, a chaste virrin taken up into heaven at the end of the golden age; Thems, at whose feet is the balance Sw JT'”1! hCr ha“ds’Kthe W of Virgil, who descends into hell, or sinks below the hemisphere with a branch in her hand, &c. ’ * Resurgere to rise a second time, cannot signify to return to life, but in a meta, phoncal sense; but we see continually mistakes of this kind result from the am biguous meaning of the words made use of in ancient tradition, nJ 3^ GTks TJ t0 eXTpreTX’ Or SPanish iota’ the aspirated ha of the Onenta.s, who saidI hans. In Hebrew heres signifies the sun, but in Arabic the meaning of the radical word is, to guard, to preserve, and ofguardian, pre server Hj s the proper epithet of Vichenou, which demonstrates at once the iden tity ot the Indian and Christian Trinities, and their common origin. It is manifestly but one system, which, divided into two branches, one extending to the east and thother to the west, assumed two different forms : its principal trunk is the Pythago rean system of the soul of the world, or Ioupitcr. The epithet pifer, o/fathes', having been applied to the demi-ourgos of Plato, gave rise to an ambiguity which caused an inquiry to be made respecting the son of this father. In the opinion of the taJpherrJh,e S0U u}1(ierstandin^’ ^ns and Logos, from which the Latins And huS Perceive the origin of the eternal father and of the Verbum his son, proceeding from him (Mens ex Deg nata, says MacrohC ““7 ^»y^™^iwas the Holy Ghost; and it is for this reason that Manes, Basiledes, Valentimus, and other pretended heretics of the first a^cs who traced things to their source, said that God the Father was the supreme innaccessible light (that of the heaven, the primum mobile, orthe aplanes); the Son, the secondary light resident in the sun; and the Holy Ghost the atmosphei- of the earth �134 A SURVEY OF THE or Christna and the Christian Chris-tos, the Son of Mary. That , * at other times he was called Yes, by the union of three letters, which, according to their numerical value, form the number 608, one of the solar periods. And behold, O Europeans, the name which, with a Latin termination has become your Yes-us or Jesus ; the ancient and cabilistical name given to young- Bacchus, the clandestine son of the virgin Minerva, who in the whole history of his life, and even in his death, calls to mind the history of the God of the Christians: that this is, the star of day, of which they are both of them emblems.” At these words a violent murmur arose on the part of the Chris tian groupes; but the Mahometans, the Lamas, and the Hindoos, having called them to order, the orator thus concluded his dis course. “ You are not to be told,” said he, u in what manner the rest of this system was formed in the chaos qnd anarchy Of the three first centuries: how a multiplicity of opinions divided the peo ple, all of which were embraced with equal zeal, and retained with equal obstinacy, because alike founded on ancient tradi tion, they were alike sacred. You know how, at the end of three centuries, government having espoused one of these sects, made it the orthodox religion; that is to say, the predominated religion, to the exclusion of the rest, which, on account of their inferiority, were denominated heresies ; how, and by what means of violence and seduction this religion was propagated and gained strength, and afterwards became divided and weakened; how, six centu ries after the innovation of Christianity, another system was formed out of its materials and those of the Jews, and a political and the ological empire was created by Mahomet at the expence of that of Moses and the vicars of Jesus. « Now if you take a retrospect of the whole history of the spirit of religion, you.will find, that in its origin it had no other author than the sensations and wants of man: that the idea of God had no other type, no other model, than that of physical powers, material (See Beausob. Vol. II. p. 586); hence, among the Syrians, the representation of the Holy Ghost by awlove, the bird of Venus Urania, that is, of the air. The Syrians, (says Nigidius de Germanieo), assert that a dove sat for a certain number of days on the fcgg of a fish, and that from this incubation Venus was born; Sextus Empiricus also observes (/nrf. Fyrrh. lib. 3. c. 23.) that the Syrians abstain from eating doves; ■which intimates to us a period commencing in the sign Pisces, in the winter solstice. We may farther observe, that if Chris comes from Harisch by a chin it will signify artificer, an epithet belonging to the sun. These variations which must have em barrassed the ancients, prove it to be the real type of Jesus, as nad been already remarked in the time of Tertullian. “ Many,” says this writer, “ suppose with .greater probability that the sun is our God, and they refer us to the religion of the Persians.” Apologet. c. 16. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 135 existences, operating good or evil, by impressions of pleasure or pain on sensible beings. You will find that in the formation of every system, this spirit of religion pursued the same track, and was uniform in its proceedings; that in all, the dogma never failed to represent, under the name of God, the operations of na ture, and the passions and prejudices of men; that in all, morality had for its sole end, desire of happiness and aversion to pain; but that the people and the majority of legislators, ignorant of the true road that led thereto, invented false, and therefore contrary ideas of virtue and vice, of good and evil; that is, of what renders man happy or miserable. You will find, that in all, the means and causes of propagation and establishment exhibited the same scenes, the same passions, and the same events, continual disputes about words, false pretexts for inordinate zeal, for revolutions, for wars, lighted up by the ambition of chiefs, by the chicanery of promulgators, by the credulity of proselytes, by the ignorance of the vulgar, and by the grasping cupidity and the intolerant pride' of all. In short, you will find that the whole history of the spirit of religion is, merely that of the fallibility and uncertainty of the human mind, which, placed in a world that it does not comprehend, is yet desirous of solving the enigma; and which, the astonished spectator of this mysterious and visible prodigy, invents causes, supposes ends, builds systems; then finding one defective, abandons it for another not less vicious; hates the error that it has renounced, is ignorant of the new one that it adopts; rejects the truth of which it is in pursuit, invents chimeras of he terogeneous and contradictory beings, and; ever dreaming of * wisdom and happiness, loses itself in a labyrinth of torments and illusions.” CHAP. XXIII. En d o f Al l Re l ig io n s t h e Sa m e . THUS spoke the orator, in the name of those who had made the origin and genealogy of religious ideas their peculiar study. The theologians of the different systems now expressed their opinions of this discourse. “ It is an impious representation,^ said some, “ which aims at nothing, less than the subversion of all belief, the introducing insubordination into the minds of men, and annihilating our power and ministry.’’—“ It is a romance,” said others,“ a tissue of conjectures, fabricated with art, but de stitute of foundation.”—The moderate and prudent said, “ Sup posing all this to be true, where is the use of revealing these mysteries I Our opinions are doubtless pervaded with errors, �136 A SURVEY OF THE but those errors are a necessary curb on the multitude The * world hag gone on thus for two thousand years: why should we now alter its course?0 J The murmur of disapprobation, which never fails to rise against every kind of innovation, already began to increase, when a numerous groupe of plebians and untaught men of every country and nation, without prophets, without doctors, without religious worship, advancing in the sand, attracted the attention of the whole assembly: and one of them, addressing himself to the le gislators, spoke as follows; , “ Mediators and umpires of nations ! The strange recitals that have been made during the whole of the present debate, we never till this day heard of; and our understanding, astonished and bewildered at such a multitude of doctrines, some of them learned, others absurd, and all unintelligible, remains in doubt and uncer tainty. One reflection however has struck us: in reviewing so many prodigious facts, so many contradictory assertions, we could not avoid asking ourselves, Of what importance to us are all these discussions ? Where is the necessity of our know ing what happened five or six thousand years ago, in countries of which we are ignorant, among men who will ever be unknown to us ? True or false, of what importance is it to us to know whether the world has existed six thousand years or twenty thousand; whether it was made of something' or of nothing; of itself, or by an artificer, equally in his turn requiring an author? W hat! uncertain as we are of what is passing around us, shall we pretend to ascertain what is transacting in the sun, the moon, and imaginary spaces ? Having forgotten our own infancy, shall we pretend to know the infancy of the world? Who can attest what be has never seen ? Who can certify the truth of what no one comprehends ? “ Beside, what will it avail as to our existence, whether we believe or reject these chimeras ? Hitherto neither our fathers nor ourselves have had any idea of them, and yet we do not perceive that on that account we have experienced more or less sun, more or less subsistence, more or less good or evil. “ If the knowledge of these things be necessary, how is it that we have lived as happily without it as those whom it has so much disquieted? If it be superfluous, why should we now take upon ourselves the burthen ?”•—Then addressing himself to the doctors and theologians: “ How can it be required of us, poor and ignorant as we are, whose every moment is scarcely adequate to the cares of our subsistence and the labours of which you reap the profit ; how can it be required of us to be versed, in the numerous histories you have related, to read the variety of �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 137 Looks which you have quoted, and to learn the different languages in which they are written ? If our lives were protracted to a thousand years, scarcely would it be sufficient for this purpose.” “ It is not necessary,” said the doctors, “ that you should Acquire all this science : we possess it in your stead.” “ Meanwhile,” replied these children of simplicity., “ with all '•« your science, do you agree among yourselves? What then is its utility? Besides, how can you answer for us? If the faith of one man may be the substitute of the faith of many, what need was there that you should believe? Your fathers might believe for you ; and that would have been the more reasonable, since they were the eye-witnesses upon whose credit you depend. Lastly, what is this circumstance which you call belief, if it has no practical tendency ? And what practical tendency can you discover in this question, whether the world be eternal or no?” “ To believe Wrong respecting it would be offensive to God,” said the doctors. “ How do you know that ?” cried the children of simplicity. Ci From our scriptures ” replied the doctors. « We do not understand them,” rejoined the simple men. « We understand them for you,” said the doctors. “ There lies the difficulty,” resumed the simple men. “ By what right have you appointed yourselves mediators betweeu God and us ?” “ By the command of God,” said the doctors. “ Give us the proof of that command,” said the simple men. « It is in our scriptures,” said the doctors. “ We do not understand them,” answered the simple men; u nor can we understand how a just God can place you over our heads. Why does our common Father require us to believe the same propositions with a less degree of evidence ? lie has spoken to you; be it so; he is infallible, he cannot deceive you. But we are spoken to by you ; and who w ill assure us that you are not deceived, or that you are incapable of deceiving? If we are mis taken, how can It consist with the'justice of God, to condemn us for the neglect of a rule with which We w ere never acquainted ?” “ He has given you the law of nature,” said the doctors. “ What is the law of nature?” said the simple men. “ If this law be sufficient, why does he give us another ? If it be insuffi cient, why did he give us that ?” “ The judgements of God,” replied the doctors, “ are mysteri ous; his justice is not restrained by the rules of human justice.” Ct If justice with him and with us,” said the simple men, “ mean a different thing, what criterion can we have to judge' of his justice ? And once more, to what purpose all these laws? he propose by them ?” What end does �138 A SURVEY OF THE <c To render you more happy,” replied a doctor, “ by render * hig you better and more virtuous. God has manifested himself by so many oracles and prodigies to teach mankind the proper use of his benefits, and to dissuade them from injuring each other.” ' “ If that be the case,” said the simple men, “ the studies and reasonings you told us of are unnecessary: we want nothing but to have it clearly made out to us, which is the religion that best fulfils the end that all propose to themselves.” Instantly, every groupe boastingof the superior excellence of its morality, there arose among the partisans of the different systems of worship, a new dispute more violent than any preceding one. “Ours,” said the Mahometans, “is the purest morality,which teaches every virtue useful to men and acceptable to God. We profess justice, disinterestedness, resignation, charity, alms-giving, and devotion. AVe torment not the soul with superstitious fears; we live free from alarm, and we die without remorse.” “ And have you the presumption,” replied the Christian priests, “ to talk of morality; you, whose chief has practised licentious ness, and preached doctrines that are a scandal to all purity, and the leading principle of whose religion is homicide and war? For the truth of this we appeal to experience. For twelve centuries past your fanatism has never ceased to spread desolation and car nage through the nations of the earth ; and that Asia, once so flourishing, now languishes in insignificance and barbarism, is ascribable to your doctrine; to that doctrine, the friend of igno rance, the enemy of all instruction, which, on the one hand, con secrating the most absolute despotism in him who commands, a!nd on the other, imposing the most blind and passive obedience on those who are governed, has benumbed all the faculties of matt, and plunged nations in a state of brutality. “ How different is the case with our sublime and celestial mora- • lity ! It is she that drew the earth from its primitive barbarity, from the absurd and cruel superstitions of idolatry, from human , * sacrifices and the orgies of Pagan mystery : it is she that has purified the manners of men, proscribed incest and adultery, polished savage nations, abolished slavery, introduced new and unknown virtues to the world, universal charity, the equality of mankind in the eyes of God, forgiveness and forgetfulness of inuries, extinction of the passions, contempt of worldly greatness. * Read the cold declaration of Eusebius (Prcep. Evan. lib. 1, p. 11,) who pre tends that since the coming of Christ, there have been neither wars, nor tyrants, nor cannibals, nor sodomites, nor persons committing incest, nor savages devour ing their pareuts, &c. When we read these fathers of the church, w’e are astonished at their insincerity or infatuation. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 139 and, in short, taught the necessity of a life perfectly holy arid spiritual.” . . « We admire,” said the Mahometans, « the ease with which you tan reconcile that evangelical charity and meekness of which you so much boast, with the injuries and outrages that you are con tinually exercising towards your neighbour. When you criminate with so little ceremony the morals of the great characters revered by us, we have a fair opportunity of retorting upon you in the con duct of him whom you adore: but we disdain such advantages, and, confining ourselves to the real object of the question, we maintain, that your gospel morality is by no means characterised by the perfection which you ascribe to it. It is not tiue that it has introduced into the world new and unknown virtues: for ex ample, the equality of mankind in the eyes of God, and the fra ternity and benevolence which are the consequence of this equa lity, were tenets formerly professed by the sect of the Hermetics and Samaneans from whom you have your descent. As to for , * giveness of injuries it had been taught by the Pagans themselves; but in the latitude you give it, it ceases to be a virtue, and becomes an immorality and a crime. Your boasted precept, to him that strikes thee on thy right cheek, turn the other also, is not only contrary to the feelings of man, but a flagrant violation of every principle of justice; it emboldens the wicked by impunity, de grades the virtuous by the servility to which it subjects them; delivers up the world to disorder and tyranny, and dissolves the bands of society: such is the true spirit of your doctrine. The precepts and parables of your gospel also never represent God other thanas a despot, acting by no rule of equity; than as a par tial father, treating a debauched and prodigal son with greater favor than his obedient and virtuous children; than as a capricious master, g'iving the same wages to him who has wrought but one hour, as to those who have borne the burthen and heat of the day; and preferring1 the last comers to the first. In short, your morali ty throughout is unfriendly to human intercourse, a code of mis- anthropy, calculated to give men a disgust for life and society, and attach them to solitude and celibacy. “ With respect to the manner in whichyou have practiced your boasted doctrine, we in our turn appeal to the testimony of fact and ask; Was it your evangelical lqeekness and iorbearance which excited those endless wars among your sectaries, those atro cious persecutions of what you call heretics, those crusades against * The equality of mankind in a state of nature, and in the eyes of.God, was one -of the principal tenets of the Sainaneans, and they appear tQ he the only ancients that entertained this opinion. �140 A SURVEY OF THE , Jh® f" V®i,the ^icheans,. and the Protestants; not to mention 2«nriZSCh W bT C°inmiited aS'ainst us’ nor the sacrilegious associations still subsisting among you, formed of men who have sworn to perpetuate them ? * Was it the charity of yotir gospel that led you to exterminate whole nations in America, and to des, troy the empires of Mexico and Peru; that makes you still desothe?nbab,tanis of which you sell like cattle, notwith®tand“?g‘ tbe abolition of slavery that you pretend your religion Has effected - that makes you ravage India whose domains vou usurp; in short, is it charity that has prompted you for three cen turies past to disturb the peaceable inhabitants of three continents, the most prudent of whom, those of Japan and China, have been constrained to banish you from their country, that they might cs, cape your chains and recover their domestic tranquility?” «ere the Bramms, the Rabbins, the Bonzes, the Chamans, th<? Priests of the Molucca Islands, and of the coast of Guinea, over, whelming the Christian doctors with reproaches, cried, “ Yes these men are robbers and hypocrites, preaching simplicity to in * veigle confidence; humility, the more easy to enslave; poverty, m order to appropriate all riches to themselves; they promise another world the better to invade this; and while they preach toleration and chanty, they commit to the flames, in the name of God, those who do not worship him exactly as they do.” pnests,” retorted the missionaries, « it is you who abuse the credulity of ignorant nations, that you may bend them to your yoke; your ministry is the art of imposture and deception: you have made religion a system of avarice iyjd cupidity; you feign to have correspondence with spirits, and the oracles they issue are your own wi Is : you pretend to read the stars, and your de sires only are what destiny decrees: you make idols speak, and the gods are the mere instruments of your passions; you have in vented sacrifices and libations for the sake of the profit you would thus derive from the milk of the flocks, and the flesh and fat of victims; and under the cloak of piety you devour the offerings made to Gods, who cannot eat and the substance of the people * obtained by industry and toil.” r r s « <eiAnd 70U’” the Bramins> the Bonzes, and the Chamans, sell to the credulous survivor vain prayers for the souls of his dead relatives.' With your indulgences and absolutions you have arrogated to yourselves the power and functions of God himself; and making a traffic qf his grace, you have put heaven up to Mah^nit2iV»>?ien by/he .En>hts of the Order of Malta, is to kill, or make the Manometans pnsoners, for the glory of God^ > ' ’ ' �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 141 auction, and have founded, by your system of expiation, a tariff' ©f crimes that has perverted the consciences of men ” . * “ Add to this, ** said the Imans, “ that with tht se men has ori ginated the most insidious of all wickedness, the absurd and im pious obligation, of recounting to them the most impenetrabla Sfecrets of actions, of thoughts of' vellei es, (confession): by means of Which their insolent curiosity has carried its inquisition even to the sacred sanctuary of the nuptial bed+, and the inviolable asy lum of the heart.” By thus reproaching each other, the chiefs of the different wor ships revealed all the crimes of their ministry, all the hiddea vices of their profession, and it appeared that the spirit, the system of conduct, tne actions and manners of priests, were, among all nations, uniformly the same; that every where they had formed secret assosiations, corporations of idividuals, enemies to the rest of the society * -that they had attributed to themselves certain * * As long as it shall be possible to obtain purification from crimes, and ex emption from punishment by means of money or other frivolous practices; as long as kings and great men shall Suppose that building temples or instituting founda tions, will absolve them from the guilt of oppression and homicide : as long as in dividuals shall imagine that they may rob and cheat, provided they observe fast during Lent, go to confession, and receive extreme unction, it is impossible there should exist in society any morality or virtue; and it is from a deep conviction of truth, that a modern philosopher has called the doctrine of expiations la ierole ties societies. t The Mussulmans, who suppose women to have no souls, are shocked at the idea of confession, and say, How can an honest man think of listening to the recital of the actions or the secret thoughts of a woman ? May we not also ask, on the other hand, how can an honest woman consent to reveal-them ? X That we may understand the general feelings of priests respecting the rest of mankind, whom they always call by thename of the people, let-us heamne-of tire doctors of the church. « The people,” says Bishop Synnesius, in Calvit. page 315,' are desirous of being deceived, we cannot act otherwise respecting them. The case was similar with the ancient priests of Egypt, and for this reason they shut themselves up pi their temples, and there composed their mysteries out of the reach of the eye of the people.” And forgetting what he had just before said, he pdds, “ For had the. people been in the secret, they might have been offended at the deception played upon them. In the mean time, how is it possible to conduct one’s self otherwise with the people, so long as they are the people ? For my owij part, to myself I shall always be a philosopher, but in dealing with the mass of ' mankind I shall be a priest.” 1 “ A little jargon,” says Gregory Nazianzem to St. Jerome, (Hieron. ad Nepk.J “ is all that is necessary to impose on the people. The less they comprehend, the more they admire. Our forefathers and doctors of the church have often said, not W'hat they thought, but what circumstances and necessity dictated to them ” “ We endeavour,” says Sanconiathan, b to excite admiration by means of the marvellous.” (Prvp. Erang. lib. 3.) Such was the conduct of ail the priests of antiquity, and is still that of the Bramins and Lamas, who are the exact counterpart of the Egyptian priests. Such was the practice of the Jesuits, who marched with hasty strides in th« same career. It is useless to point out the whole depravity of such a doctrine. In general, every association which has mystery for its basis, or an oath of secresy, is a league of rob bers against society, a league divided in its very bosoip into knaves and dupes ; or, �142 A SURVEY OF THE Prerogatives and immunities, in order to be exempt from the bur thens which fell upon the other classesthat they shared neither the toil of the labourer, nor the perils of the soldier, nor the vicis situdes of the merchant:—that they led a life of celibacy, to avoid domestic inconveniences and cares: that under the garb of po verty, they found the secret of becoming rich, and of procuring every enjoyment: that under the name of mendicants, they coil imposts more considerable than those paid to pri nces: that under the appellation of gifts and offerings, they obtained a certain revenue unaccompanied with trouble or expence: that upon the pretext of seclusion and devotion, they lived in indolence, and licentiousness:—that they had made alms a virtue, that they might subsist in comfort upon the labour of other menthat they had invented the ceremonies of worship to attract the reverence of the people, calling themselves the mediators and interpreters of the Gods, with the sole view of assuming all his power; and that for this puipose, according to the knowledge or ignorance of those upon whom they had to work, they made themselves, by turns, astroogeis, casters of planets, aug’urers, magicians necromancers, ,, * quacks, courtiers, confessors of princes, always aiming at in fluence for their own exclusive advantages .-—that sometimes they had exalted the prerogative of kings, and held their persons to be sacred, to obtain their favour or participate in their power:—that at others they had descried this doctrine and preached the mur der of tyrants (reserving it to themselves to specify the tyranny), in order to be revenged of the slights and disobedience they had experienced from them:—that at all times they had called by the name of impiety what proved injurious to their interest; had op m other words, agents and instruments. It is thus we ought to judge of those mo dern clubs, whicn under the name of Illuminatists, Martinists, Cagliostronists, Freemasons, and Mesmerites, infest Europe. These societies ape the follies and de ceptions of the ancient Cabalists, Magicians, Orphics, &c. who, says Plutarch, led into errors of considerable magnitude not only individuals, but kings and nations. What is a Magician, in the sense in which the people understand the word ? A man who by words and gestures pretends to act on supernatural beings, and com pels them to descend at his call and obey his orders. Such was the conduct of the ancient priests, and such is still that of all priests, in idolatrous nations, for which reason we have given them the denomination of Magicians. And when a Christian priest pretends to make God descend from heaven, to fix him to a morsel of leaven, and to render, by means of this talisman, souls pure and in a state of graee, what is all this but a trick of magic? And where is the dif ference between a Charnan of Tartary, who invokes the genii, or an Indian Bramin who makes his Vichenou descend in a vessel of water to drive away evil spirits ? .Yes, the identity of the spirit of priests in every age and country is fully establish! ed. Every where it is the assumption of an exclusive privilege, the pretended facul ty of moving at will the powers of nature; and this assumption is so direct a vio lation of the right ot equality, that whenever the people shall regain their importance, th'rj' will for ever abolish this sacrilegious kind of nobility, which has been the type and parent stock of the other species of nobilty. �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 143 posed public instruction, that they might monopolize science; and in short, had universally found the secret of living in tran quillity amidst the anarchy they occasioned; secure, under the despotism they sanctioned ; in indolence, amidst the industry they recommended; and in abundance, in the very bosom of scarcity; and all this, by carrying on the singular commerce of selling words and gestures to the credulous, who paid for them as for commodities of the greatest value . * Then the people, seized with fury, were upon the point of tear ing to pieces the men who had deceived them ; but the legislators arresting this sally of violence, and addressing the chiefs and doc tors, said ; “ And is it thus, O institutors of the people, that y cm have misled and abused them And the terrified priests replied: “ O legislators, we are men, and the people are so superstitious ! their weakness excited us io take advantage of itf.” And the kings said: “ O legislators the people are so servile and so ignorant! they have prostrated themselves before the yoke which we scarcely had the boldness to show to themf.” Then the legislators, turning towards the people, said to them: « Remember what you have just heard ; it contains two important truths. Yes, it is yourselves that cause the evils of which you complain; it is you that encourage tyrants by a base flattery of their power, by an absurd admiration of their pretended benefi cence, by converting obedience into servility, and liberty into licentiousness, and receiving every imposition with credulity. Caa you think of punishing upon them the errors of your own igno rance and selfishness ?” And the people, smitten w ith confusion^ remained in a melan choly silence. ' * A curious work would be the comparative history of the Agnuses of the pope and the pastils of the grand Lama. It would be worth while io extend this idea ta ieiigious ceremonies in general, and to confront column by column, the analagous or contrasting points of faith and superstious practices in all nations. There is one more species of superstition which it would be equally salutary to-cure, blind vene ration for the great; and for this purpose it would be alone sufficient to write a. minute detail of the private life of kings and princes. No work /?ould be so philo sophical as this : and accordingly we have seen what a general outcry was excited anaoiig kings and the panders of King s, when the Anecdotes of the Court of Berlin firsi appeared. What would be the alarm were the public put in possession of the sequel of this work ’ Were the people fairly acquainted with allthe crimes and ali the absurdities of this species of idol, they would no longer be exposed to covet their specious pleasures, of which the plausible and hollow appearance disturbs their peace, and hinders them from enjoying the much more solid happiness of. liteir vwa condition. . . • .......... f Consider in this view the Brabanters. | The inhabitants of Vienna, for example, who harfiessed tlienfselvei like cattle and drew the chariot of Leopold.- • ■ . •■ ».A,. �* 144 A SURVEY OF TUB * c h a p. *> ’■5. •/% ■ tj i * ■ „ So l u t io n i • ■ of t he ; ' xxiv. • ,• > Pr o b l e m ■ * . ■ of ■ . i■ ■ Co n t ■■. • • t■„ r a r d w t Io n s ; saidAev^ ’ wh ! th Ln ^ s«med ^eir address. « O nations!" the discord that ,Vi' 1ieard ¿be discussion of your opinions; and which we bel L idCS y°U haS su §’Sested to us various reflections, X °Se * y°“ “ q“eS‘iOnS Whkh “ “ P ° tnrxr Considering, in the first place the numerous and contradict y creeds you have adopted, we would ask on what motive vour Kv"asi>",!safoun / ed I il from ch oicTS3^ ‘ unJ e“liSted funder 1 th ® banners of one prophet rather than V der those of another « Before you adopted this doctrine in you first coraPare> did you maturely exasu t / S °zih rS kOt y°U1- behef been rather ihe cbance re‘ suit of birth, and of the empire of education and habit« Are you not born Christians on the banks of the Tiber, Mahometans on those of the Euphrates, Idolaters on the shores of India, in the same manner as you are born fair in cold and temperate regions, and of a sable complexion under the African sun ! And if your opinions are the effect of your position on the globe, of parentage, of imitation, are such fortuitous circumstances to be regarded as grounds of conviction and arguments of truth. the second place, when we reflect on the proscriptive spirit and the arbitrary intolerance of your mutual claims, we are ter rified at the consequences that flow from your principles. Nations» wiio reciprocally doom each other to the thunderbolts of celestiai wrath, suppose the universal being whom you revere, were at this rnoment to descend from heaven among this crowd of people, and, clothed in all his power, were to sit upon this throne to judge yousuppose him to say—“ Mortals! I consent to adopt your own princi ples ofjustice into my administration. Of all the different religions yn U^)r0 i S’ a S’n ^ e religion, shall now be preferred to the rest • all the others, this vast multitude of standards, of nations, of pro phets shall be condemned to everlasting destruction. Nor is this enough : among the different sects of the chosen religion one only shall experience my favour, and the rest be condemned. I W ‘ii * fher than this: of this single sect, of this one religion, I ai will reject all the individuals whose conduct has not corresponded to their speculative precepts. O man ! few indeed will then be the number of the elect you assign me! Penurious hereafter will be the stream of beneficence which will succeed to my unbounded mercy. Rare and solitary will be the ■catalogue of admirers that you henceforth destine to my greatness and my glory.” �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 145 ’ And the legislators arising said: “ It is enough ; you have pro^Qunced your will. Ye nations, behold the urn in which your names shall be placed ; one single name shall be drawn from the multitude; approach and conclude this terrible lottery.”—But the people seized with terror cried: “No, no; we are brethren and equals, we cannot consent to condemn each other.”—Then the legislators having resumed their seats continued : “ O men ! who dispute upon so many subjects, lend an attentive ear to a problem we submit to you, and ¿ecide it in the exercise of your own judgments.”—The people accordingly lent the strictest attention; and the legislators lifting one hand towards heaven, and pointing to the sun, said : “ O nations ! is the form of this sun, which en lightens you, triangular or square?”—and they replied with one voice, “ It is neither, it is round.” Then taking the golden balance that was upon the altar, “ this metal,” asked the legislators, “ which you handle every day, is a mass of it heavier than any other mass of equal dimensions of brass?”—“ Yes,” the people again unanimously replied ; “gold is heavier than brass.” The legislators then took the sword. “ Is this iron less hard than lead ?”—“ No,” said the nations. “ Is sugar sweet and gall bitter?”—“ Yes.” “ Do you love pleasure, and hate pain ?”—“ Yes.” “ Respecting these objects, and a multiplicity of others of a similar nature, you have then but one opinion. Now tell us, is there an abyss in the centre of the earth, and are there inhabitant» in the moon?” At this question a general noise was heard, and every nation gave a different answer. Some replied in the affirmative, others tn the negative ; some said it was probable, others that it was an idle and ridiculous question, and others that it was a subject wor thy of enquiry ; in short, there prevailed among them a total dis agreement. After a short interval, the legislators having restored silence; “Nations,” said they, “ how is this to be accounted for? We proposed to you certain questions, and you were all of one opi nion without distinction of race or sect : fair or black, disciples of Mahomet or of Moses, worshippers of Bedou or of Jesus, you all gave the same answer. We now propose another question, and you all differ ! whence this unanimity in one case, and this discordance in the other?” And the groupe of simple and untaught men replied : “The reason is obvious. Respecting the first questions, we see and feel the objects; We speak of them from sensation : respecting the se cond, they are above the reach of our senses, and we have aoguid® but conjecture.” �A SURVEY OF THS “You have solved the problem,” said the legislators; “ and the following truth is thus by your own confession established * whenever objects are present and can be judged of by your senses, you invariably agree in opinion ; and you differ in sentiment only when they are absent ana out of your reach. “ From this truth flows another equally clear and deserving of notice. Since you agree respecting what you with certainty know, it follows, that when you disagree, it is because you do not know, do not understand, are not sure of the object in question : or in other words, that you dispute, quarrel and fight among yourselves for what is uncertain, for that of which you doubt. But is this wise; is this the part of rational and intelligent beings'? « And is it not evident, that it is not truth for which you con tend ; that it is not her cause you are jealous of maintaining, but the cause of your own passions and prejudices; that it is not the object as it really exists that you wish to verify, but the object as it appears to you ; that it is not the evidence of the thing that you are anxious should prevail, but your personal opinion, your mode ©f seeing and judging? There is a power that you want to exer cise, an interest that you want to maintain, a prerogative that you want to assume; in short, the whole is a struggle of vanity. And as every individual, when he compares himself with every other, finds himself to be his equal and fellow, he resists by a similar feeling of right ; and from this right, which you all deny to each other, and from the inherent consciousness of your equality, spring you disputes, your combats, and your intolerance. “ Now, the only way of restoring unanimity is by returning to nature, and taking the order of things which she has established for your director and guide: and this farther truth will then ap pear from your uniformity of sentiment: 44 That real objects have in themselves an identical, constant, and invariable mode of existence, and that in your organs exists a similar mode of being affected and impressed by them. " But at the same time, inasmuch as these organs are liable to the direction of your will, you may receive different impressions, and find yourselves under different relations towards the same objects; so that you are with respect to them, as it were, a sort of mirror, capable of reflecting them such as they are, and capable of disfiguring and misrepresenting them. i( As often as you perceive the objects such as they are, your feelings are in accord with the objects, and you agree in opinion ; and it is th is.accord that constitutes truth. “ On the contrary, as often as you differ in opinion, your dissen sions prove, that, you do not see the objects such as they are, but vary them. “Whence it appears, that the cause of your dissensions is not �REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES. 14T in the objects themselves, but in your minds, in the manner in which you perceive and judge. “ If therefore we would arrive at uniformity of opinion, we must previously establish certainty, and verify the resemblance which our ideas have to their models. Now this cannot be obtained» except so far as the objects of our enquiry can be referred to the testimony and subjected to the examination of our senses. What ever cannot be brought to this trial is beyond the limits of our un derstanding; and we have neither rule to try it by, nor measure by which to institute a comparison, nor source of demonstration and knowledge concerning it. “ Whence it is obvious, that, in order to live in peace and har mony, we must consent not to pronounce upon such objects, nor annex to them importance; we must draw a line of demarcatioa between such as can be verified and such as cannot, and separates by an inviolable barrier, the world of fantastic beings from the world of realities: that is to say, all civil effect must be taken away from theological and religious opinions. “ This, O nations! is the end that a great people, freed from' their fetters and prejudices, have proposed to themselves; this is the work in which, by their command, and under their immediate auspices, we were engaged, when your kings and your priest came to interrupt our labours. Kings and priests, you may yet for a while suspend the solemn publication of the laws of nature; but it is no longer in your power to annihilate or to subvert them?’ A lond cry was then heard from every quarter of the general assembly of nations; and the whole of the people, unanimously testifying their adherence to the sentiments of the legislators, en couraged. them to resume their sacred and sublime undertaking, “ Investigate,” said they, “ the laws which nature, for our direc tion, has implanted in our breasts, and form from thence an au thentic and immutable code. Nor let this code be calculated for' one family, or for one nation only, but for the whole without ex ception. Be the Legislators of the human race, as ye are the in terpreters of their common nature. Shew us the line that separ ates the world of chimeras from that of realities; and teach us, after so many religions of error and delusion, the religion of evi dence and truth.” Upon this, the legislators resuming their enquiry into the phy sical and constituent attributes of man, and the motives and af fections which govern him in his individual and social capacity, unfolded in the following terms the laws on which Nature herself has founded his felicity. �ATA Page 110. For note to “ The adverse Genii became rebels and enemies ." * see note * page 111. , Pa«: 111. For note to “ Called Typhon, that is to say, deluge see note f, " * in (■same page. Page 111. For note to “ In Persia, at a subsequent period-^," see note t, in the same page. ’ + Page 111. For note to “ Whence are derived all religious acts if a gay natureX," see note * page 112. 1 Page 112. “ Whence originated dll religious acts of a sombre kind ." * “ Sacri fices of blood,” says Porphyry, “ were only offered to Demons and evil Genii, to avert their wrath. Demons are fond of blood, humidity, stench.” A pud. Euseb. Proep. Evan, page 173. <! The Egyptians,” says Plutarch, “ only offer bloody victims to Typhon. They sacrifice to him a red ox, and the animal immolated« « * held in execration, and loaded with all the sins of the people.” (The Goat of Moses ) See Isis and Osiris. Page 112. “ From the same souree flowed the divisions of terrestrial beings Into pure and impure, sacred and abominable." Strabo says, speaking of Moses and the Jews, “ Circumcision and the prohibition of certain kinds of meat, sprung from superstition.”—And I observe, respecting the ceremony of circumcision, that its object was to take from the symbol of Osiris, (Phallus,) the pretended obstacle to fecundity; an obstacle which bore the seal of Typhon, “ whose nature,” says Plutarch, “ is made up of all that hinders, opposes, causes obstruction." �NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY THE LIU OF NATURE; OR, ¡PMFWmPILnBS ©W" MI©IB.£ULIIsirT »EDUCED FROM THE PHYSICAL CONSTITUTION OF MANKIND AND THE UNIVERSE. ©ranglatel) from jFrmfc of C. F. VOLNEY. / FOR MODES OF FAITH' LET GRACELESS ZEALOTS FIGHT; HIS CAN’T BE WRONG WHOSE LIFE 18 IN THE RIGHT.” * Uo niton: PRIMED AND PUBLISHED BY I. DAVISON, Ao. 10, Duke Street, Heit Smithfield * * , • 1819. ��CONTENTS * < CHAP. I. Of the Law of Nature . , . . . . . ' . Pafft 3 . . ... 6 CHAP. II, Characters of the Law of Nature . CHAP. Ill, The Principles of the Law of Nature, as they relate to Man • ; 8 CHAP. IV. Of the Basis of Morality—Of Good—Of Evil—Of Siu—Of Crimes —Of Vice and Virtue....................................................................... 12 CHAP. V. Of Individual Virtues—Of Knowledge ..... 13 ......... 15 CHAP. VI. . Of Temperance CHAP. VIL Of Continence , . . - • . 17 CHAP. VIII. Of Courage and Activity . . . . . . , , 19 CHAP. IX. Of Cleanliness .......... 21 CHAP. X. Of Domestic Virtues ......... 22 CHAP. XI. Of the Social Virtues, and of Justice . . , • ; « »> « 25 CHAP. XII. Developement of the Social Virtues . ; .27 �% V �TSt CHAP. L Ox t he La w o f Na t u r e . Q. W h a t is the Law of Nature ? A. It is the regular and constant order of events, according to which God rules the universe; the order which his wisdom pre sents to the senses and reason of mankind, to serve them as aa equal and general rule of action, and to conduct them, without distinction of country or sect, towards happiness and perfection. Q. Give me a clear definition of the word Law. A. The word laic, taken in its literal sense, signifies reading * because in early times, ordinances and regulations principally composed the readings delivered to the people; which were made in order that they might observe them, and not incur the penalties attached to their infraction: whence it follows, that the original usage explaining the true idea, a law may be defined to be, “ A command or a prohibition of an action, with the expressed clause of a penalty attached to the infraction, or a reward annexed to the observation of the order.” Q. Are there such orders in nature ? A. Yes. Q. What means the word nature ? A. The word nature comprehends three different signification®» ' 1. It means the universe, or material world; we say, according to this signification, the beauties of nature, the riches of nature : * fhat is, of the objects in heaven and on earth presented to our Contemplation. 2. It means the power which animates and moves the universe, considering this power as a distinct being, such as the soul is sup posed to be with respect to the body. In this second sense we sav, the intentions of nature, the incomprehensible secrets of natuie. �4 THE LAW OF NATURE, 3. It means the partial operation of this power, as exerted in each individual being or in any class of beings; and we say, , * in this third sense, the nature of man is an enigma ; every being acts according to its nature. Now, since the accounts of each individual, or of each cVss of beings, are subjected to constant and general rules, which cr n mt be departed from without changing and disturbing some general or particular order of things, to these rules of action and motion is given the name of natural laws, or laws of nature. Q. Give me examples of these laics. A. It is a law of nature that the sun enlightens in success:on every part of the surface of the.terrestrial globe: that his pre sence excites light and heat: that heat, acting on the waters, produces vapours: that these vapours, raised in clouds into the higher regions of the atmosphere, form themselves into rain or snow, and supply, without ceasing, the water of springs and rivers. It is a law of nature that water flows from an upper to a lower situation; that it seeksit level: that it is heavier than air; that all bodies tend towards the earth; that flame rises towards the sky; that it destroys the organization of vegetables and animals; that air is essential to the life of certain animals; that in certain cases water suffocates and kills them: that certain juices of plants and certain minerals attack their organs, and destroy their life; and the same of a variety of facts. Now, since these facts, and many similar ones, are constant, regular, and immutable, they become so many real and positive commands to which man is bound to conform, under the express penalty of punishment attached to their infraction, or well-being connected with their observance. So that, if a man were to pre tend to see clearly in the dark, or is regardless of the progress of the seasons, or the action of the elements; if he pretends to exist under water without drowning; to handle fire without burning himself; to deprive himself of air without suffocation ; or to drink poison without destroying himself; he receives from each infrac tion of the law of nature a corporal punishment proportioned to his transgression. If, on the contrary, he observes these laws, and founds his practice on the precise and regular relation which they bear to him, he preserves his existence, and renders it as happy as it is capable of being rendered ; and since all these laws, con sidered in relation to the human species, have in. view only one common end, that of' their preservation and their happiness; whence it has been agreed to assemble together the different ideas, and express them by a single word, and call them col lectively by the name of the law of nature. - �THE LAW OE NATURE. CIIAP. IL Ch a r a c t e r s o f t h e La w o f Na t u r e . Q. W h a t are the characters of the taw of nature ? A. We may reckon ten principal ones. Q. What is the first ? A. To be inherent in, and essential to, the existence of things ; consequently to be primitive and anterior to every other law, so that all those which m<-.a have adopted from time to time, are only imitations of this ; the perfection of which laws is to be measured by their resemblance with this primordial model. Q. What is the setond? A. It is to emanate immediately from God, and to be by hint offered to the contemplation of every man, while others are pre sented to us by men only, who may happen to be either deceivers or deceived. Q. W/zat is the third? A. It is to be common to every time and country ; that is, to be one and universal. Q. Is there no other law which is universal ? A. No ; for no other is suited and applicable to every people upon earth ; all are local and accidental, sprung from the dif fering circumstances of places and persons ; so that if a given man, or a given event, had not existed, a given law would not have taken place. Q. W7zai is the fourth character ? A. That of being uniform and invariable. Q. Is there no other law which is uniform and invariable? A. No; for that which according to one is good and virtuous, is evil and vicious according to another ; and what is at one time approved, is often condemned at another by the same law. Q. What is the fifth character ? A, To be evident and palpable, since it consists wholly of facts ever present to our senses, and capable of demonstration. Q. Are there not other laws evident ? A. No ; for they are founded on past and doubtful facts; on equivocal and suspicious testimony; and on proofs which can not be presented to the senses. Q. What is the sixth character ? A. To be reasonable; because its precepts, and its whole doc trine, are conformable to reason, and agreeable to the human understanding. Q. Is no other law reasonable ? A. No ; for they all contradict the reason and understanding �’$ HIE LAW OF NATURE. of man, and impose upon him, tyrannically, a blind and impras* ticable belief. Q. What is the seventh character ? A. To be just; because in this law the punishment is propor tioned to the transgression. Q, Are there no other lares just ? .A. No; for they frequently attach to merit or to criminality, .disproportionate punishment or reward; and impute merit and criminality to actions which are null or indifferent. 0« W/zai is the eighth character ? A. To be pacific and tolerant; because, according to the law of nature, all men being brethren, and equal in rights, it advises all to peace and toleration, even for their errors. Q. Are not other lares pacific ? A. No; for they all breathe dissension, discord, and war, and divide men among each other by means of exclusive pretensions to truth and power. Q. What is the ninth character of this law ? A. To be equally beneficent to all men, and to teach them all the true method of being better and happier. Q. Are not the rest likewise beneficent ? A. No; for none teaches the true road to happiness; they all really amount to nothing but pernicious or futile performances; and this is proved by facts, since, after so many laws, religions, legislators, and prophets, men remain still as unhappy and as ig norant as they were five thousand years ago. Q, What is the last character of the law of nature ? A. It is its being of itself sufficient to render men happier and better, because it includes whatever is good and useful in every other law, civil or religious; that is, it is in its essence the moral part of them all: so that, were they divested of it, they would be reduced to the state of chimerical and imaginary opinions, and 'be of no practical utility. Q. Recapitulate all these characters. A. I have said that the Law of Nature is, f J^rimitive; . Immediate, or of original emanation ;' Universal; c Invariable ; . Evident; Reasonable ; Just ; Pacific; Beneficent: And, of itself sufficient: And it is because it unites in itself all these attributes of per fection and of truth, that there has always existed in the human �THE LAW OK NATURE. 'fa 1 lienrt an involuntary and secret inclination to regard it as, in a peculiar sense, the true religion: the only one adapted to the nature of man, and the only one worthy of God, from whom it * drictmittjs Q. //; as you assert, it emanates immediately from God, does it teach us his existence ? •v t A. Yes; very positively ; for every man who observes with at tention the astonishing scene of the universe, the more he medi tates on the properties and attributes of each existence, and on the admirable order and harmony of their motions, the moie will he be convinced that there is a supreme agent, a universal and identical mover, designated by the name of-God: and it j s so true, that the law of nature is sufficient to raise us to the know ledge of God, that whatever men have pretended to know of him5by any other means, has been constantly found to be ridicu lous and absurd; and they have been obliged to return to the unchangeable notions of natural reason. Q. It is not true, then, that the followers of the law of nature are atheists ? A. No; it is not true. On the contrary they have stronger and more noble ideas of the Divinity than the greater part of mankind; for they do not defile it by the addition of the weak nesses and passions of human nature. Q. What is the worship which they render him ? A. A worship which consists entirely in action; in the obser vation and practice of alt the rules which the Supreme Wisdom has imposed upon the motions of each being; eternal and unal terable rules, which maintain the order and harmony of the universe, and which, considered in relation to man, compose the law of nature. Q. Was the law of nature ever known before the present day ? A. It has been spoken of in every age. The greater part of lawgivers have pretended to make it the basis of their laws; but they have brought forward only a few of its precepts, and have had but vague ideas of it as a whole. Q. Why has this happened? A. Because, though it is simple in its basis, it forms, in its developement and its consequences, a complicated aggregate, which requires the knowledge of a number of facts, and the whole sa gacity of reason in order to be understood. Q. Does not instinct alone instruct us in the law of nature? A. No; for instinct signifies only that blind sentiment which leads us, without discrimination, towards whatever pleases our senses. Q. Why, then, is it said that the law of nature is engraven 031 the hearts of alt men? �• t h e l a w o f n a t u r e. A. It is said for two reasons: 1st, Because it has been re ** marked that there are actions and sentiments common to all man kind, arising from their similar organization, 2d, Because it was an opinion of the ancient philosophers, that men were born into the world with innate or ready-formed ideas; an opinion which is now demonstrated to be an error. Q. Do philosophers then deceive themselves ? A. Yes; they do. Q. How happens this ? A. First, From their nature as men. Secondly, Because igno rant persons call every man who reasons a philosopher, whether he reason well or ill. Thirdly, Because those who reason on a variety of subjects, and are the first to reason on them, are liable to deceive themselves. , Q. Since the law of nature is not written, may it not be con- . sidered as arbitrary and ideal? A. No; because it consists altogether in facts, whose demon stration may be at any time recalled before the senses, and form a science as precise and exact as those of geometry and mathe matics : and this very circumstance, that the law of nature forms an exact science, is the reason why men, who are born in igno rance, and live in carelessness, have, till this day, know n it only •uperficially. CHAP. III. Th e Pr in c ipl e s o f t h e La w o f Na t u r e a s t h e y r e l a t e t o Ma n . Q. Un f o l d the principles of the law of nature as they relate to man. A. They are simple and reducible to a single fundamental principal precept. Q. What is this precept ? " A. Self-preservation. Q? Is not happiness likewise a precept of the law of nature? A. Yes; but as happiness is an accidental circumstance, which takes place only in consequence of the unfolding of the faculties of man, and the developement of the social system, it is not the primary and direct end proposed by nature. It is an object of luxury superadded to the necessary and fundamental object of self-preservation. Q. In what manner does nature command self-preservation ? A. By two powerful and involuntary sensations which she has attached as two guides or guardian genii to all our actions: one, �THE LAW OF NATURE. 9 the sensation of pain, by which she informs us of, and turns us from, whatever tends to our destruction. .. , , , j The other, the sensation of pleasure, by which she attracts and leads us towards every thing that tends to our preservation, and the unfolding of our faculties. . . , Q. Pleasure then is not an evil or a sin, as the casuists have A. No • it is of that class only when it tends to the destruction of life and health, which, as the casuists themselves confess, are derived to us from God. Q. Is pleasure the principle object of our existence, as some philosophers have asserted ? A. No; no more than pain is: by pleasure, nature encourages us to live; by pain, it makes us shrink from death. Q. How do you prove this assertion ? A. By two palpable facts; the one, that pleasure, carried too far, conducts into destruction : for instance, a man who abuses the pleasure of eating and drinking, attacks his health and injures his existence. The other, that pain sometimes tends to our pre servation : for instance, a man who orders his mortified limb to be amputated, suffers pain, but it is in order that he may not pe rish altogether. Q. But does not this prove that our senses may deceive us with respect to this end of self-preservation? A. Yes ; they may for a time. Q. How do our sensations deceive us ? A. In two ways; through our ignorance and our passions. Q. When do they deceive us through our ignorance ? A. When we act without knowing the action and effect of ob jects on our senses: for instance, when a man handles nettles without knowing their quality of stinging; or, when he chews opium in ignorance of its soporific properties. Q. When do they deceive us through our passions ? A. W hen, though we are acquainted with the hurtful action of objects, we, notwithstanding, give way to the violence of our desires anil our appetites: for instance, when a man, who knows that wine inebriates, drinks, notwithstanding, to excess. Q. What results from, these facts? A. The result is, that the ignorance in which we enter the world, and the inordinate appetites to which we give ourselves up, are opposed to our self-preservation; that, in consequence, the instruction of our minds, and the moderation of our passions, are two obligations, or two laws, immediately derived from the first law of preservation. Q. But if we are born ignorant, is not ignorance a part of the law ofnature ? �re t h e LAW o f NATURE^ state o^nTa^cy^far^rmiH^ b^ ’’ernani in the naked and feeble an obstacle in the way of all herTaws Tt Fs ,§’noi?nce.is Q. Whence then has It banned ti ! tue/rue original sm. Kh°c™sidereditasav^ €XlSted foundedt^e^^ »4 mXiTo^^rfacukres.1101 / u^:: UnfoIdinS and propTemplly- tJlen necess^Uy indispensable for man’s . A: SO ’^'spensable, that, without it, he must be everv in stant struck and wounded by all the beings which surround him" ofVatei he^T I”6 If, in the sX? It drowned; of op.um, he would be poisoned. fide h“2e?f whhfoot '”‘1’ Pn“ 'f arisln" be « * «arth, nor pro'"S neeeJm, to acT"re M id"» A S V’„„ ^T“"/ i mpldil>3 »J Id» .faculties ? livin’ -’i \e- cannot d° 11 ^Ut by the assistance of his fellows living with him m a state of society. ieiious ’ A No- it kF S°Ciety a State unn°Wral to man ? k- u 1 • f ’ the contrary> a necessity, a law imposed unon him by his very organization; for, 1st. Nature basso constituted ex X 7 that hG d°eS 1Wt beh0id bis likeness of anoXr sex, without expel iencing emotions, and an attraction inducing 2d Tn 1V%!1 ad°™esilc state, which is already a state of society * 2d. In rendering him sensible, she has so organized him that the sensations of others are reflected into himself, and excite in him co-sentiments of pleasure or pain, which become the attrac tive force and indissoluble bond of social life: 3d. In fine the «ate of society, established on the wants of man, is nothin- more lnd"tonsav ?h»f° hraea?S/- fuIfilIhlg the laW0f Preservation: and to saj, that such a state is unnatural, because it is more adihSer a0«? wiiF * t0 which in the ™ods is bittei and wild, is no longer a production of nature, after bavincuiXT in the garden in which ifc has beeS denmina* d ' savage state / �THE LAW OF NATURE. 11 A. Because, as I bave before observed, the vulgar have often given the appellation of philosophers, to capricious persons, who 'through moroseness, wounded vanity, or disgust with the vices of social life, have formed a chimerical idea of the savage state, contradictory to their own system of the perfectability of man, Q. What is the true meaning of the word philosopher '? A. Thé word philosopher signifies lover of wisdom : now, since wisdom consists in the practice of the laws of nature, that man is a true philosopher who understands these laws in their full extent, and, with precision, renders his conduct conformable to them. Q. What is man in a savage state? A. A brute and ignorant animal ; a mischievous and ferocious beast, like a bear or an our^ng-outang. Q. Is he happy in such à slate ?. A. No ; for he has but the sensations of the moment ; and these sensations are habitually sentiments of violent and pressing wants which he cannot gratify ; seeing that he is ignorant by nature, and feeble by his state of insulation from society. Q. Is hefree? A. No; he is the most slavish of beings; his life depends on all that surrounds him ; he has not the power to eat when he is huno-ry, to rest himself when he is weary, or to warm himself when he is cold : he is in danger of perishing every instant. Nature, it is true, has exhibited such beings only, as it were, by chance : and, it is evident, that the efforts of the human race have, from the beginning, been employed to extricate it from this state of violence ; so strong is the desire of preservation. Q. But does not this desire of self preservation produce in individuals egoism, that is, the love of self; and is not egoism abhorrent to the social state ? A, No ; for, if by egoism is understood an inclination to injure others, it is no longer the love of self, but the hatred of our neighbour. The love of self, taken in its true sense, is not only Consistent with a state of society, but is likewise its firmest support ; since We are under a necessity of not doing injury to others, lest they should, in return, do injury to ourselves. Thus the preservation of man, and the unfolding of his facul ties ‘which have in view Uie same end, are the true law which nature has followed in the production of the human species : and from this simple and fruitful principle, are derived, must be re ferred, and ultimately measured, all our ideas of good and evil, vice and virtue, justice and injustice, truth and error, of what is permitted and what is forbidden ; the foundation of all moral conduct, whether in the individual man, or the man of social life. �ip THE LAW OF NATURE. CHAP. IV. Of t h e Ba 3,s o f Mo r a l ,t y _o p Go o d _o F Ev .l -o f Sir o f Cr im e s —o f Vic e a n d Vir t u e . \v?Ar is ( ood> ^cording to the law of nature ? J preserve aud ameIlorate ““kind, ■ Q. JFa X" «" human'ract™ W iest ™ti™ “d deterioration of tie b,J PHYS,CA1 S<>od and evil, a„d mo r a l „A; H y L A W0Id is meant whatever acts immediately X" Bv :<ly:,hKl"h “ a physical good; sickness is a ph ysS eviJ. By morof is understood whatever is effected bv const * quences more or less remote: calumny is a moral evZ a fair reputation is a moral good ; because both of them are !he occasion of certain dispositions and habits in other men, wk respect to ourselves which are useful or prejudicial to our well behm and which attack or contribute to t'he ‘’ eans of existence. m 8’ "d JF’ Q. Every thing which tends to bring on death is of consequence for ,‘his reason, some legislators have extended the idea of evil and sm to the killing of any animals. lawqf naZe1er "J “ “ 'rime aCC0rdi^ '» t!“ YeS;i and llle ?reatest ‘hat can be committed ; for all other evils may be repaired, but murder can never be done away. ;■ ™ tSSln accordinff to the law of nature? A. Whatever tends to disturb the order established by nature * the preservation and perfectability of man and of society. or V. Cun intention he a merit or a crime ? " A. No; for it is only an idea without reality; but it is a begin ning of sm and evil, by the inclination to act, of which it is the cause» Q. What is virtue according to the law of nature ? A. The practice of actions which are useful to the individual and to society. Q. What signifies the word individual ? ether S' gmfieS a J erson considered as insulated from every * �THE LAW OF NATLRi:. 13 * 0 What is vice according to the law of nature? A Ai It is the practice of actions prejudicial to the individual and to society. Q. Have not virtue and vice an object purely spiritual and ab stractedfrom sense ? A. No ; they are always ultimately referable to a physical end; and this end is invariably the destruction or preservation of the body. Q. Have vice and virtue degrees of strength and intensity ? A. Yes: according to the importance of the faculties which they attack or favour ; and according to the number of indivi duals in whom these faculties are thus assisted or injured. Q. Give me an example ? A. The action of saving a man ’s life is more virtuous than that of saving his wealth : the act of saving the lives of ten men is more so than that of saving the life of a single person : and an action which is useful to the whole human race, is more virtuous than an action useful only to a single nation. * Q. In what manner does the law of nature prescribe the prac tice of good and virtue, and forbid that of evil and of vice ? A. By the advantages resulting from the practice or good and virtue in the preservation of our bodies, and the injuries which our very existence receives from the practice of evil and vice. Q. Its precepts, then are found in andfounded upon action ? A. Yes; they are action itself, considered in its present effect and its future consequences. Q. What division do you make of the virtues ? A. We divide them into three classes: 1st, Private virtues, or those which refer to single and insulated persons: 2d. Domestic virtues, or those which relate to families: 3d. Social virtues, or those which respect society at large. CHAP. V. .■ Of In d iv id u a l o r Pr iv a t e Vir t u e s .—Of Kn o w l ed g e. Q. W h i c h are the private virtues ? ' A. There are five principal ones: namely, Knowledge; which comprehends prudence and wisdom. II. Temperance; which includes sobriety and chastity. III. Courage; or strength of body and mind. IV. Activity; that is, the love of labour, and a proper employ ment of our time. V. Lastly ; cleanliness, or purity of body, as well in o u f clothing as in our dwellings. 2C �14 THE LAW OF NATURE. Q. How doe» the law of nature prescribe to us the possession of knowledge? A. In this way: The man who is acquainted with the causes and effects of things, provides in a very extensive and certain manner for his own preservation and the developement of his faculties. Knowledge is for him, as it were, light acting upon its appropriate organ, making him discern all the objects which surround him, and in the midst of which he moves with precision and clearness. And for this reason we used to say an enlightened man, to designate a wise and well-informed man. By the help of knowledge and information, we are never left without resources and means of subsistence; and whence a philosopher, who had suffered shipwreck, observed justly to his companions, who were lamenting tne loss of their fortunes, “ As for me, I carry all my fortune in myself.” Q. What is the vice opposed to knowledge ? A. Ignorance. Q. How does the law of nature forbid ignorance ? A. By the great injury which our existence sustains from it : for the ignorant, who are unacquainted with either causes or effects, commit every instant mistakes, the most pernicious to themselves or others: like a blind man, who walks groping his way, and who at every step stumbles against or is jostled by his companions. Q. What difference is there between an ignorant man and a fool? A. The same that there is between a blind man who ingeni ously acknowledges his want of sight, and a blind man who pre tends to see distinctly. Folly is ignorance, with a superadded pretension to knowledge. Q. Are ignorance andfolly common ? A. Yes; very common: they are the habitual and general diseases of mankind. Above three thousand years since, the wisest of men observed, that the number of fools is infinite; and the world has not changed. Q, How happens this ? A. Because to become informed is the work of much time and labour; and because men, born ignorant, but fearful of trouble, find it more convenient to remain blind, and pretend to see clearly. Q. What difference is there between the man of learning and the man of ivisdom? A. The man of learning possesses the theory, and the man of wisdom the practice, Q. What is prudence ? ' - A. An anticipated, view, a foresight of effects, and the eonee- �THE LAW OF NATURE, fluences of every event: a foresight by which a man avoids the dangers which threaten him, and seizes and raises up opportu nities which are favourable: whence it appears, that he provides, on a large and sure scale, for his present and future conservation ; while the imprudent man, who neither calculates his progress nor his conduct —the efforts required, nor the resistances to overcome, falls every moment into a thousand difficulties and dangers, which, more or less, slowly destroy his faculties and his being. Q. When the Gospel declares, « Happy are the poor in spirit, does it mean the ignorant and imprudent? t A. No; for, at the same time that it advises the simplicity ot doves, it connects with it the prudent cunning of the serpent. By simpleness of spirit is meant rectitude; and the precept ot the Gospel is no other than that of nature. CHAP. VI, Of Te m pe r a n c e . Q. W h a t is temperance? A. A well-regulated employment of our faculties; which pre vents our ever exceeding in our sensible pleasures the end of nature, self-conservation, It is the moderation of our passions. Q. What is the vice opposed to temperance ? A. The want of government over our passions ; an over great eagerness to possess enjoyments: in a word, cupidity. Q. What are the principal branches of temperance ?■ A. Sobriety, and continence or chastity, Q. In what manner does the law of nature enjoin sobriety ? A. By its powerful influence over our health. The man of so briety digests his food with comfort; he is not oppressed by the weight ot his aliment: his ideas are clear and easily impressed; he performs every function well ; he attends with diligence to his business ; he grows old, free from sickness; he does not throw away his money in remedies for disorders ; he enjoys with gay good humour the goods which fortune or prudence have pro cured him. Thus does generous nature make a thousand rewards flow from a single virtue. Q, JBy what means does she prohibit gluttony ? A. By the numerous evils attached to it. The glutton, op pressed by his aliment, digests with pain and difficulty ; his head, disturbed by the fumes arising during bad digestion, is incapable of receiving neat and clear ideas; he gives himself up with fury to the inordinate movements of luxury and anger, which destroy his health ; his body becomes fat, heavy, and unfit �t h e l a w o f n a t u r e, for labour; he passes through painful and expensive fits of sicE ness; he rarely lives to old age, and his latter part of life is marked by infirmity and disgust. Q. Ought we to look upon abstinence and fasting as virtuous dCHOnS • A. Yes; after we have eaten too much; for, in that case, absti nence and fasting are efficacious and simple remedies; but when the body has need of nourishment, to refuse it, and let it suffer through thirst or hunger, is madness, and a real sin against the law ot nature. ® what light does this law consider drunkenness? A. As the vilest and most pernicious of vices. The drunkard, deprived of the sense and reason given us by God, profanes the gifts of the Divinity; he lowers himself to the condition of the brates: incapable of dircting his steps, he totters and falls as in a fit of epilepsy; he wounds himself, and endangers his own life: h:s weakness m this state renders him the play-thing and the scorn of all around him: he contracts during his drunkenness, ruinous engagements, and loses the management of his affairs: he suffers violent and outrageous observations to escape him, which raise him up enemies, and bring him to repentance: he fids his house with trouble and chagrin; and he concludes by a premature death, or an old age, comfortless and diseased. Q. Does the law of nature absolutely forbid the use of wine? A. No; it only forbids the abuses of it; but as the passage from the proper to the improper use of it, is, for the vulgar, very short and easy, perhaps those legislators, who have forbidden the hse or wme, have, in so doing, rendered a service to mankind. Q. Does the law of nature forbid the use °f certain meats and vegetables, on certain days, or during certain seasons? A. No; it forbids only what is absolutely prejudicial to health: its precepts on this score vary as men do, and compose a very de licate anff important science; for the quality, the quantity, and the combination, of our aliments, have a very great influence, not only on the momentary affections of the mind, but likewise on its habit« and dispositions. A man fasting is not the same as after a repast though of the most sober kind. A glass of wine, a dish of coffee, * produce various degrees of vivacity, activity, disposition to anger ’ sadness, or gaiety : one species of food, because it lies heavy on the stomach, renders a person morose and peevish ; another, which is easily digested, disposes to cheerfulness and love, and produces in us an inclination to be obliging. The use of veo-etables, as they afford little nourishment, render the body weak lndu(;e repose, inactivity, and mildness of character : ‘the use of flesh meats, as they nourish much, and of spirituous liquors, as pey. stimulate the nerves, induce liveliness, restlessness, audacity. �t h e: l a w o f n a t u r e. 17 Now, from these habits of taking different kinds of food, result constitutional habits, which form in the end various temperaments, each distinguished by a peculiar character ; and hence it appears, why in hot countries legislators have promulgated, as laws, rules of diet. Long experience had taught the ancients, that the diet etic science composed a considerable portion of that of morals; among the Egyptians, among the ancient Persians, and even among the Greeks, in their Areopagus, affairs of consequence were never debated on, except' the members of the council were fasting; and it has been remarked, that among every people who deliberate during the warmth of a repast, or during the fumes of digestion, the debates are invariably furious and turbulent, and their results frequently unreasonable and destructive of the pub lic peace. CHAP. VII. Of Co n t in e n c e . Q. Do e s the law of nature prescribe continence ? A. Yes; because moderation, in the enjoyment of the most violent of our sensations, is not only serviceable, but indispensible for the maintenance of our strength and health ; and because it may be demonstrated by a simple calculation, that, in return for a few minutes of privation, we are repaid by long days of vigour of mind and body. Q. How does it forbid libertinism ? A. By the innumerable evils which it entails upon our exist ence, physical and moral. The man who abandons himself to it, becomes enervated and languid ; he is no longer able to attend to his studies or his business; he contracts idle and expensive habits, which diminish his means of livelihood, his reputation and his credit ; his intrigues occasion him embarrassments, cares, quarrels, and law-suits, not to take into the account heavy and grievous diseases; the decrease of his strength by an internal and slow poison ; the stupefaction of his intellect by the exhaus tion of the nervous influence; and, lastly, a premature and infirm old age. Q. Is that consummate chastity, which is so much inculcated in monastic institutions, regarded as a virtue by the natural law! A. No; for such chastity is neither of utility to the society at large where it is prevalent, nor even to the individuals who are rigorously observant of it ; hay, it is demonstrably prejudicial to both. In the first place it is detrimental to society at large, be cause it checks the progress of its population, which is one of its great sources of wealth and power ; and because the persons who �1# THE LAW OF NATURE. ¿evote themselves to a life of celibacy, by confining their views and affections within the narrow sphere of their own existence, for the most part contract a selfish partiality for themselves» which alienates their minds from the general interests of the community. In the second place it is injurious to individuals, because it ex cludes them from a multiplicity of affections and relations, which have a considerable share in the formation of the domestic and social virtues. Again, it frequently happens, from the circum stances of age, temperament and àiet, that absolute continence impairs the health, and lays the foundation of serious diseases, by counteracting those laws by which nature maintains and per petuates the species. Not to mention, that those who are such rigid and enthusiastic advocates for unlimited abstinence in this respect, even w here their sincerity cannot be called in question, totally militate against their own doctrine, which consecrates the law of nature by the well known command, Be fruitful and multiply. Q. Why is chastity considered as a virtue of greater import ance to women than to men ? A. Because the breach of chastity in w omen is attended with far more alarming- and injurious consequences to themselves and to society ; for, exclusively of the afflictions and diseases of every denomination to which they are liable in common with the other sex, they incur all the various inconveniences that precede, ac company, and follow a state of motherhood, of which they run the hazard ; and, if this should chance out of the pale of the law, they became exposed to the scorn and derision of the world, which unavoidably embitters the remaining portion of their ex istence. Again, they are surcharged with the expenses arising from the maintenance and education of children that are unpro tected and without relations ; by which means they become im poverished and distressed both in mind and fortune. In this state, deprived of that freshness and that health in w hich their ‘ charms chiefly consist, carrying about with them an unusual and painful burden, they are less sought after by the men ; they find no solid establishment, they fall into poverty, misery, abasement, and drag on in wretchedness a life of abject unhappiness, Q, Does the law of nature descend to scruple our desires or thoughts ? A. Yes ; because according to the physical Iaw rs of the human body, thoughts and desires awaken the senses, and soon stimulate to action. Moreover, by another law of nature, in the organiza tion of our body, these actions become a species of mechanical want, repeated according to the periods of days or w eeks ; so that at any given epoch the want or desire to perform a given action, �THE LA# OF NATURE. W or to produce a given secretion, always arises: and if this action or secretion are prejudicial to health, the habit becomes destruc tive of life itself Thus desires and thoughts become of real im portance in nature. Q. Ought modesty to be considered as a virtue ? A. Yes; because modesty, considered as a bashful timidity with regard to certain actions, maintains the mind and body in all the habits tending to the good order and self-preservation of the individual. A modest woman is esteemed, sought after, esta blished in all the advantages of fortune, which assure her exis tence, and render it agreeable; while the immodest woman and the prostitute are despised, rejected, and abandoned to misery and disgrace. CHAP. VIII. Of Co u r age and Ac t iv it y . Q. A r e courage, and strength of body and mind, virtues, as- ' cording to the law of nature ? A. Yes; and very important virtues; for they are efficacious and indispensible means of our effecting our preservation and well being. The courageous and strong man repels oppression ; defends his life his, liberty, his property; by his labour he pro cures for himself subsistence in abundance, and enjoys it with tranquility and peace of mind. If any misfortune happens t» him from which his prudence could not guard him, he supports it with firmness and resignation ; and, for this reason, the ancient moralists accounted strength and courage among their four prin * cipal of virtues. Q. Ought weakness and cowardice to be considered as vices ? A. Yes; since it is true that they are connected with a thou sand calamities. The weak and cowardly live in the midst uf eare, and in perpetual agony; their health is undermined by the terror they are under, often an ill-founded one, of danger and at tack; and this terror, which is itself an evil; is not the remedy of any other evil; on the contrary, it renders man a slave to w ho ever is desirous of oppressing him ; and by the subjection and abasement of all his faculties, degrades and corrupts his means of existence, and makes his life depend, as it were, on the will and caprice of other men. Q. But, after what you have said of the influence of aliments, are not eourage and strength, as well as many other virtues, m a great measure the effect of our temperament, or physical consti> tution. �& THE LAW QF NATURE. A. Yes; this is true, to such a degree, that these qualities ar® transmitted to us in our birth, and by our blood, with the elements on which they depend. Repeated and unvarying facts prove, that, in every race of animals, certain physical and moral quali ties, attached to the various individuals of each race, are aug mented or diminished according to the combinations and admix ture which take place between the several races. Q. But if our wills and exertions are not sufficient to procure us these qualities, is it a crime in us to be destitute of them? A. No; it is not a crime, but a misfortune; it is what the ancients call a melancholy fatality; but even in this case, it is still in some measure in our power to acquire them ; for, from the moment we have learnt on what physical elements depend® such and such qualities, we are enabled to prepare for their pro duction, and to excite them to unfold themselves by an able ma nagement of the elements; and in this consists the science of education, which, according as it is directed, perfects or ren ders worse both individuals and entire races, so as to change altogether their nature and inclinations; and this it is which renders so important the knowledge of the laws of nature, by which these operations and changes are- effected with certainty and of necessity. Q. Why do you say that activity is a virtue, according to the law of nature? A. Because the man who labours and employs his time use fully, derives, from so doing, innumerable advantages with respect to his existence. Is he poor ? his labour furnishes him with subsistence: and if, in addition, he is sober, continent, and prudent, he soon acquires many conveniences, and enjoys the sweets of life: his very labour produces in him those virtues; for as long as he continues to employ his mind and his body, he is not affected by inordinate desires; he is free from dullness; he contracts mild and pleasant habits; he augments his strength and his health ; and arrives to an old age of felicity and peace. Q. Are idleness and sloth, then, vices in the order of nature ? A. Yes; and the most pernicious of all vices; for they lead to every other. In idleness and sloth, man remains ignorant, and even loses the knowledge which he had before acquired, falling into all the evils which accompany ignorance and folly. In idle ness and sloth, man, devoured by listless dullness, gives himself up to all the lusts of sense, whose empire, as it encreases and ex tends from day to day, renders him intemperate, gluttonous, luxurious, enervate, cowardly, base, and despicable. The cer tain effects of all which vices are, the ruin of his fortune, the wasting of his health, and the termination of his life in the an guish of disease and poverty. �21 THE EAW OF NATURE, ~ Q. If I understand you, it vtould appear that poverty is a A. No; it is not a vice, but still less is it a virtue : for it is ■much more frequently injurious than useful; it is even common,y the result of vice, or its first occasion ; for every individual vice conducts towards indigence, even to the privation of the neces saries of life; and when a man is in want of the necessaries, lie is on the point of endeavouring to procure them by vicious methods; that is, methods hurtful to society. AH the private virtues, on the contrary, tend to procure for man an abundance of suosistence ;• and when be has more than he can consume, it becomes more easy for him to give it to others, and to perform actions useful to society. Q. Do you look upon riches as a virtue I . A. No; but still less are they a vice. It is their employment only which can be denominated virtuous or vicious, accoidmg as it is useful or hurtful to man and to society. Wealth is an instru ment, whose use and employment only determine its viciousness or virtue. •- . CHAP. IX. Of Cl e a n l in e s s . • z u:« ** > Q. W h y do you rank cleanliness in the class of virtues ? ■ A. Because it is really one of the most important, as it has a powerful influence on the health and preservation of the body. Cleanliness, as well in our garments as nrour dwellings, proven s the pernicious effects of dampness, of bad smells, and ot conta gious vapours arising from substances abandoned to putrify: cleanliness keeps up a free perspiration, renews ihe air, refreshes the blood, and even animates and enlivens the mind. Whence we see thatpersons, attentive to the cleanliness of their persons and their habitations, are in general more healthy, and less ex posed to diseases, than those who live in filth and nastiness; and it may moreover be remarked, that cleanliness brings with it, throughout every part of domestic discipline, habits of order and arrangement, which are among the first and best methods and elements of happiness. Q. Is uncleanliness, then, or filthiness, a real vice ? . A. Yes; as real as drunkenness or as sloth, from which, for the most part, it derives its origin. Uncleanliuess is a secondary, and often a first cause of a multitude of slight disorders, and even of dangerous sicknesses. It is well known in medicine, that it generates the itch, the scald-head, the leprosy, no less cer tainly than the same disorders are produced by corrupted or acrid elements: that it contributes to the contagious power of the 2 D �t he La w o f n a t u r e. plague and of malignant fevers ; that it even gives birth to them in hospitals and prisons; that it occasions rheumatism, by in trusting the skin with dirt, and checking perspiration; not to mention the disgraceful inconvenience of being devoured by in * sects, the unclean appendage of abject misery. J For this cause, the greater part of the ancient legislators have constituted cleanliness, under the title of purity, one of the es * sential dogmas of their several religions ; hence the reason of their driving from society, and subjecting even to corporal pu nishment, those who suffered themselves to be attacked by the diseases which are engendered by uncleanliness ; why they in stated and consecrated the ceremonies of ablution, bathing bap tism, and of purification even by fire, and by the aromatic ef fluvia of incenses, myrrhs, benzoin, &c. So that the whole sys tem of impure taints, all those rites, referring to things clean and unclean, which in after times degenerated into prejudices and abuses, were, in their origin, derived from the judicious observations, made by wise and well-informed men, on the great influence which the cleanliness of the body, both with respect to its clothing and its habitation, possesses over the health, and, by an immediate consequence, over the mind and the moral faculties. Thus all the individual or private virtues have, for their more or less direct and more or less proximate end, the preservation of the man who practices them ; while by the preservation of each individual, they tend to insure that of the family and of society at large, which is nothing more than the united sum of those indivi duals. CHAP. X. Of Do m e s t ic Vir t u e s . Q. W h a t do you mean by domestic virtues ? A . I mean the practice of those actions which ate useful to a family, that is, to a number of persons living under one roof. Q. What are those virtues? A. Economy, parental affection, conjugal love, filial love, bro therly love, and the fulfilment of the reciprocal duties of master and servant. Q. What is economy ? A. Taken in its extensive signification, it is the proper admi nistration of whatever concerns the existence of a family or household; but, as subsistence holds the first rank among these circumstances, the word economy has been restricted to the em ployment of our money in procuring for us the primary grants of life. �THE LAW OF NATURE. 23 ?• Ei' Zr iXinto no us.1«s,exwnce, always A. t5ecaus^ i^ i ¿ance which constitutes real wealth, and possesses a W e? un k * ’ “ f himself and his family all LTTruIvllul a»r —St ; without taking into the that is truly account, ensures to himself resources bV *ndra^ r esee" "Zes: so that himself ‘s and h>s family Hve in a tranquil and pleasant state of ease, which A Yes- for They bring a man at last to the want of the ne cessaries o’f life; ¿e falls into poverty, misery, and aoject dis«rrnrp. r o that even his acquaintance, fearful of being obliged fo restore to him what he has squandered with them or upon Ihem, Ay from him as a debtor from his creditors, and he is left abandoned by all the world. A. Th Ae“Lsiduou7careawZh OTa parent takes to bring up his children in the habit of every action useful to themselves and to 80<Q.tyin what respect is parental tenderness a virtue, with respect as much as the parents, who bring up their children in good habits, lay up for the whole course of their lives those en joyments and aids which are grateful to us at all times, and en sure against old age those supports and consolations which are required by the wants and calamities of that period of life. Q. Is parental affection a common virtue? , , • A No • notwithstanding ail parents make a parade of it, it is a rare virtue; they do not love their children ; they caress them, and they spoil them: what they love in them is, the agency of their wills, the instruments of their power, the trophies of their vanity, the play-thing of their leisure hours. It is not so much the o’ood of their children that they propose, as their submission and obedience : and if amongst children we find so many examnles of filial ingratitude, it is because amongst parents there are so many examples of ignorant and despotic kindness. Q. Why do you say that conjugal love is a vntue. A. Because the concord and union which are the consequences of the affection subsisting between married persons, establish in the bosom of their family a multitude of habits which contribute to its prosperity and conservation : united by the bonds o, marriage, thpy love their household and quit it rarely; they superintend every part of its administration; they attend to the education of their children; they keep up the respectfulness and fidelity of their domestics; they prevent all disorder and dissipation ; and, by the whole of their good conduct, live in ease and reputation ’ while �24 THE LAV/ OF NATURE. those married persons, who have no affection for each other fill cff'dir 'T With ^ua,rrelSiand distress’ excite war a*<»ng their n coudien and among their domestics, and lead them both into every kind of vicious habit; so that each wastes, pillages and 111 t1h?5r sJ7.ral WfyS : their revenues are absorbed without oih^r ? ibiS f° T debiS; tbe (lisc°ntented parties fly each other, and recur to law-suits; and the whole family falls into disn rri"y /d s»race’.and tilc want of the necessaries of life, y. Js adultery a crime according to the law of nature? A. Y es; for it is followed by a numerous train of habits hurtful . to die married persons and totheir family. The wife or the hus• an ’.8!Ven ,UP to the love of strangers, neglect their own dwell ing, uesert it, and divert as much as possible its revenues from tneir right use, spending them on the object of their affectionsnence quarrels, scandal, law-suits, the contempt of children and * servants, the pillage and final ruin of the whole house: not to mention that the adulterous woman commits the most heinous of all robberies, giving heirs to her husband of foreign blood who deprive of their lawful portion his true offspring/ ’ Q. What is filial love 1 1» A. It is on the part of children, the practice of such actions as are useful to themselves and to their parents. Q What motives does the law of nature ¿resent to enforce filial love? J A. Three chief motives 1st, Sentiment; for from our earliest infancy, the affectionate solicitudes of our parents produce in us the mild habits of attachment.—2d, The sense of justicetor, children owe their parents a return, and, as it were, a repa ration, for the troubles, and even for the expences, which thev have occasioned them.—-3d, Personal Interest .♦ for if we act ill towards our progenitors, we offer our own children examples of rebellion and ingratitude, which authorise them to render us the like at any future day. Q. Ought we to understand by filial love, a passive and blind submission ? A. No; but a reasonable submission, founded on an acquaint ance with the mutual rights and duties of parents and of children • rights and duties, without whose observance, their conduct to wards each other can amount to nothing better than disorder. Q. Why is brotherly love a virtue ? A. Because the concord and union which result from the mu tual affection of brethren, establish the power, safety, and pre servation, of families. Brethren in union mutually defend each other from all oppression, assist each other in their mutual wants, support each other under misfortune, and thus secure their com mon existence; while brethren in a state @r disunion, each being abandoned to his personal strength, fall into all the incon-ven * �U5 THE LAW OF NATURE- races of insulation from society, and of i"'1''“'1“1 “cvS Thi« truth was ingeniously expressed by that king ot ftcytnia, lie on h s deatf-W, having called ¿is children round tarn, ordered them to break a bundle of arrows ; when the young men thouoh in full vigour, were notable to accomplish this, lie took the ¿undle in his turn, and, having untied it, brokei eachsepa rate arrow with his fingers. “Behold, said be,the effectot union: united in a body you will be invincible; taken separately you will be broken like reeds. Q. What are the reciprocal duties of masters and servants. ■A. The practice of such actions as are respectively and equi tably useful to each; and here begin the relations of society ; for the rule and measure of these respective actlons briam or equality between the service and the reward, between what the one performs and the other gives, wmch is the funda mental basis of all society. . Thus all the domestic and individual virtues reier more or less immediately, but always without varying, to the physical object Of the amelioration and conservation of man; and are, m this view, precepts resulting from the fundamental law propose y nature in his formation. CHAP. XL Of t he So c ia l Vir t u e s , and of Ju s t ic e . is society ? A. Every aggregate re-union of men living together under thé regulations of a contract, tacit or expressed, for their common preservation. Q. Are the social virtues many in number ? A. Yes; we may count as many as there are actions useful to society; but they may be all reduced,to one principle. Q. What is this fundamental principle ¿ A. Justice; which itself alone comprehends all the social * Q Q. Why do you say that justice is the fundamental, and al“ most only virtue of social life ? A. Because it alone embraces the practice of all those actions which are useful to society; and that every virtue, under the name of charity, humanity, probity, love of country, sincerity, generosity, simplicity of manners, and modesty, are hut vaiied forms, and diversified applications of this axiom, “ Do unto another only that which thou would he snould do unto thee; which is the definition of justice. Q. How does the law of nature ordain just ice ? �26 THE LAW OF NATURE. A. By means of three physical attributes which are inherent in the organization of man. Q. What are these attributes? A. Equality, liberty, property. Q. In what sense is equality a physical attribute of man? A. Because all men, having equally eyes, hands, a mouth, ears, and being alike under the necessity of making use of them tor their life s sake, are by this very fact equally entitled to life, and to the use of the elements which contribute to its support. They are all equal before God. Q. Do you pretend that all men hear, see, and feel equally W a ; ^iat ytey. iave e(lual wants, and equal and tike passions? A. No; for it is a matter of certainty and daily experience that one man is short and another long-sighted; that one eats much and another little; that has one moderate and another violent passions; in a word, that one grown person is weak both in body and mind, while another is strong in both. Q. They are in fact, then, really unequal? A. Yes; in the unfolding of their faculties and powers, but not in the nature and essence of these powers; it is a stuff of the same kind, but whose dimensions are not equal, nor its weight and value the same, with those of some other pieces: our language has no word calculated to express at the same time, sameness of nature and diversity of form and employment. It is a relative equality, and for this reason I said, equal before God, and in the order of nature. Q. Why is liberty called a physical attribute cf man ? A. Because all men possessing senses fitted and sufficient for their preservation, no one having need of the eye of another man in order to see, of his ear to hear, of his mouth to eat, or of his foot to walk; they are all made by this means, naturally indepen dent and free. Noone is of necessity subjected to another ’s rule, nor has right of dominion over him. Q. But if a man is born strong, has he not a natural right to master and rule over him who is born weak ? A. No ; for it is neither with respect to himself a matter of ne cessity, nor a convention between the two ; and in this instance we make improper use of the word right, which in its true sense signifies nothing more than justice, or reciprocal faculties and power. Q. How is property a physical attribute of man ? A. Since every man is formed equal and similar to his fellows, and consequently free and independent, every one is the abso lute master, the entire proprietor of his body, and the products of his labour. Q. How is justice derived from these three attributes ? A. Fiom tbis circumstance; that men being equal, free, and �THE LAW OF NATURE. 97 and derivatives. CHAP. XII. De v e l o pe m e n t of t he So c ia l Vir t u e s O Un f o l d to me how the social virtues are derived from tU law of nature. How is charity, or the lore oj our neighbour, a of" ^ality “d «ciprocity ; for when we do injury to another, we give him the right of doing us in jury in his turn. Thus, by attacking the existence of another, we'make an attack upon our own, in consequence of the law of reciprocity. On the contrary, when we do good to our neigh bour Je have ground and reason to expect an exchange of good, nn eouivalent - and such is the character of all the social virtues, to be^useful to the man who practices them, by the right of reci procity which they communicate to him over those to whom his good oiliceshave been of service. . . Q. Charity then is nothing more than justice A Yes it is nothing more than justice, with this single differ * ence, that strict justice confines itself to the assertion, “Do not to others the evil which thou wouldst not they should do unto thee. and that charity, or the love of our neighbour, goes farthei, even to say, “Do unto others the good which you wish to receive fiom them.” Thus the Gospel, when it said that this precept contain ed all the Law and the Prophets, did no more than announce a precept of the law of nature. . . . 9 Q. Doesit command us toforgive injuries'! A. Yes; in as much as such forgiveness consists with the pre servation of ourselves. ■ it Q. Does it contain the precept of turning the one cheek after beinq smitten on the other 1 . . • . , -.k A. No; for, in the first place, it is not consistent with the «recent which orders us to love our neighbours as ourselves; since, in that case, we should have more love for him who attacks our well-being than for ourselves: 2d. Such a command taken * Equitas, a^ualitas, equilibrium, are all of the same family. \ » �28 t h e i .a w o f n a t u r e . Xv^if0“^6 aniJ rdera!i°-’ ESbut whi?h pmishJ "XTS “10 d°^d to Such ^thefpoXr ‘ofathTXnthnent' rf ,?n in gTatit “<Ie- hearts of X, that they d“ not X usXedl'c f “! kindness, if ac—i Jwith indXeti „ ha "bX™ measure—that of justice. 7 Out 0 e Q. /s alms giving a virtuous action ?A. Yes; when conducted according io the same rule; otherwise it degenerates into imprudence and vice, in as much asi en courages indolence, which is hurtful both to the beXr and m the society. No one has a right to enjoy the good or labour of an O heDoL1U°7 renderin / an eqwyalent by hifown labour. Q. Does the law of nature consider as virtues, hove and faith which are usually conjoined with charity ? P * J > A. No; for they are ideas not founded'on realities • and if anv good effects result from them, these are rather to’the profit of ftose who have not tmbibed such ideas than to those who have ■ are the vi»± of "d perhapS,’ ai,!o"’ab!e to s^ ’ iiiai ■>»<! W e and ciXs PeS’ t0 the adrante8“ of Q. Does the law of nature prescribe probity ? A. Yes ; for probity is nothing more than a respect paid to our own rights, through the medium of the rights of others a re spect derived from a prudent and well made calculation of our own niterests, compared with those of others interests and lights of the social state, demand suchdiaht and °J t,mSS’ - ‘° 4 a mfrkoJ enlarged and correct mind? A. Yes; for the man of probity almost always neglects sX JhTltb * the S-ake °f °ne which is f“iure T while, on for ¿a c G knaV7S Willin ^ t0 iose a interest to come for tbe sake of some trifling one which is present. w /S ’ ’ lS a °ffalse ^dgement and narrow- sp^uhtors "Aw a FT may b! leHned t0 be ^' norani or Polish speculators, for they know not their own interests; and though they affect wariness and cunning, their artifices seldom fail to ex . �THE LAW OF NATL RE. 29 pose them and make them known for what they are: to deprive them of the confidence and esteem of others, and of all the ad vantages which might thence result to their social and physical existence. They neither live in peace with themselves nor with others; and, incessantly alarmed by their conscience and their enemies, they enjoy no other real happiness than that of escaping from the executioner. Q. Does the law of nature forbid theft f A. Yes; for the man who steals from another, grants him the liberty to steal in his turn ; hence no security in property, nor even in the means of self-preservation. Thus, the man who does injury to another, by a species of re-action is hurt himself. Q. Does it forbid the inclination io theft. A. Yes; for this inclination naturally leads to action: hence the reason of considering- envy as a sin. Q. How does it forbid murder ? A. By the most powerful motives addressed to the desire of self-preservation: for, 1st, The man who attacks another, exposes himself to the risk of being killed, according to the law of selfdefence: 2d, If he kills his opponent, he gives an equal right, founded on the same law, to the relations and friends of the de ceased, and even to the whole community, of killing him, and his life is no longer in security. Q. How can a man, according to the law of nature, repair Iany injury which he has committed ? A. By conferring a proportionable benefit upon those whom he has injured. Q. Does this law allow him to repair it by prayers, vows, pffevxnys to God, fastings, or mortifications ? I F A, No! for none of these things have any relation to the action which is meant to be atoned for: they neither restore to him who baa been robbed what he has lost, whether it be property or re putation ; nor life to him who has been deprived of it: consequently they fail with regard to justice; they constitute an ille gitimate contract, by which one man sells to another a good of which he himself is not possessed: they tend to a deprivation of morals, as they embolden men to commit every species of cr me, in the hope of expiationand they have been ’the real sources of all those evils which have constantly tormented every nation, whose institution permitted these expiatory practices. ’ Q. Is sincerity enjoined by the law of nature? A. Yes; for lying-, perfidy, and perjury, excite amonogt men distrust, dissention, hatred, revenge, and a multitude of evils which tend to the destruction of society; whilst sincerity mid good faith establish- confidence, concord, peace, and the other fnfinrte advantages which are the necessary result feUch < happy state of things. 2 E �THE 1AW OF NATURE. & Q, Does it prescribe mildness and modesty ? .. A Yes: for an assuming and rude deportment, while it alien ates’ from us the hearts of other men, infuses into them a dispo sition to do us disservice: ostentation and vanity, by wounding their self-love and exciting their jealousy, prevent us from at taining the point of real utility. -a ' ' Q. Does it prescribe humility as a virtue? A? No; for there, is a natural propensity m the human heart to fehl a secret contempt for every thing which conveys to it the idea of weakness; and, by abasing ourselves, encourage m Others pride and oppression : we should hold the balance with an CVQ1. h yo« have classed among the social virtues, simplicity of manners’ what do you mean by that expression ? A. I mean the confining our wants and desires to what is really useful for the existence of the individual and his fannly: that is to say, the man of simple manners has few wants, and is content with little. . Q. How is this virtue recommended to us f h ■ A. By the numerous advantages which i| bestows both upon the individual and upon society at large; for the man ho has few wants, liberates himself at once from n crowd of cares, troubles, and toils ; avoids a number of d»put« which arise from the eager desire of gam ; is free from .t.e cares nf -nnhition the inquietudes of possession, and the fears of loss, meedm»-every wherewith more than sufficient for his wants, he rich man- always content with what he has, he is han-v a a small expence; and the world at large, fearing no * rSXVp from bim.^ suffer him to enjoy tmnqu.hty, and are db- ““ simplicity were extended to a whole penv f pie, it secures abundance to them ; every thing w lcn t ey o immediately consume becomes to them a source of trade ana com Xe on very great extent; they labour, they manufacture and «li their productions to greaterr advantage than others, and nttntn the summit both of external and internal prospe. y. * Q. ITW vice is the direct opposite of this virt . : Q- * i th individual and fx society at large? thnt ,t mav be said to include A. Yes; ana J“ .s,uc7 a“ ,C' f ' (¿e raan wbo^niakes many things in it the Beed®.oia' 1 ‘ ’¡^«^5 et the same time upon himself “¡Tie care“ and submits to all the means of acquiring them, wbe.1 Cr- “ <>r un-usl. -Helms already one enjoyment, be tXU “ , in tbe midst-of su^rfluities, be V never "S .«mmompus hnUtotipa will not satisfy him,-he »e¥ have ? �TUB LAW OF MATURE. 81 superb hotel; he is have rare and costly mea s; he ^t bave s p horseg> pensive apparel, a^. ftfe lo^fst Ube con&tant Jy at the g-aming table carnages, and women . he mu k i W to support these exOTatplaceSOf putae Xowy Requisite, and ¿very mode of i= A® ."i i= ai—si £ - i r Jnmseif ruined. . of luxury upon a nation, it Again, rt we consmer the effects olux y V conseqUeBce produces the .same ravages upon a large, sc, , _ „ If its consuming within itself all its produc ions It . poorm the midst of abundance ; it has n oth in gproduce at a dear manufactures at a heavy expenc , which it imports: rate, and becomes a tributary for every thing which it it loses its respectability, its strength and its meansi ■ e cxs^^~b::isd£Xd. XsFor:ty:S ‘,,ju™s or have the disposition to do so ; and hence' ar ‘se and habits of usurpation, which compose wh ^ me corruption, or intestine war between the memhe * s society Luxury produces rapacity, rapacity the invasion of othe by violence or by Lach of public faith: from luxury are derived X corruption of the judge, the venality o the tha “ honesty of the husband, the prostitution o, the w J P n? eita!fCth ’ elty, filial ingratitude, the avarice of the master, the theft ° servant, the robbery of public officers of got era , aJj f,j| ice of the legislator, lying, perfidy, perjury, assassination, end a11 the disorders which destroy .society; so that the aiiv.qn » . had an accurate perception of truth, when they declared.Jiat the social virtues were founded upon a aunplici y of ' a“n ' ‘ ’ a a limitation of want«, and contentment with a little, and wo m y take as a certain scale of the virtues or vices of a “a”>,heP™ portion which his expenses bear tohis revenue, and calcu ate from his demands for money, the extent of his probity, his mugntym fulfilling his engagements, his devotion to the public cause, a the sincerity of his attachment to Lis country (patriej. Q. What do you mean by the word country (patrie) . A. I understand by that word a community oj citizens, who, united by fraternal sentiments and reciprocal wants, unite their individual forces for the purposes of general security, the re-ac tion of which upon each of them assumes the beneficial and pro tecting character of paternity (patermte). In society, the mem bers of it form a bank of interest : m a cormti y (jpatrie,) iey �32 THE LAW OF NATURE. constitute a family of tender attachments; by means of which, charity and the love of our neighbour are extended to a whole nation. Now, as charity cannot be separated from justice, no member of this family can pretend to the enjoyment of any ad vantages, except in proportion to his exertions; if he consume more than his proportion, he of course encroaches upon another: and he can only attain the means of being generous or disinter ested, in proportion as his expences are confined within the limits of his acquisitions or possessions. Q. What is your deduction from these principles? A. I conclude, from these principles, that all the social virtues consist in the performance of actions useful both to society and to the individual: That they may all be traced to the physical object of the pre servation of man : That nature, having implanted in our bosom the necessity of this preservation, imposes all the consequences arising from it as a law, and prohibits as a crime whatever counteracts the operation of this principle: That we have within us the germ of all virtue and of all perfec tion : that we have only to attend to the means of exciting it into action : That we are happy in exact proportion to the obedience we yield to those laws which nature has established with a view to our preservation: That all wisdom, all perfection, all law, all virtue, all philoso phy, consist in the practice of the following axioms, which are founded upon our natural organization : Preserve thyself. , Instruct thyself. Moderate thyself. Live for thy fellow-creatures, is order that they may live for thee. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The ruins: or a survey of the revolutions of empires. With notes historical, geographical, and explanatory. To which is annexed The Law of Nature Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource de Volney, Constantin Francois Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: viii, [4], 32 p. : ill. (astrological chart and map) ; 21 cm. Notes: Originally published: London : Thomas Tegg, 1811 (from KVK (OCLC WorldCat). Marginal annotation in ink p. 77. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available T. Davison Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1819 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5772 Subject The topic of the resource Ancient Philosophy Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The ruins: or a survey of the revolutions of empires. With notes historical, geographical, and explanatory. To which is annexed The Law of Nature), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English History-Philosophy NSS Philosophy Religions-Early works to 1800 Revolutions-Early works to 1800