Introduction

Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

As a long and violent abuse of power, is generally the Means of calling the right of it in question (and in matters too which might never have been thought of, had not the Sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry) and as the K— of England had undertaken in his own Right, to support the Parliament in what he calls Theirs, and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpation of either.

In the following sheets, the author hath studiously avoided every thing which is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof. The wise, and the worthy, need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious, or unfriendly, will cease of themselves unless too much pains are bestowed upon their conversion.

The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested. The laying a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censure, is the

AUTHOR.



PS. The Publication of this new Edition hath been delayed, with a View of taking notice (had it been necessary) of any Attempt to refute the Doctrine of Independence: As no Answer hath yet appeared, it is now presumed that none will, the Time needful for getting such a Performance ready for the Public being considerably past.

Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the Doctrine itself, not the Man. Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any Party, and under no sort of Influence public or private, but the influence of reason and principle.

Of the Origin and Design of Government in General. With Concise Remarks on the English Constitution

Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamities are heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.

In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end of government, let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest, they will then represent the first peopling of any country, or of the world. In this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought. A thousand motives will excite them thereto, the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and his mind so unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek assistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires the same. Four or five united would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness, but one man might labour out the common period of life without accomplishing any thing; when he had felled his timber he could not remove it, nor erect it after it was removed; hunger in the mean time would urge him from his work, and every different want call him a different way. Disease, nay even misfortune would be death, for though neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from living, and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said to perish than to die.

Thus necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our newly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessings of which, would supersede, and render the obligations of law and government unnecessary while they remained perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but heaven is impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably happen, that in proportion as they surmount the first difficulties of emigration, which bound them together in a common cause, they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other; and this remissness, will point out the necessity, of establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue.

Some convenient tree will afford them a State-House, under the branches of which, the whole colony may assemble to deliberate on public matters. It is more than probable that their first laws will have the title only of REGULATIONS, and be enforced by no other penalty than public disesteem. In this first parliament every man, by natural right will have a seat.

But as the colony increases, the public concerns will increase likewise, and the distance at which the members may be separated, will render it too inconvenient for all of them to meet on every occasion as at first, when their number was small, their habitations near, and the public concerns few and trifling. This will point out the convenience of their consenting to leave the legislative part to be managed by a select number chosen from the whole body, who are supposed to have the same concerns at stake which those have who appointed them, and who will act in the same manner as the whole body would act were they present. If the colony continue increasing, it will become necessary to augment the number of the representatives, and that the interest of every part of the colony may be attended to, it will be found best to divide the whole into convenient parts, each part sending its proper number; and that the elected might never form to themselves an interest separate from the electors, prudence will point out the propriety of having elections often; because as the elected might by that means return and mix again with the general body of the electors in a few months, their fidelity to the public will be secured by the prudent reflection of not making a rod for themselves. And as this frequent interchange will establish a common interest with every part of the community, they will mutually and naturally support each other, and on this (not on the unmeaning name of king) depends the strength of government, and the happiness of the governed.

Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. freedom and security. And however our eyes may be dazzled with snow, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and of reason will say, it is right.

I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered, and the easier repaired when disordered; and with this maxim in view, I offer a few remarks on the so much boasted constitution of England. That it was noble for the dark and slavish times in which it was erected is granted. When the world was overrun with tyranny the least remove therefrom was a glorious rescue. But that it is imperfect, subject to convulsions, and incapable of producing what it seems to promise, is easily demonstrated.

Absolute governments (tho' the disgrace of human nature) have this advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springs, know likewise the remedy, and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures. But the constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together without being able to discover in which part the fault lies, some will say in one and some in another, and every political physician will advise a different medicine.

I know it is difficult to get over local or long standing prejudices, yet if we will suffer ourselves to examine the component parts of the English constitution, we shall find them to be the base remains of two ancient tyrannies, compounded with some new republican materials.

First. — The remains of monarchical tyranny in the person of the king.

Secondly. — The remains of aristocratical tyranny in the persons of the peers.

Thirdly. — The new republican materials, in the persons of the commons, on whose virtue depends the freedom of England.

The two first, by being hereditary, are independent of the people; wherefore in a constitutional sense they contribute nothing towards the freedom of the state.

To say that the constitution of England is a union of three powers reciprocally checking each other, is farcical, either the words have no meaning, or they are flat contradictions.

To say that the commons is a check upon the king, presupposes two things.

First. — That the king is not to be trusted without being looked after, or in other words, that a thirst for absolute power is the natural disease of monarchy.

Secondly. — That the commons, by being appointed for that purpose, are either wiser or more worthy of confidence than the crown.

But as the same constitution which gives the commons a power to check the king by withholding the supplies, gives afterwards the king a power to check the commons, by empowering him to reject their other bills; it again supposes that the king is wiser than those whom it has already supposed to be wiser than him. A mere absurdity!

There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgement is required. The state of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly; wherefore the different parts, unnaturally opposing and destroying each other, prove the whole character to be absurd and useless.

Some writers have explained the English constitution thus; the king, say they, is one, the people another; the peers are an house in behalf of the king; the commons in behalf of the people; but this hath all the distinctions of an house divided against itself; and though the expressions be pleasantly arranged, yet when examined they appear idle and ambiguous; and it will always happen, that the nicest construction that words are capable of, when applied to the description of some thing which either cannot exist, or is too incomprehensible to be within the compass of description, will be words of sound only, and though they may amuse the ear, they cannot inform the mind, for this explanation includes a previous question, viz. How came the king by a power which the people are afraid to trust, and always obliged to check? Such a power could not be the gift of a wise people, neither can any power, which needs checking, be from God; yet the provision, which the constitution makes, supposes such a power to exist.

But the provision is unequal to the task; the means either cannot or will not accomplish the end, and the whole affair is a felo de se; for as the greater weight will always carry up the less, and as all the wheels of a machine are put in motion by one, it only remains to know which power in the constitution has the most weight, for that will govern; and though the others, or a part of them, may clog, or, as the phrase is, check the rapidity of its motion, yet so long as they cannot stop it, their endeavours will be ineffectual; the first moving power will at last have its way, and what it wants in speed is supplied by time.

That the crown is this overbearing part in the English constitution needs not be mentioned, and that it derives its whole consequence merely from being the giver of places and pensions is self-evident, wherefore, though we have been wise enough to shut and lock a door against absolute monarchy, we at the same time have been foolish enough to put the crown in possession of the key.

The prejudice of Englishmen, in favour of their own government by king, lords, and commons, arises as much or more from national pride than reason. Individuals are undoubtedly safer in England than in some other countries, but the will of the king is as much the LAW of the land in Britain as in France, with this difference, that instead of proceeding directly from his mouth, it is handed to the people under the most formidable shape of an act of parliament. For the fate of Charles the First, hath only made kings more subtle — not more just.

Wherefore, laying aside all national pride and prejudice in favour of modes and forms, the plain truth is, that it is wholly owing to the constitution of the people, and not to the constitution of the government that the crown is not as oppressive in England as in Turkey.

An inquiry into the constitutional errors in the English form of government is at this time highly necessary; for as we are never in a proper condition of doing justice to others, while we continue under the influence of some leading partiality, so neither are we capable of doing it to ourselves while we remain fettered by any obstinate prejudice. And as a man, who is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge of a wife, so any prepossession in favour of a rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning a good one.

Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession

Mankind being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could only be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance; the distinctions of rich, and poor, may in a great measure be accounted for, and that without having recourse to the harsh, ill-sounding names of oppression and avarice. Oppression is often the consequence, but seldom or never the means of riches; and though avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.

But there is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is, the distinction of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS. Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth inquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.

In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology, there were no kings; the consequence of which was there were no wars; it is the pride of kings which throws mankind into confusion. Holland without a king hath enjoyed more peace for this last century than any of the monarchial governments in Europe. Antiquity favours the same remark; for the quiet and rural lives of the first patriarchs hath a happy something in them, which vanishes away when we come to the history of Jewish royalty.

Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens paid divine honours to their deceased kings, and the Christian world hath improved on the plan by doing the same to their living ones. How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendour is crumbling into dust.

As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the equal rights of nature, so neither can it be defended on the authority of scripture; for the will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproves of government by kings. All anti-monarchial parts of scripture have been very smoothly glossed over in monarchial governments, but they undoubtedly merit the attention of countries which have their governments yet to form. 'Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's' is the scriptural doctrine of courts, yet it is no support of monarchial government, for the Jews at that time were without a king, and in a state of vassalage to the Romans.

Near three thousand years passed away from the Mosaic account of the creation, till the Jews under a national delusion requested a king. Till then their form of government (except in extraordinary cases, where the Almighty interposed) was a kind of republic administered by a judge and the elders of the tribes. Kings they had none, and it was held sinful to acknowledge any being under that title but the Lord of Hosts. And when a man seriously reflects on the idolatrous homage which is paid to the persons of kings, he need not wonder, that the Almighty, ever jealous of his honour, should disapprove of a form of government which so impiously invades the prerogative of heaven.

Monarchy is ranked in scripture as one of the sins of the Jews, for which a curse in reserve is denounced against them. The history of that transaction is worth attending to.

The children of Israel being oppressed by the Midianites, Gideon marched against them with a small army, and victory, thro' the divine interposition, decided in his favour. The Jews, elate with success, and attributing it to the generalship of Gideon, proposed making him a king, saying, Rule thou over us, thou and thy son and thy son's son. Here was temptation in its fullest extent; not a kingdom only, but an hereditary one, but Gideon in the piety of his soul replied, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you, THE LORD SHALL RULE OVER You. Words need not be more explicit; Gideon doth not decline the honour but denieth their right to give it; neither doth he compliment them with invented declarations of his thanks, but in the positive style of a prophet charges them with disaffection to their proper sovereign, the King of Heaven.

About one hundred and thirty years after this, they fell again into the same error. The hankering which the Jews had for the idolatrous customs of the Heathens, is something exceedingly unaccountable; but so it was, that laying hold of the misconduct of Samuel's two sons, who were entrusted with some secular concerns, they came in an abrupt and clamorous manner to Samuel, saying, Behold thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways, now make us a king to judge us like all the other nations. And here we cannot but observe that their motives were bad, viz. that they might be like unto other nations, i.e. the Heathens, whereas their true glory laid in being as much unlike them as possible. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us; and Samuel prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee, for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, THAT I SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even unto this day; wherewith they have forsaken me and served other Gods; so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice, howbeit, protest solemnly unto them and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them, i.e. not of any particular king, but the general manner of the kings of the earth, whom Israel was so eagerly copying after. And notwithstanding the great distance of time and difference of manners, the character is still in fashion, And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people, that asked of him a king. And he said, This shall be the manner of the king that shall reign over you; he will take your sons and appoint them for himself for his chariots, and to be his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariots (this description agrees with the present mode of impressing men) and he will appoint him captains over thousands and captains over fifties, and will set them to ear his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots; and he will take your daughters to be confectionaries and to be cooks and to be bakers (this describes the expense and luxury as well as the oppression of kings) and he will take your fields and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants; and he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give them to his officers and to his servants (by which we see that bribery, corruption, and favouritism are the standing vices of kings) and he will take the tenth of your men servants, and your maid servants, and your goodliest young men and your asses, and put them to his work; and he will take the tenth of your sheep, and ye shall be his servants, and ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen, AND THE LORD WILL NOT HEAR YOU IN THAT DAY. This accounts for the continuation of monarchy; neither do the characters of the few good kings which have lived since, either sanctify the title, or blot out the sinfulness of the origin; the high encomium given of David takes no notice of him officially as a king, but only as a man after God's own heart. Nevertheless the People refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay, but we will have a king over us, that we may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and go out before us and fight our battles. Samuel continued to reason with them, but to no purpose; he set before them their ingratitude, but all would not avail; and seeing them fully bent on their folly, he cried out, I will call unto the Lord, and he shall send thunder and rain (which then was a punishment, being the time of wheat harvest) that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, IN ASKING YOU A KING. So Samuel called unto the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God that we die not, for WE HAVE ADDED UNTO OUR SINS THIS EVIL, TO ASK A KING. These portions of scripture are direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal construction. That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchial government is true, or the scripture is false. And a man hath good reason to believe that there is as much of king-craft, as priest-craft in withholding the scripture from the public in Popish countries. For monarchy in every instance is the Popery of government.

To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and though himself might deserve some decent degree of honours of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.

Secondly, as no man at first could possess any other public honours than were bestowed upon him, so the givers of those honours could have no power to give away the right of posterity, and though they might say 'We choose you for our head', they could not, without manifest injustice to their children, say 'that your children and your children's children shall reign over ours for ever'. Because such an unwise, unjust, unnatural compact might (perhaps) in the next succession put them under the government of a rogue or a fool. Most wise men, in their private sentiments, have ever treated hereditary right with contempt; yet it is one of those evils, which when once established is not easily removed; many submit from fear, others from superstition, and the more powerful part shares with the king the plunder of the rest.

This is supposing the present race of the kings in the world to have had an honourable origin; whereas it is more than probable, that could we take off the dark covering of antiquity, and trace them to their first rise, that we should find the first of them nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose savage manners or pre-eminence in subtlety obtained him the title of chief among plunderers; and who by increasing in power, and extending his depredations, over-awed the quiet and defenceless to purchase their safety by frequent contributions. Yet his electors could have no idea of giving hereditary right to his descendants, because such a perpetual exclusion of themselves was incompatible with the free and unrestrained principles they professed to live by. Wherefore, hereditary succession in the early ages of monarchy could not take place as a matter of claim, but as something casual or complimental; but as few or no records were extant in those days, and traditionary history stuffed with fables, it was very easy, after the lapse of a few generations, to trump up some superstitious tale, conveniently timed, Mahomet like, to cram hereditary right down the throats of the vulgar. Perhaps the disorders which threatened, or seemed to threaten on the decease of a leader and the choice of a new one (for elections among ruffians could not be very orderly) induced many at first to favour hereditary pretensions; by which means it happened, as it hath happened since, that what at first was submitted to as a convenience, was afterwards claimed as a right.

England, since the conquest, hath known some few good monarchs, but groaned beneath a much larger number of bad ones, yet no man in his senses can say that their claim under William the Conqueror is a very honourable one. A French bastard landing with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original. — It certainly hath no divinity in it. However, it is needless to spend much time in exposing the folly of hereditary right, if there are any so weak as to believe it, let them promiscuously worship the ass and lion, and welcome. I shall neither copy their humility, nor disturb their devotion.

Yet I should be glad to ask how they suppose kings came at first? The question admits but of three answers, viz. either by lot, by election, or by usurpation. If the first king was taken by lot, it establishes a precedent for the next, which excludes hereditary succession. Saul was by lot yet the succession was not hereditary, neither does it appear from that transaction there was any intention it ever should. If the first king of any country was by election, that likewise establishes a precedent for the next; for to say, that the right of all future generations is taken away, by the act of the first electors, in their choice not only of a king, but of a family of kings for ever, hath no parallel in or out of scripture but the doctrine of original sin, which supposes the free will of all men lost in Adam; and from such comparison, and it will admit of no other, hereditary succession can derive no glory. For as in Adam all sinned, and as in the first electors all men obeyed; as in the one all mankind were subjected to Satan, and in the other to Sovereignty; as our innocence was lost in the first, and our authority in the last; and as both disable us from re-assuming some former state and privilege, it unanswerably follows that original sin and hereditary succession are parallels. Dishonourable rank! Inglorious connection! Yet the most subtle sophist cannot produce a juster simile.

As to usurpation, no man will be so hardy as to defend it; and that William the Conqueror was an usurper is a fact not to be contradicted. The plain truth is, that the antiquity of English monarchy will not bear looking into.

But it is not so much the absurdity as the evil of hereditary succession which concerns mankind. Did it ensure a race of good and wise men it would have the seal of divine authority, but as it opens a door to the foolish, the wicked, and the improper, it hath in it the nature of oppression. Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.

Another evil which attends hereditary succession is, that the throne is subject to be possessed by a minor at any age; all which time the regency, acting under the cover of a king, have every opportunity and inducement to betray their trust. The same national misfortune happens, when a king worn out with age and infirmity, enters the last stage of human weakness. In both these cases the public becomes a prey to every miscreant, who can tamper successfully with the follies either of age or infancy.

The most plausible plea, which hath ever been offered in favour of hereditary succession, is, that it preserves a nation from civil wars; and were this true, it would be weighty; whereas, it is the most barefaced falsity ever imposed upon mankind. The whole history of England disowns the fact. Thirty kings and two minors have reigned in that distracted kingdom since the conquest, in which time there have been (including the Revolution) no less than eight civil wars and nineteen rebellions. Wherefore instead of making for peace, it makes against it, and destroys the very foundation it seems to stand on.

The contest for monarchy and succession, between the houses of York and Lancaster, laid England in a scene of blood for many years. Twelve pitched battles, besides skirmishes and sieges, were fought between Henry and Edward. Twice was Henry prisoner to Edward, who in his turn was prisoner to Henry. And so uncertain is the fate of war and the temper of a nation, when nothing but personal matters are the ground of a quarrel, that Henry was taken in triumph from a prison to a palace, and Edward obliged to fly from a palace to a foreign land; yet, as sudden transitions of temper are seldom lasting, Henry in his turn was driven from the throne, and Edward recalled to succeed him. The parliament always following the strongest side.

This contest began in the reign of Henry the Sixth, and was not entirely extinguished till Henry the Seventh, in whom the families were united. Including a period of 67 years, viz. from 1422 to 1489.

In short, monarchy and succession have laid (not this or that kingdom only) but the world in blood and ashes. 'Tis a form of government which the word of God bears testimony against, and blood will attend it.

If we inquire into the business of a king, we shall find that in some countries they have none; and after sauntering away their lives without pleasure to themselves or advantage to the nation, withdraw from the scene, and leave their successors to tread the same idle round. In absolute monarchies the whole weight of business civil and military, lies on the king; the children of Israel in their request for a king, urged this plea 'that he may judge us, and go out before us and fight our battles'. But in countries where he is neither a judge nor a general, as in E—d, a man would be puzzled to know what is his business.

The nearer any government approaches to a republic the less business there is for a king. It is somewhat difficult to find a proper name for the government of E—. Sir William Meredith calls it a republic; but in its present state it is unworthy of the name, because the corrupt influence of the crown, by having all the places in its disposal, hath so effectually swallowed up the power, and eaten out the virtue of the house of commons (the republican part in the constitution) that the government of England is nearly as monarchical as that of France or Spain. Men fall out with names without understanding them. For it is the republican and not the monarchical part of the constitution of England which Englishmen glory in, viz. the liberty of choosing an house of commons from out of their own body — and it is easy to see that when the republican virtue fails, slavery ensues. Why is the constitution of E—d sickly, but because monarchy hath poisoned the republic, the crown bath engrossed the commons?

In England a k— hath little more to do than to make war and give away places; which in plain terms, is to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears. A pretty business indeed for a man to be allowed eight hundred thousand sterling a year for, and worshipped into the bargain! Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.

Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs

In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves; that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day.

Volumes have been written on the subject of the struggle between England and America. Men of all ranks have embarked in the controversy, from different motives, and with various designs; but all have been ineffectual, and the period of debate is closed. Arms, as the last resource, decide the contest; the appeal was the choice of the king, and the continent hath accepted the challenge.

It hath been reported of the late Mr Pelham (who tho' an able minister was not without his faults) that on his being attacked in the house of commons, on the score, that his measures were only of a temporary kind, replied, 'They will last my time.' Should a thought so fatal and unmanly possess the colonies in the present contest, the name of ancestors will be remembered by future generations with detestation.

The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the affair of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent — of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe. 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honour. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters.

By referring the matter from argument to arms, a new era for politics is struck; a new method of thinking hath arisen. All plans, proposals, &c. prior to the nineteenth of April, i.e. to the commencement of hostilities, are like the almanacs of the last year; which, though proper then, are superseded and useless now. Whatever was advanced by the advocates on either side of the question then, terminated in one and the same point, viz. a union with Great Britain; the only difference between the parties was the method of effecting it; the one proposing force, the other friendship; but it hath so far happened that the first hath failed, and the second hath withdrawn her influence.

As much hath been said of the advantages of reconciliation, which, like an agreeable dream, hath passed away and left us as we were, it is but right, that we should examine the contrary side of the argument, and inquire into some of the many material injuries which these colonies sustain, and always will sustain, by being connected with, and dependent on Great Britain. To examine that connection and dependence, on the principles of nature and common sense, to see what we have to trust to, if separated, and what we are to expect, if dependent.

I have heard it asserted by some, that as America hath flourished under her former connection with Great Britain, that the same connection is necessary towards her future happiness, and will always have the same effect. Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of argument. We may as well assert, that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat; or that the first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty. But even this is admitting more than is true, for I answer roundly, that America would have flourished as much, and probably much more, had no European power had any thing to do with her. The commerce by which she hath enriched herself are the necessaries of life, and will always have a market while eating is the custom of Europe.

But she has protected us, say some. That she hath engrossed us is true, and defended the continent at our expense as well as her own is admitted, and she would have defended Turkey from the same motive, viz. the sake of trade and dominion.

Alas, we have been long led away by ancient prejudices, and made large sacrifices to superstition. We have boasted the protection of Great Britain, without considering, that her motive was interest not attachment; that she did not protect us from our enemies on our account, but from her enemies on her own account, from those who had no quarrel with us on any other account, and who will always be our enemies on the same account. Let Britain waive her pretensions to the continent, or the continent throw off the dependence, and we should be at peace with France and Spain were they at war with Britain. The miseries of Hanover last war ought to warn us against connections.

It hath lately been asserted in parliament, that the colonies have no relation to each other but through the parent country, i.e. that Pennsylvania and the Jerseys, and so on for the rest, are sister colonies by the way of England; this is certainly a very roundabout way of proving relationship, but it is the nearest and only true way of proving enemyship, if I may so call it. France and Spain never were, nor perhaps ever will be our enemies as Americans, but as our being the subjects of Great Britain.

But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families; wherefore the assertion, if true, turns to her reproach; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so, and the phrase parent or mother country hath been Jesuitically adopted by the — and his parasites, with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds. Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.

In this extensive quarter of the globe, we forget the narrow limits of three hundred and sixty miles (the extent of England) and carry our friendship on a larger scale; we claim brotherhood with every European Christian, and triumph in the generosity of the sentiment.

It is pleasant to observe by what regular gradations we surmount the force of local prejudice, as we enlarge our acquaintance with the world. A man born in any town in England divided into parishes, will naturally associate most with his fellow parishioners (because their interests in many cases will be common) and distinguish him by the name of neighbour; if he meet him but a few miles from home, he drops the narrow idea of a street, and salutes him by the name of townsman; if he travels out of the county, and meet him in any other, he forgets the minor divisions of street and town, and calls him countryman, i.e. countyman; but if in their foreign excursions they should associate in France or any other part of Europe, their local remembrance would be enlarged into that of Englishmen. And by a just parity of reasoning, all Europeans meeting in America, or any other quarter of the globe, are countrymen; for England, Holland, Germany, or Sweden, when compared with the whole, stand in the same places on the larger scale, which the divisions of street, town, and county do on the smaller ones; distinctions too limited for continental minds. Not one third of the inhabitants, even of this province, are of English descent. Wherefore I reprobate the phrase of parent or mother country applied to England only, as being false, selfish, narrow and ungenerous.

But admitting that we were all of English descent, what does it amount to? Nothing. Britain, being now an open enemy, extinguishes every other name and title: And to say that reconciliation is our duty, is truly farcical. The first king of England, of the present line (William the Conqueror) was a Frenchman, and half the peers of England are descendants from the same country; wherefore by the same method of reasoning, England ought to be governed by France.

Much hath been said of the united strength of Britain and the colonies, that in conjunction they might bid defiance to the world. But this is mere presumption; the fate of war is uncertain, neither do the expressions mean any thing; for this continent would never suffer itself to be drained of inhabitants to support the British arms in either Asia, Africa, or Europe.

Besides, what have we to do with setting the world at defiance? Our plan is commerce, and that, well attended to, will secure us the peace and friendship of all Europe; because it is the interest of all Europe to have America a free port. Her trade will always be a protection, and her barrenness of gold and silver secure her from invaders.

I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation, to shew, a single advantage that this continent can reap, by being connected with Great Britain. I repeat the challenge, not a single advantage is derived. Our corn will fetch its price in any market in Europe, and our imported goods must be paid for buy them where we will.

But the injuries and disadvantages we sustain by that connection, are without number; and our duty to mankind at large, as well as to ourselves, instruct us to renounce the alliance: Because, any submission to, or dependence on Great Britain, tends directly to involve this continent in European wars and quarrels; and sets us at variance with nations, who would otherwise seek our friendship, and against whom, we have neither anger nor complaint. As Europe is our market for trade, we ought to form no partial connection with any part of it. It is the true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions, which she never can do, while by her dependence on Britain, she is made the make-weight in the scale of British politics.

Europe is too thickly planted with kingdoms to be long at peace, and whenever a war breaks out between England and any foreign power, the trade of America goes to ruin, because of her connection with Britain. The next war may not turn out like the last, and should it not, the advocates for reconciliation now will be wishing for separation then, because, neutrality in that case, would be a safer convoy than a man of war. Every thing that is right or natural pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, 'TIS TIME TO PART. Even the distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and America, is a strong and natural proof, that the authority of the one, over the other, was never the design of Heaven. The time likewise at which the continent was discovered, adds weight to the argument, and the manner in which it was peopled encreases the force of it. The reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety.

The authority of Great Britain over this continent, is a form of government, which sooner or later must have an end: And a serious mind can draw no true pleasure by looking forward, under the painful and positive conviction, that what he calls 'the present constitution' is merely temporary. As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover the line of our duty rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and fix our station a few years farther into life; that eminence will present a prospect, which a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our sight.

Though I would carefully avoid giving unnecessary offence, yet I am inclined to believe, that all those who espouse the doctrine of reconciliation, may be included within the following descriptions. Interested men, who are not to be trusted; weak men who cannot see; prejudiced men who will not see; and a certain set of moderate men, who think better of the European world than it deserves; and this last class by an ill-judged deliberation, will be the cause of more calamities to this continent than all the other three.

It is the good fortune of many to live distant from the scene of sorrow; the evil is not sufficiently brought to their doors to make them feel the precariousness with which all American property is possessed. But let our imaginations transport us for a few moments to Boston, that seat of wretchedness will teach us wisdom, and instruct us for ever to renounce a power in whom we can have no trust. The inhabitants of that unfortunate city, who but a few months ago were in ease and affluence, have now no other alternative than to stay and starve, or turn out to beg. Endangered by the fire of their friends if they continue within the city, and plundered by the soldiery if they leave it. In their present condition they are prisoners without the hope of redemption, and in a general attack for their relief, they would be exposed to the fury of both armies.

Men of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over the offences of Britain, and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out, 'Come we shall be friends again for all this.' But examine the passions and feelings of mankind. Bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature, and then tell me, whether you can hereafter love, honour, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If you cannot do all these, then are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon posterity. Your future connection with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honour, will be forced and unnatural, and being formed only on the plan of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a relapse more wretched than the first. But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, Hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.

This is not inflaming or exaggerating matters, but trying them by those feelings and affections which nature justifies, and without which, we should be incapable of discharging the social duties of life, or enjoying the felicities of it. I mean not to exhibit horror for the purpose of provoking revenge, but to awaken us from fatal and unmanly slumbers, that we may pursue determinately some fixed object. It is not in the power of Britain or of Europe to conquer America, if she did not conquer herself by delay and timidity. The present winter is worth an age if rightly employed, but if lost or neglected, the whole continent will partake of the misfortune; and there is no punishment which that man will not deserve, be he who, or what, or where he will, that may be the means of sacrificing a season so precious and useful.

It is repugnant to reason, to the universal order of things, to all examples from the former ages, to suppose, that this continent can longer remain subject to any external power. The most sanguine in Britain does not think so. The utmost stretch of human wisdom cannot, at this time compass a plan short of separation, which can promise the continent even a year's security. Reconciliation is and was a falacious dream. Nature hath deserted the connection, and Art cannot supply her place. For, as Milton wisely expressed, 'Never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep.'

Every quiet method for peace hath been ineffectual. Our prayers have been rejected with disdain; and only tended to convince us, that nothing flatters vanity, or confirms obstinacy in kings more than repeated petitioning — and nothing hath contributed more than that very measure to make the kings of Europe absolute: Witness Denmark and Sweden. Wherefore since nothing but blows will do, for God's sake, let us come to a final separation, and not leave the next generation to be cutting throats, under the violated unmeaning names of parent and child.

To say, they will never attempt it again is idle and visionary, we thought so at the repeal of the Stamp Act, yet a year or two undeceived us; as well may we suppose that nations, which have been once defeated, will never renew the quarrel.

As to government matters, it is not in the power of Britain to do this continent justice: The business of it will soon be too weighty, and intricate, to be managed with any tolerable degree of convenience, by a power, so distant from us, and so very ignorant of us; for if they cannot conquer us, they cannot govern us. To be always running three or four thousand miles with a tale or a petition, waiting four or five months for an answer, which when obtained requires five or six more to explain it in, will in a few years be looked upon as folly and childishness — There was a time when it was proper, and there is a proper time for it to cease.

Small islands not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island. In no instance hath nature made the satellite larger than its primary planet, and as England and America, with respect to each other, reverses the common order of nature, it is evident they belong to different systems: England to Europe, America to itself.

I am not induced by motives of pride, party, or resentment to espouse the doctrine of separation and independence; I am clearly, positively, and conscientiously persuaded that it is the true interest of this continent to be so; that every thing short of that is mere patchwork, that it can afford no lasting felicity,- that it is leaving the sword to our children, and shrinking back at a time, when, a little more, a little farther, would have rendered this continent the glory of the earth.

As Britain hath not manifested the least inclination towards a compromise, we may be assured that no terms can be obtained worthy the acceptance of the continent, or any ways equal to the expense of blood and treasure we have been already put to.

The object contended for, ought always to bear some just proportion to the expense. The removal of N—, or the whole detestable junto, is a matter unworthy the millions we have expended. A temporary stoppage of trade, was an inconvenience, which would have sufficiently balanced the repeal of all the acts complained of, had such repeals been obtained; but if the whole continent must take up arms, if every man must be a soldier, it is scarcely worth our while to fight against a contemptible ministry only. Dearly, dearly, do we pay for the repeal of the acts, if that is all we fight for; for in a just estimation, it is as great a folly to pay a Bunker-hill price for law, as for land. As I have always considered the independency of this continent, as an event, which sooner or later must arrive, so from the late rapid progress of the continent to maturity, the event could not be far off. Wherefore, on the breaking out of hostilities, it was not worth the while to have disputed a matter, which time would have finally redressed, unless we meant to be in earnest; otherwise, it is like wasting an estate on a suit at law, to regulate the trespasses of a tenant, whose lease is just expiring. No man was a warmer wisher for reconciliation than myself, before the fatal nineteenth of April 1775, 【1】 but the moment the event of that day was made known, I rejected the hardened, sullen tempered Pharaoh of — for ever; and disdain the wretch, that with the pretended title of FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE can unfeelingly hear of their slaughter, and composedly sleep with their blood upon his soul.

But admitting that matters were now made up, what would be the event? I answer, the ruin of the continent. And that for several reasons.

First. The powers of governing still remaining in the hands of the k—, he will have a negative over the whole legislation of this continent. And as he hath shewn himself such an inveterate enemy to liberty, and discovered such a thirst for arbitrary power; is he, or is he not, a proper man to say to these colonies, 'You shall make no laws but what I please.' And is there any inhabitant in America so ignorant, as not to know, that according to what is called the present constitution, that this continent can make no laws but what the king gives leave to; and is there any man so unwise, as not to see, that (considering what has happened) he will suffer no Law to be made here, but such as suit his purpose. We may be as effectually enslaved by the want of laws in America, as by submitting to laws made for us in England. After matters are made up (as it is called) can there be any doubt but the whole power of the crown will be exerted, to keep this continent as low and humble as possible? Instead of going forward we shall go backward, or be perpetually quarrelling or ridiculously petitioning. — We are already greater than the king wishes us to be, and will he not hereafter endeavour to make us less? To bring the matter to one point. Is the power who is jealous of our prosperity, a proper power to govern us? Whoever says No to this question is an independent, for independency means no more, than, whether we shall make our own laws, or, whether the —, the greatest enemy this continent hath, or can have, shall tell us 'There shall be no laws but such as I like.'

But the k— you will say has a negative in England; the people there can make no laws without his consent. In point of right and good order, there is something very ridiculous, that a youth of twenty-one (which hath often happened) shall say to several millions of people, older and wiser than himself, I forbid this or that act of yours to be law. But in this place I decline this sort of reply, tho' I will never cease to expose the absurdity of it, and only answer, that England being the king's residence, and America not so, makes quite another case. The k—'s negative here is ten times more dangerous and fatal than it can be in England, for there he will scarcely refuse his consent to a bill for putting England into as strong a state of defence as possible, and in America he would never suffer such a bill to be passed.

America is only a secondary object in the system of British politics. England consults the good of this country, no farther than it answers her own purpose. Wherefore, her own interest leads her to suppress the growth of ours in every case which doth not promote her advantage, or in the least interfere with it. A pretty stage we should soon be in under such a second-hand government, considering what has happened! Men do not change from enemies to friends by the alteration of a name: And in order to shew that reconciliation now is a dangerous doctrine, I affirm, that it would be policy in the k— at this time, to repeal the acts for the sake of reinstating himself in the government of the provinces; in order, that HE MAY ACCOMPLISH BY CRAFT AND SUBTLETY, IN THE LONG RUN, WHAT HE CANNOT DO BY FORCE AND VIOLENCE IN THE SHORT ONE. Reconciliation and ruin are nearly related.

Secondly, That as even the best terms, which we can expect to obtain, can amount to no more than a temporary expedient, or a kind of government by guardianship, which can last no longer than till the colonies come of age, so the general face and state of things, in the interim, will be unsettled and unpromising. Emigrants of property will not choose to come to a country whose form of government hangs but by a thread, and who is every day tottering on the brink of commotion and disturbance; and numbers of the present inhabitants would lay hold of the interval, to dispose of their effects, and quit the continent.

But the most powerful of all arguments, is, that nothing but independence, i.e. a continental form of government, can keep the peace of the continent and preserve it inviolate from civil wars. I dread the event of a reconciliation with Britain now, as it is more than probable, that it will be followed by a revolt somewhere or other, the consequences of which may be far more fatal than all the malice of Britain.

Thousands are already ruined by British barbarity; (thousands more will probably suffer the same fate). Those men have other feelings than us who have nothing suffered. All they now possess is liberty, what they before enjoyed is sacrificed to its service, and having nothing more to lose, they disdain submission. Besides, the general temper of the colonies, towards a British government, will be like that of a youth, who is nearly out of his time, they will care very little about her. And a government which cannot preserve the peace, is no government at all, and in that case we pay our money for nothing; and pray what is it that Britain can do, whose power will be wholly on paper, should a civil tumult break out the very day after reconciliation? I have heard some men say, many of whom I believe spoke without thinking, that they dreaded an independence, fearing that it would produce civil wars. It is but seldom that our first thoughts are truly correct, and that is the case here; for there are ten times more to dread from a patched up connection than from independence. I make the sufferers' case my own, and I protest, that were I driven from house and home, my property destroyed, and my circumstances ruined, that as a man, sensible of injuries, I could never relish the doctrine of reconciliation, or consider myself bound thereby.

The colonies have manifested such a spirit of good order and obedience to continental government, as is sufficient to make every reasonable person easy and happy on that head. No man can assign the least pretence for his fears, on any other grounds, that such as are truly childish and ridiculous, that one colony will be striving for superiority over another.

Where there are no distinctions there can be no superiority, perfect equality affords no temptation. The republics of Europe are all (and we may say always) in peace. Holland and Switzerland are without wars, foreign or domestic: Monarchical governments, it is true, are never long at rest; the crown itself is a temptation to enterprising ruffians at home; and that degree of pride and insolence ever attendant on regal authority, swells into a rupture with foreign powers, in instances, where a republican government, by being formed on more natural principles, would negotiate the mistake.

If there is any true cause of fear respecting independence, it is because no plan is yet laid down. Men do not see their way out — Wherefore, as an opening into that business, I offer the following hints; at the same time modestly affirming, that I have no other opinion of them myself, than that they may be the means of giving rise to something better. Could the straggling thoughts of individuals be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise and able men to improve to useful matter.

LET the assemblies be annual, with a President only. The representation more equal. Their business wholly domestic, and subject to the authority of a Continental Congress.

Let each colony be divided into six, eight, or ten, convenient districts, each district to send a proper number of delegates to Congress, so that each colony send at least thirty. The whole number in Congress will be at least 390. Each Congress to sit and to choose a president by the following method. When the delegates are met, let a colony be taken from the whole thirteen colonies by lot, after which let the whole Congress choose (by ballot) a president from out of the delegates of that province. In the next Congress, let a colony be taken by lot from twelve only, omitting that colony from which the president was taken in the former Congress, and so proceeding on till the whole thirteen shall have had their proper rotation. And in order that nothing may pass into a law but what is satisfactorily just, not less than three fifths of the Congress to be called a majority. — He that will promote discord, under a government so equally formed as this, would join Lucifer in his revolt.

But as there is a peculiar delicacy, from whom, or in what manner, this business must first arise, and as it seems most agreeable and consistent, that it should come from some intermediate body between the governed and the governors, that is between the Congress and the people, let a CONTINENTAL CONFERENCE be held, in the following manner, and for the following purpose.

A committee of twenty-six members of Congress, viz. two for each colony. Two members for each house of assembly, or Provincial convention; and five representatives of the people at large, to be chosen in the capital city or town of each province, for, and in behalf of the whole province, by as many qualified voters as shall think proper to attend from all parts of the province for that purpose; or, if more convenient, the representatives may be chosen in two or three of the most populous parts thereof. In this conference, thus assembled, will be united, the two grand principles of business, knowledge and power. The members of Congress, Assemblies, or Conventions, by having had experience in national concerns, will be able and useful counsellors, and the whole, being empowered by the people will have a truly legal authority.

The conferring members being met, let their business be to frame a CONTINENTAL CHARTER, or Charter of the United Colonies; (answering to what is called the Magna Charta of England) fixing the number and manner of choosing members of Congress, members of Assembly, with their date of sitting, and drawing the line of business and jurisdiction between them: (Always remembering, that our strength is continental, not provincial:) Securing freedom and property to all men, and above all things the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; with such other matter as is necessary for a charter to contain. Immediately after which, the said conference to dissolve, and the bodies which shall be chosen conformable to the said charter, to be the legislators and governors of this continent and for the time being: Whose peace and happiness, may God preserve, Amen.

Should any body of men be hereafter delegated for this or some similar purpose, I offer them the following extracts from that wise observer on governments Dragonetti. 'The science', says he, 'of the politician consists in fixing the true point of happiness and freedom. Those men would deserve the gratitude of ages, who should discover a mode of government that contained the greatest sum of individual happiness, with the least national expense.' — Dragonetti on Virtue and Rewards.

But where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal — of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honours, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is.

A government of our own is our natural right: And when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance. If we omit it now, some Massenello 【2】 may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge. Should the government of America return again into the hands of Britain, the tottering situation of things, will be a temptation for some desperate adventurer to try his fortune; and in such a case, what relief can Britain give? Ere she could hear the news the fatal business might be done, and ourselves suffering like the wretched Britons under the oppression of the Conqueror. Ye that oppose independence now, ye know not what ye do; ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny, by keeping vacant the seat of government. There are thousands and tens of thousands, who would think it glorious to expel from the continent, that barbarous and hellish power, which hath stirred up the Indians and Negroes to destroy us; the cruelty hath a double guilt, it is dealing brutally by us, and treacherously by them.

To talk of friendship with those in whom our reason forbids us to have faith, and our affections wounded through a thousand pores instruct us to detest, is madness and folly. Every day wears out the little remains of kindred between us and them, and can there be any reason to hope, that as the relationship expires, the affection will increase, or that we shall agree better, when we have ten times more and greater concerns to quarrel over than ever?

Ye that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, can ye restore to us the time that is past? Can ye give to prostitution its former innocence? Neither can ye reconcile Britain and America. The last cord now is broken, the people of England are presenting addresses against us. There are injuries which nature cannot forgive; she would cease to be nature if she did. As well can the lover forgive the ravisher of his mistress, as the continent forgive the murders of Britain. The Almighty hath implanted in us these unextinguishable feelings for good and wise purposes. They are the guardians of his image in our hearts. They distinguish us from the herd of common animals. The social compact would dissolve, and justice be extirpated from the earth, or have only a casual existence were we callous to the touches of affection. The robber and the murderer, would often escape unpunished, did not the injuries which our tempers sustain, provoke us into justice.

O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is over-run with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her. — Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.

On the Present Ability of America, with some Miscellaneous Reflections

I have never met with a man, either in England or America, who hath not confessed his opinion, that a separation between the countries, would take place one time or other. And there is no instance in which we have shewn less judgement, than in endeavouring to describe, what we call, the ripeness or fitness of the Continent for independence.

As all men allow the measure, and vary only in their opinion of the time, let us, in order to remove mistakes, take a general survey of things and endeavour if possible, to find out the very time. But we need not go far, the inquiry ceases at once, for the time hath found us. The general concurrence, the glorious union of all things prove the fact.

It is not in numbers but in unity, that our great strength lies; yet our present numbers are sufficient to repel the force of all the world. The Continent hath, at this time, the largest body of armed and disciplined men of any power under Heaven; and is just arrived at that pitch of strength, in which no single colony is able to support itself, and the whole, when united can accomplish the matter, and either more, or, less than this, might be fatal in its effects. Our land force is already sufficient, and as to naval affairs, we cannot be insensible, that Britain would never suffer an American man of war to be built while the continent remained in her hands. Wherefore we should be no forwarder an hundred years hence in that branch, than we are now; but the truth is, we should be less so, because the timber of the country is every day diminishing, and that which will remain at last, will be far off and difficult to procure.

Were the continent crowded with inhabitants, her sufferings under the present circumstances would be intolerable. The more sea port towns we had, the more should we have both to defend and to lose. Our present numbers are so happily proportioned to our wants, that no man need be idle. The diminution of trade affords an army, and the necessities of an army create a new trade.

Debts we have none; and whatever we may contract on this account will serve as a glorious memento of our virtue. Can we but leave posterity with a settled form of government, an independent constitution of its own, the purchase at any price will be cheap. But to expend millions for the sake of getting a few vile acts repealed, and routing the present ministry only, is unworthy the charge, and is using posterity with the utmost cruelty; because it is leaving them the great work to do, and a debt upon their backs, from which they derive no advantage. Such a thought is unworthy a man of honour, and is the true characteristic of a narrow heart and a peddling politician.

The debt we may contract doth not deserve our regard if the work be but accomplished. No nation ought to be without a debt. A national debt is a national bond; and when it bears no interest, is in no case a grievance. Britain is oppressed with a debt of upwards of one hundred and forty millions sterling, for which she pays upwards of four millions interest. And as a compensation for her debt, she has a large navy; America is without a debt, and without a navy; yet for the twentieth part of the English national debt, could have a navy as large again. The navy of England is not worth, at this time, more than three millions and a half sterling.

The first and second editions of this pamphlet were published without the following calculations, which are now given as a proof that the above estimation of the navy is a just one. See Entic's naval history, intro. page 56.

The charge of building a ship of each rate, and furnishing her with masts, yards, sails and rigging, together with a proportion of eight months boatswain's and carpenter's sea-stores, as calculated by Mr Burchett, Secretary to the navy.

And from hence it is easy to sum up the value, or cost rather, of the whole British navy, which in the year 1757, when it was at its greatest glory consisted of the following ships and guns:

No country on the globe is so happily situated, so internally capable of raising a fleet as America. Tar, timber, iron, and cordage are her natural produce. We need go abroad for nothing. Whereas the Dutch, who make large profits by hiring out their ships of war to the Spaniards and Portuguese, are obliged to import most of the materials they use. We ought to view the building of a fleet as an article of commerce, it being the natural manufactory of this country. It is the best money we can lay out. A navy when finished is worth more than it cost. And is that nice point in national policy, in which commerce and protection are united. Let us build; if we want them not, we can sell; and by that means replace our paper currency with ready gold and silver.

In point of manning a fleet, people in general run into great errors; it is not necessary that one-fourth part should be sailors. The Terrible privateer, Captain Death, stood the hottest engagement of any ship last war, yet had not twenty sailors on board, though her complement of men was upwards of two hundred. A few able and social sailors will soon instruct a sufficient number of active land-men in the common work of a ship. Wherefore, we never can be more capable to begin on maritime matters than now, while our timber is standing, our fisheries blocked up, and our sailors and shipwrights out of employ. Men of war of seventy and eighty guns were built forty years ago in New England, and why not the same now? Ship-building is America's greatest pride, and in which, she will in time excel the whole world. The great empires of the east are mostly inland, and consequently excluded from the possibility of rivalling her. Africa is in a state of barbarism; and no power in Europe, hath either such an extent or coast, or such an internal supply of materials. Where nature hath given the one, she has withheld the other; to America only hath she been liberal of both. The vast empire of Russia is almost shut out from the sea; wherefore, her boundless forests, her tar, iron, and cordage are only articles of commerce.

In point of safety, ought we to be without a fleet? We are not the little people now, which we were sixty years ago; at that time we might have trusted our property in the streets, or fields rather; and slept securely without locks or bolts to our doors or windows. The case now is altered, and our methods of defence ought to improve with our increase of property. A common pirate, twelve months ago, might have come up the Delaware, and laid the city of Philadelphia under instant contribution, for what sum he pleased; and the same might have happened to other places. Nay, any daring fellow, in a brig of fourteen or sixteen guns, might have robbed the whole Continent, and carried off half a million of money. These are circumstances which demand our attention, and point out the necessity of naval protection.

Some, perhaps, will say, that after we have made it up with Britain, she will protect us. Can we be so unwise as to mean, that she shall keep a navy in our harbours for that purpose? Common sense will tell us, that the power which hath endeavoured to subdue us, is of all others the most improper to defend us. Conquest may be effected under the pretence of friendship; and ourselves, after a long and brave resistance, be at last cheated into slavery. And if her ships are not to be admitted into our harbours, I would ask, how is she to protect us? A navy three or four thousand miles off can be of little use, and on sudden emergencies, none at all. Wherefore, if we must hereafter protect ourselves, why not do it for ourselves? Why do it for another?

The English list of ships of war is long and formidable, but not a tenth part of them are at any time fit for service, numbers of them not in being; yet their names are pompously continued in the list, if only a plank be left of the ship: and not a fifth part, of such as are fit for service, can be spared on any one station at one time. The East, and West Indies, Mediterranean, Africa, and other parts over which Britain extends her claim, make large demands upon her navy. From a mixture of prejudice and inattention, we have contracted a false notion respecting the navy of England, and have talked as if we should have the whole of it to encounter at once, and for that reason, supposed that we must have one as large; which not being instantly practicable, have been made use of by a set of disguised Tories to discourage our beginning thereon. Nothing can be farther from truth than this; for if America had only a twentieth part of the naval force of Britain, she would be by far an over match for her; because, as we neither have, nor claim any foreign dominion, our whole force would be employed on our own coast, where we should, in the long run, have two to one the advantage of those who had three or four thousand miles to sail over, before they could attack us, and the same distance to return in order to refit and recruit. And although Britain by her fleet, hath a check over our trade to Europe, we have as large a one over her trade to the West Indies, which, by laying in the neighbourhood of the Continent, is entirely at its mercy.

Some method might be fallen on to keep up a naval force in time of peace, if we should not judge it necessary to support a constant navy. If premiums were to be given to merchants, to build and employ in their service, ships mounted with twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty guns, (the premiums to be in proportion to the loss of bulk to the merchants) fifty or sixty of those ships, with a few guard ships on constant duty, would keep up a sufficient navy, and that without burdening ourselves with the evil so loudly complained of in England, of suffering their fleet, in time of peace to lie rotting in the docks. To unite the sinews of commerce and defence is sound policy; for when our strength and our riches, play into each other's hand, we need fear no external enemy.

In almost every article of defence we abound. Hemp flourishes even to rankness, so that we need not want cordage. Our iron is superior to that of other countries. Our small arms equal to any in the world. Cannon we can cast at pleasure. Saltpetre and gunpowder we are every day producing. Our knowledge is hourly improving. Resolution is our inherent character, and courage hath never yet forsaken us. Wherefore, what is it that we want? Why is it that we hesitate? From Britain we can expect nothing but ruin. If she is once admitted to the government of America again, this Continent will not be worth living in. Jealousies will be always arising; insurrections will be constantly happening; and who will go forth to quell them? Who will venture his life to reduce his own countrymen to a foreign obedience? The difference between Pennsylvania and Connecticut, respecting some unlocated lands, shews the insignificance of a B—sh government, and fully proves, that nothing but Continental authority can regulate Continental matters.

Another reason why the present time is preferable to all others, is, that the fewer our numbers are, the more land there is yet unoccupied, which instead of being lavished by the k— on his worthless dependants, may be hereafter applied, not only to the discharge of the present debt, but to the constant support of government. No nation under heaven hath such an advantage as this.

The infant state of the Colonies, as it is called, so far from being against, is an argument in favour of independence. We are sufficiently numerous, and were we more so, we might be less united. It is a matter worthy of observation, that the more a country is peopled, the smaller their armies are. In military numbers, the ancients far exceeded the moderns: and the reason is evident, for trade being the consequence of population, men become too much absorbed thereby to attend to any thing else. Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defence. And history sufficiently informs us, that the bravest achievements were always accomplished in the nonage of a nation. With the increase of commerce, England hath lost its spirit. The city of London, notwithstanding its numbers, submits to continued insults with the patience of a coward. The more men have to lose, the less willing are they to venture. The rich are in general slaves to fear, and submit to courtly power with the trembling duplicity of a spaniel.

Youth is the seed time of good habits, as well in nations as in individuals. It might be difficult, if not impossible, to form the Continent into one government half a century hence. The vast variety of interests, occasioned by an increase of trade and population, would create confusion. Colony would be against colony. Each being able might scorn each other's assistance: and while the proud and foolish gloried in their little distinctions, the wise would lament that the union had not been formed before. Wherefore, the present time is the true time for establishing it. The intimacy which is contracted in infancy, and the friendship which is formed in misfortune, are, of all others, the most lasting and unalterable. Our present union is marked with both these characters: we are young, and we have been distressed; but our concord hath withstood our troubles, and fixes a memorable era for posterity to glory in.

The present time, likewise, is that peculiar time, which never happens to a nation but once, viz. the time of forming itself into a government. Most nations have let slip the opportunity, and by that means have been compelled to receive laws from their conquerors, instead of making laws for themselves. First, they had a king, and then a form of government; whereas, the articles or charter of government, should be formed first, and men delegated to execute them afterwards: but from the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom, and lay hold of the present opportunity — To begin government at the right end.

When William the Conqueror subdued England he gave them law at the point of the sword; and until we consent that the seat of government in America, be legally and authoritatively occupied, we shall be in danger of having it filled by some fortunate ruffian, who may treat us in the same manner, and then, where will be our freedom? where our property?

As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of all government, to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith. Let a man throw aside that narrowness of soul, that selfishness of principle, which the niggards of all professions are so unwilling to part with, and he will be at once delivered of his fears on that head. Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society. For myself I fully and conscientiously believe, that it is the will of the Almighty, that there should be diversity of religious opinions among us: It affords a larger field of our christian kindness. Were we all of one way of thinking, our religious dispositions would want matter for probation; and on this liberal principle, I look on the various denominations among us, to be like children of the same family, differing only, in what is called their Christian names.

In page fifty-four, 【3】 I threw out a few thoughts on the propriety of a Continental Charter, (for I only presume to offer hints not plans) and in this place, I take the liberty of rementioning the subject, by observing, that a charter is to be understood as a bond of solemn obligation, which the whole enters into, to support the right of every separate part, whether of religion, personal freedom, or property. A firm bargain and a right reckoning make long friends.

In a former page I likewise mentioned the necessity of a large and equal representation; and there is no political matter which more deserves our attention. A small number of electors, or a small number of representatives, are equally dangerous. But if the number of the representatives be not only small, but unequal, the danger is increased. As an instance of this, I mention the following; when the Associators petition was before the House of Assembly of Pennsylvania; twenty-eight members only were present, all the Bucks county members, being eight, voted against it, and had seven of the Chester members done the same, this whole province had been governed by two counties only, and this danger it is always exposed to. The unwarrantable stretch likewise, which that House made in their last sitting, to gain an undue authority over the Delegates of that province, ought to warn the people at large, how they trust power out of their own hands. A set of instructions for the Delegates were put together, which in point of sense and business would have dishonoured a school-boy, and after being approved by a few, a very few without doors, were carried into the House, and there passed in behalf of the whole colony; whereas, did the whole colony know, with what ill-will that House hath entered on some necessary public measures, they would not hesitate a moment to think them unworthy of such a trust.

Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions. Expedience and right are different things. When the calamities of America required a consultation, there was no method so ready, or at that time so proper, as to appoint persons from the several Houses of Assembly for that purpose and the wisdom with which they have proceeded hath preserved this continent from ruin. But as it is more than probable that we shall never be without a CONGRESS, every well wisher to good order, must own, that the mode for choosing members of that body, deserves consideration. And I put it as a question to those, who make a study of mankind, whether representation and election is not too great a power for one and the same body of men to possess? When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.

It is from our enemies that we often gain excellent maxims, and are frequently surprised into reason by their mistakes. Mr Cornwall (one of the Lords of the Treasury) treated the petition of the New York Assembly with contempt, because that House, he said, consisted but of twenty-six members, which trifling number, he argued, could not with decency be put for the whole. We thank him for his involuntary honesty. 【4】

TO CONCLUDE, however strange it may appear to some, or however unwilling they may be to think so, matters not, but many strong and striking reasons may be given, to shew, that nothing can settle our affairs so expeditiously as an open and determined declaration for independence. Some of which are,

First. — It is the custom of nations, when any two are at war, for some other powers, not engaged in the quarrel, to step in as mediators, and bring about the preliminaries of a peace: but while America calls herself the subject of Great Britain, no power, however well disposed she may be, can offer her mediation. Wherefore, in our present state we may quarrel on for ever.

Secondly. — It is unreasonable to suppose, that France or Spain will give us any kind of assistance, if we mean only to make use of that assistance for the purpose of repairing the breach, and strengthening the connection between Britain and America; because, those powers would be sufferers by the consequences.

Thirdly. — While we profess ourselves the subjects of Britain, we must, in the eye of foreign nations, be considered as rebels. The precedent is somewhat dangerous to their peace, for men to be in arms under the name of subjects; we on the spot, can solve the paradox: but to unite resistance and subjection, requires an idea much too refined for common understanding.

Fourthly. — Were a manifesto to be published, and dispatched to foreign courts, setting forth the miseries we have endured, and the peaceable methods we have ineffectually used for redress; declaring, at the same time, that not being able, any longer to live happily or safely under the cruel disposition of the B—sh court, we had been driven to the necessity of breaking off all connection with her; at the same time assuring all such courts of our peaceable disposition towards them, and of our desire of entering into trade with them: Such a memorial would produce more good effects to this Continent, than if a ship were freighted with petition to Britain.

Under our present denomination of British subjects we can neither be received nor heard abroad: The custom of all courts is against us, and will be so, until, by an independence, we take rank with other nations.

These proceedings may at first appear strange and difficult; but, like all other steps which we have already passed over, will in a little time become familiar and agreeable; and, until an independence is declared, the Continent will feel itself like a man who continues putting off some unpleasant business from day to day, yet knows it must be done, hates to set about it, wishes it over, and is continually haunted with the thoughts of its necessity.

Appendix

Since the publication of the first edition of this pamphlet, or rather, on the same day on which it came out, the — 's Speech made its appearance in this city. Had the spirit of prophecy directed the birth of this production, it could not have brought it forth, at a more seasonable juncture, or a more necessary time. The bloody mindedness of the one, shew the necessity of pursuing the doctrine of the other. Men read by way of revenge. And the speech instead of terrifying, prepared a way for the manly principles of Independence.

Ceremony, and even, silence, from whatever motive they may arise, have a hurtful tendency, when they give the least degree of countenance to base and wicked performances; wherefore, if this maxim be admitted, it naturally follows, that the — 's Speech, as being a piece of finished villainy, deserved, and still deserves, a general execration both by the Congress and the people. Yet as the domestic tranquillity of a nation, depends greatly on the chastity of what may properly be called NATIONAL MATTERS, it is often better, to pass some things over in silent disdain, than to make use of such new methods of dislike, as might introduce the least innovation, on that guardian of our peace and safety. And perhaps, it is chiefly owing to this prudent delicacy, that the — 's Speech, hath not before now, suffered a public execution. The speech if it may be called one, is nothing better than a wilful audacious libel against the truth, the common good, and the existence of mankind; and is a formal and pompous method of offering up human sacrifices to the pride of tyrants. But this general massacre of mankind, is one of the privileges, and the certain consequences of K—s; for as nature knows them not, they know not her, and although they are beings of our own creating, they know not us, and are become the gods of their creators. The speech hath one good quality, which is, that it is not calculated to deceive, neither can we, even if we would, be deceived by it. Brutality and tyranny appear on the face of it. It leaves us at no loss: And every line convinces, even in the moment of reading, that He, who hunts the woods for prey, the naked and untutored Indian, is less a Savage than the — of B—.

Sir J—n D—e, the putative father of a whining Jesuitical piece, fallaciously called, 'The Address of the people of ENGLAND to the inhabitants of AMERICA', hath, perhaps from a vain supposition, that the people here were to be frightened at the pomp and description of a king, given, (though very unwisely on his part) the real character of the present one: 'But,' says this writer, 'if you are inclined to pay compliments to an administration, which we do not complain of,' (meaning the Marquis of Rockingham's at the repeal of the Stamp Act) 'it is very unfair in you to withhold them from that prince, by whose NOD ALONE they were permitted to do any thing.' This is Toryism with a witness! Here is idolatry even without a mask: And he who can calmly hear, and digest such doctrine, hath forfeited his claim to rationality — an apostate from the order of manhood; and ought to be considered — as one, who hath, not only given up the proper dignity of a man, but sunk himself beneath the rank of animals, and contemptibly crawl through the world like a worm.

However, it matters very little now, what the — of E — either says or does; he hath wickedly broken through every moral and human obligation, trampled nature and conscience beneath his feet; and by a steady and constitutional spirit of insolence and cruelty, procured for himself an universal hatred. It is now the interest of America to provide for herself. She hath already a large and young family, whom it is more her duty to take care of, than to be granting away her property, to support a power who is become a reproach to the names of men and Christians — YE, whose office it is to watch over the morals of a nation, of whatsoever sect or denomination ye are of, as well as ye, who are more immediately the guardians of the public liberty, if ye wish to preserve your native country uncontaminated by European corruption, ye must in secret wish a separation — But leaving the moral part to private reflection, I shall chiefly confine my farther remarks to the following heads.

First. That it is the interest of America to be separated from Britain.

Secondly. Which is the easiest and most practicable plan, RECONCILIATION OR INDEPENDENCE? with some occasional remarks.

In support of the first, I could, if I judged it proper, produce the opinion of some of the ablest and most experienced men on this continent; and whose sentiments, on that head, are not yet publicly known. It is in reality a self-evident position: For no nation in a state of foreign dependence, limited in its commerce, and cramped and fettered in its legislative powers, can ever arrive at any material eminence. America doth not yet know what opulence is; and although the progress which she hath made stands unparalleled in the history of other nations, it is but childhood, compared with what she would be capable of arriving at, had she, as she ought to have, the legislative powers in her own hands. England is, at this time, proudly coveting what would do her no good, were she to accomplish it; and the Continent hesitating on a matter, which will be her final ruin if neglected. It is the commerce and not the conquest of America, by which England is to be benefited, and that would in a great measure continue, were the countries as independent of each other as France and Spain; because in many articles, neither can go to a better market. But it is the independence of this country on Britain or any other, which is now the main and only object worthy of contention, and which, like all other truths discovered by necessity, will appear clearer and stronger every day.

First. Because it will come to that one time or other.

Secondly. Because the longer it is delayed the harder it will be to accomplish.

I have frequently amused myself both in public and private companies, with silently remarking the spacious errors of those who speak without reflecting. And among the many which I have heard, the following seems the most general, viz. that had this rupture happened forty or fifty years hence, instead of now, the Continent would have been more able to have shaken off the dependence. To which I reply, that our military ability at this time, arises from the experience gained in the last war, and which in forty or fifty years time, would have been totally extinct. The Continent, would not, by that time, have had a General, or even a military officer left; and we, or those who may succeed us, would have been as ignorant of martial matters as the ancient Indians: And this single position, closely attended to, will unanswerably prove, that the present time is preferable to all others: The argument turns thus — at the conclusion of the last war, we had experience, but wanted numbers; and forty or fifty years hence, we should have numbers, without experience; wherefore, the proper point of time, must be some particular point between the two extremes, in which a sufficiency of the former remains, and a proper increase of the latter is obtained: And that point of time is the present time.

The reader will pardon this digression, as it does not properly come under the head I first set out with, and to which I again return by the following position, viz.

Should affairs be patched up with Britain, and she to remain the governing and sovereign power of America, (which as matters are now circumstanced, is giving up the point entirely) we shall deprive ourselves of the very means of sinking the debt we have or may contract. The value of the back lands which some of the provinces are clandestinely deprived of, by the unjust extension of the limits of Canada, valued only at five pounds sterling per hundred acres, amount to upwards of twenty-five millions, Pennsylvania currency; and the quit-rents at one penny sterling per acre, to two millions yearly.

It is by the sale of those lands that the debt may be sunk, without burthen to any, and the quit-rent reserved thereon, will always lessen, and in time, will wholly support the yearly expense of government. It matters not how long the debt is in paying, so that the lands when sold be applied to the discharge of it, and for the execution of which, the Congress for the time being, will be the continental trustees.

I proceed now to the second head, viz. Which is the earliest and most practicable plan, RECONCILIATION or INDEPENDENCE? with some occasional remarks.

He who takes nature for his guide is not easily beaten out of his argument and on that ground, I answer generally — That INDEPENDENCE being a SINGLE SIMPLE LINE, contained within ourselves; and reconciliation, a matter exceedingly perplexed and complicated, and in which, a treacherous capricious court is to interfere, gives the answer without a doubt.

The present state of America is truly alarming to every man who is capable of reflection. Without law, without government, without any other mode of power than what is founded on, and granted by courtesy. Held together by an unexampled concurrence of sentiment, which is nevertheless subject to change, and which every secret enemy is endeavouring to dissolve. Our present condition, is, Legislation without law; wisdom without a plan; a constitution without a name; and, what is strangely astonishing, perfect Independence contending for Dependence. The instance is without a precedent; the case never existed before; and who can tell what may be the event? The property of no man is secure in the present unbraced system of things. The mind of the multitude is left at random, and feeling no fixed object before them, they pursue such as fancy or opinion starts. Nothing is criminal; there is no such thing as treason; wherefore, every one thinks himself at liberty to act as he pleases. The Tories dared not to have assembled offensively, had they known that their lives, by that act were forfeited to the laws of the state. A line of distinction should be drawn, between English soldiers taken in battle, and inhabitants of America taken in arms. The first are prisoners, but the latter traitors. The one forfeits his liberty, the other his head.

Notwithstanding our wisdom, there is a visible feebleness in some of our proceedings which gives encouragement to dissensions. The Continental belt is too loosely buckled. And if something is not done in time, it will be too late to do any thing, and we shall fall into a state, in which, neither reconciliation nor independence will be practicable. The — and his worthless adherents are got at their old game of dividing the Continent, and there are not wanting among us, Printers, who will be busy spreading specious falsehoods. The artful and hypocritical letter which appeared a few months ago in two of the New York papers, and likewise in two others, is an evidence that there are men who want either judgement or honesty.

It is easy getting into holes and corners and talking of reconciliation: But do such men seriously consider, how difficult the task is, and how dangerous it may prove, should the Continent divide thereon. Do they take within their view, all the various orders of men whose situation and circumstances, as well as their own, are to be considered therein. Do they put themselves in the place of the sufferer whose all is already gone, and of the soldier, who hath quitted all for the defence of his country. If their ill-judged moderation be suited to their own private situations only, regardless of others, the event will convince them, that 'they are reckoning without their Host'.

Put us, says some, on the footing we were on in sixty-three: To which I answer, the request is not now in the power of Britain to comply with, neither will she propose it; but if it were, and even should be granted, I ask, as a reasonable question, By what means is such a corrupt and faithless court to be kept to its engagements? Another parliament, nay, even the present, may hereafter repeal the obligation, on the pretence of its being violently obtained, or unwisely granted; and in that case, Where is our redress? — No going to law with nations; cannon are the barristers of crowns; and the sword, not of justice, but of war, decides the suit. To be on the footing of sixty-three, it is not sufficient, that the laws only be put on the same state, but, that our circumstances, likewise, be put on the same state; our burnt and destroyed towns repaired or built up, our private losses made good, our public debts (contracted for defence) discharged; otherwise, we shall be millions worse than we were at that enviable period. Such a request had it been complied with a year ago, would have won the heart and soul of the Continent — but now it is too late, 'The Rubicon is passed.'

Besides the taking up arms, merely to enforce the repeal of a pecuniary law, seems as unwarrantable by the divine law, and as repugnant to human feelings, as the taking up arms to enforce obedience thereto. The object, on either side, doth not justify the ways and means; for the lives of men are too valuable to be cast away on such trifles. It is the violence which is done and threatened to our persons; the destruction of our property by an armed force; the invasion of our country by fire and sword, which conscientiously qualifies the use of arms: And the instant, in which such a mode of defence became necessary, all subjection to Britain ought to have ceased; and the independency of America should have been considered, as dating its era from, and published by, the first musket that was fired against her. This line is a line of consistency; neither drawn by caprice, nor extended by ambition; but produced by a chain of events, of which the colonies were not the authors.

I shall conclude these remarks, with the following timely and well intended hints. We ought to reflect, that there are three different ways by which an independency may hereafter be effected; and that one of those three, will one day or other, be the fate of America, viz. By the legal voice of the people in Congress; by a military power; or by a mob: It may not always happen that our soldiers are citizens, and the multitude a body of reasonable men; virtue, as I have already remarked, is not hereditary, neither is it perpetual. Should an independency be brought about by the first of those means, we have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest, purest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birth-day of a new world is at hand, and a race of men perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom from the event of a few months. The Reflection is awful — and in this point of view, How trifling, how ridiculous, do the little, paltry cavellings, of a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed against the business of a world.

Should we neglect the present favourable and inviting period, and an independence be hereafter effected by any other means, we must charge the consequence to ourselves, or to those rather, whose narrow and prejudiced souls, are habitually opposing the measure, without either inquiring or reflecting. There are reasons to be given in support of Independence, which men should rather privately think of, than be publicly told of. We ought not now to be debating whether we shall be independent or not, but, anxious to accomplish it on a firm, secure, and honourable basis, and uneasy rather that it is not yet began upon. Every day convinces us of its necessity. Even the Tories (if such beings yet remain among us) should, of all men, be the most solicitous to promote it; for, as the appointment of committees at first, protected them from popular rage, so, a wise and well established form of government, will be the only certain means of continuing it securely to them. Wherefore, if they have not virtue enough to be WHIGS, they ought to have prudence enough to wish for Independence.

In short, Independence is the only BOND that can tie and keep us together. We shall then see our object, and our ears will be legally shut against the schemes of an intriguing, as well as a cruel enemy. We shall then too, be on a proper footing, to treat with Britain; for there is reason to conclude, that the pride of that court, will be less hurt by treating with the American states for terms of peace, than with those, whom she denominates, 'rebellious subjects', for terms of accommodation. It is our delaying it that encourages her to hope for conquest, and our backwardness tends only to prolong the war. As we have, without any good effect therefrom, withheld our trade to obtain a redress of our grievances, let us now try the alternative, by independently redressing them ourselves, and then offering to open the trade. The mercantile and reasonable part of England will be still with us; because, peace with trade, is preferable to war without it. And if this offer be not accepted, other courts may be applied to.

On these grounds I rest the matter. And as no offer hath yet been made to refute the doctrine contained in the former editions of this pamphlet, it is a negative proof, that either the doctrine cannot be refuted, or, that the party in favour of it are too numerous to be opposed. WHEREFORE, instead of gazing at each other with suspicious or doubtful curiosity, let each of us, hold out to his neighbour the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line, which, like an act of oblivion, shall bury in forgetfulness every former dissension. Let the names of Whig and Tory be extinct; and let none other be heard among us, than those of a good citizen, an open and resolute friend, and a virtuous supporter of the RIGHTS of MANKIND and of the FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES OF AMERICA.



To the Representatives of the Religious Society of the People called Quakers, or to so many of them as were concerned in publishing a late piece, entitled 'The Ancient Testimony and Principles of the people called Quakers renewed, with respect to the King and Government, and Touching the Commotions now prevailing in these and other parts of America, addressed to the people in general'.



The Writer of this, is one of those few, who never dishonours religion either by ridiculing, or cavilling at any denomination whatsoever. To God, and not to man, are all men accountable on the score of religion. Wherefore, this epistle is not so properly addressed to you as a religious, but as a political body, dabbling in matters, which the professed Quietude of your Principles instructs you not to meddle with.

As you have, without a proper authority for so doing, put yourselves in the place of the whole body of the Quakers, so, the writer of this, in order to be on an equal rank with yourselves, is under the necessity, of putting himself in the place of all those who approve the very writings and principles, against which your testimony is directed: And he hath chosen their singular situation, in order that you might discover in him, that presumption of character which you cannot see in yourselves. For neither he nor you have any claim or title to Political Representation.

When men have departed from the right way, it is no wonder that they stumble and fall. And it is evident from the manner in which ye have managed your testimony, that politics, (as a religious body of men) is not your proper Walk; for however well adapted it might appear to you, it is, nevertheless, a jumble of good and bad put unwisely together, and the conclusion drawn therefore, both unnatural and unjust.

The two first pages, (and the whole doth not make four) we give you credit for, and expect the same civility from you, because the love and desire of peace is not confined to Quakerism, it is the natural, as well as the religious wish of all denominations of men. And on this ground, as men labouring to establish an Independent Constitution of our own, do we exceed all others in our hope, end, and aim. Our plan is peace for ever. We are tired of contention with Britain, and can see no real end to it but in a final separation. We act consistently, because for the sake of introducing an endless and uninterrupted peace, do we bear the evils and burthens of the present day. We are endeavouring, and will steadily continue to endeavour, to separate and dissolve a connection which hath already filled our land with blood; and which, while the name of it remains, will be the fatal cause of future mischiefs to both countries.

We fight neither for revenge nor conquest; neither from pride nor passion; we are not insulting the world with our fleets and armies, nor ravaging the globe for plunder. Beneath the shade of our own vines are we attacked; in our own houses, and on our own lands, is the violence committed against us. We view our enemies in the characters of Highwaymen and Housebreakers, and having no defence for ourselves in the civil law, are obliged to punish them by the military one, and apply the sword, in the very case, where you have before now, applied the halter. — Perhaps we feel for the ruined and insulted sufferers in all and every part of the continent, and with a degree of tenderness which hath not yet made its way into some of your bosoms. But be ye sure that ye mistake not the cause and ground of your Testimony. Call not coldness of soul, religion; nor put the Bigot in the place of the Christian.

O ye partial ministers of your own acknowledged principles. If the bearing arms be sinful, the first going to war must be more so, by all the difference between wilful attack and unavoidable defence. Wherefore, if ye really preach from conscience, and mean not to make a political hobby-horse of your religion, convince the world thereof, by proclaiming your doctrine to our enemies, for they likewise bear ARMS. Give us proof of your sincerity by publishing it at St James's, to the commanders in chief at Boston, to the Admirals and Captains who are piratically ravaging our coasts, and to all the murdering miscreants who are acting in authority under HIM whom ye profess to serve. Had ye the honest soul of Barclay 【5】 ye would preach repentance to your king; Ye would tell the Royal — his sins, and warn him of eternal ruin. Ye would not spend your partial invectives against the injured and the insulted only, but like faithful ministers, would cry aloud and spare none. Say not that ye are persecuted, neither endeavour to make us the authors of that reproach, which, ye are bringing upon yourselves; for we testify unto all men, that we do not complain against you because ye are Quakers, but because ye pretend to be and are NOT Quakers.

Alas! It seems by the particular tendency of some part of your testimony, and other parts of your conduct, as if all sin was reduced to, and comprehended in the act of bearing arms, and that by the people only. Ye appear to us, to have mistaken party for conscience, because the general tenor of your actions wants uniformity: And it is exceedingly difficult to us to give credit to many of your pretended scruples; because we see them made by the same men, who, in the very instant that they are exclaiming against the mammon of this world, are nevertheless, hunting after it with a step as steady as Time, and an appetite as keen as Death.

The quotation which ye have made from Proverbs, in the third page of your testimony, that, 'when a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him'; is very unwisely chosen on your part; because it amounts to a proof, that the king's ways (whom ye are so desirous of supporting) do not please the Lord, otherwise, his reign would be in peace.

I now proceed to the latter part of your testimony, and that, for which all the foregoing seems only an introduction, viz.

'It hath ever been our judgement and principle, since we were called to profess the light of Christ Jesus, manifested in our consciences unto this day, that the setting up and putting down kings and governments, is God's peculiar prerogative; for causes best known to himself: And that it is not our business to have any hand or contrivance therein; nor to be busy bodies above our station, much less to plot and contrive the ruin, or overturn any of them, but to pray for the king, and safety of our nation, and good of all men: That we may live a peaceable and quiet life, in all goodliness and honesty; under the government which God is pleased to set over us.' — If these are really your principles why do ye not abide by them? Why do ye not leave that, which ye call God's Work, to be managed by himself? These very principles instruct you to wait with patience and humility, for the event of all public measures, and to receive that event as the divine will towards you. Wherefore, what occasion is there for your political testimony if you fully believe what it contains? And the very publishing it proves, that either, ye do not believe what ye profess, or have not virtue enough to practise what ye believe.

The principles of Quakerism have a direct tendency to make a man the quiet and inoffensive subject of any, and every government which is set over him. And if the setting up and putting down of kings and governments is God's peculiar prerogative, he most certainly will not be robbed thereof by us; wherefore, the principle itself leads you to approve of every thing, which ever happened, or may happen to kings as being his work, OLIVER CROMWELL thanks you. — CHARLES, then, died not by the hands of man; and should the present Proud Imitator of him, come to the same untimely end, the writers and publishers of the testimony, are bound by the doctrine it contains, to applaud the fact. Kings are not taken away by miracles, neither are changes in governments brought about by any other means than such as are common and human; and such as we are now using. Even the dispersing of the Jews, though foretold by our Saviour, was effected by arms. Wherefore, as ye refuse to be the means on one side, ye ought not to be meddlers on the other; but to wait the issue in silence; and unless you can produce divine authority, to prove, that the Almighty who hath created and placed this new world, at the greatest distance it could possibly stand, east and west, from every part of the old, doth, nevertheless, disapprove of its being independent of the corrupt and abandoned court of B—n, unless I say, ye can show this, how can ye, on the ground of your principles, justify the exciting and stirring up of the people 'firmly to unite in the abhorrence of all such writings, and measures, as evidence a desire and design to break off the happy connection we have hitherto enjoyed, with the kingdom of Great Britain, and our just and necessary subordination to the king, and those who are lawfully placed in authority under him'. What a slap in the face is here! the men, who, in the very paragraph before, have quietly and passively resigned up the ordering, altering, and disposal of kings and governments, into the hands of God, are now recalling their principles, and putting in for a share of the business. Is it possible, that the conclusion, which is here justly quoted, can any ways follow from the doctrine laid down? The inconsistency is too glaring not to be seen; the absurdity too great not to be laughed at; and such as could only have been made by those, whose understandings were darkened by the narrow and crabby spirit of a despairing political party; for ye are not to be considered as the whole body of the Quakers but only as a factional and fractional part thereof.

Here ends the examination of your testimony; (which I call upon no man to abhor, as ye have done, but only to read and judge of fairly;) to which I subjoin the following remark; 'That the setting up and putting down of kings', most certainly mean, the making him a king, who is yet not so, and the making him no king who is already one. And pray what hath this to do in the present case? We neither mean to set up nor to put down, neither to make nor to unmake, but to have nothing to do with them. Wherefore, your testimony in whatever light it is viewed serves only to dishonour your judgement, and for many other reasons had better have been let alone than published.

First. Because it tends to the decrease and reproach of all religion whatever, and is of the utmost danger to society, to make it a party in political disputes.

Secondly. Because it exhibits a body of men, numbers of whom disavow the publishing political testimonies, as being concerned therein and approvers thereof.

Thirdly. Because it hath a tendency to undo that continental harmony and friendship which yourselves by your late liberal and charitable donations hath lent a hand to establish; and the preservation of which, is of the utmost consequence to us all.

And here without anger or resentment I bid you farewell. Sincerely wishing, that as men and Christians, ye may always fully and uninterruptedly enjoy every civil and religious right; and be, in your turn, the means of securing it to others; but that the example which ye have unwisely set, of mingling religion with politics, may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of AMERICA.

FINIS

注释

【1】 Massacre at Lexington. — Paine.

【2】 Thomas Anello, otherwise Massenello, a fisherman of Naples, who after spiriting up his countrymen in the public market place, against the oppression of the Spaniards, to whom the place was then subject, prompted them to revolt, and in the space of a day became King. — Paine.

【3】 Page 43 in this edition. — Editors.

【4】 Those who would fully understand of what great consequence a large and equal representation is to a state, should read Burgh's political Disquisitions. — Paine.

【5】 'Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity; thou knowest what it is to be banished thy native country, to be over-ruled as well as to rule, and set upon the throne; and being oppressed thou hast reason to know how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man: If after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart, but forget him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give up thyself to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy condemnation. — Against which snare, as well as the temptation of those who may or do feed thee, and prompt thee to evil, the most excellent and prevalent remedy will be, to apply thyself to that light of Christ which shineth in thy conscience and which neither can, nor will flatter thee, nor suffer thee to be at ease in thy sins.' — Barclay's Address to Charles Ⅱ. — Paine.

Agrarian Justice

Author's English Preface

The following little piece was written in the winter of 1795 and '96; and, as I had not determined whether to publish it during the present war, or to wait till the commencement of a peace, it has lain by me, without alteration or addition, from the time it was written.

What has determined me to publish it now is a sermon preached by Watson, Bishop of Llandaff. Some of my readers will recollect, that this Bishop wrote a book entitled An Apology for the Bible, in answer to my second part of The Age of Reason. I procured a copy of his book, and he may depend upon hearing from me on that subject.

At the end of the Bishop's book is a list of the works he has written. Among which is the sermon alluded to; it is entitled: 'The Wisdom and Goodness of God, in having made both Rich and Poor; with an Appendix, containing Reflections on the Present State of England and France'.

The error contained in this sermon determined me to publish my Agrarian Justice. It is wrong to say God made rich and poor; He made only male and female; and He gave them the earth for their inheritance ...

Instead of preaching to encourage one part of mankind in insolence ... it would be better that priests employed their time to render the general condition of man less miserable than it is. Practical religion consists in doing good: and the only way of serving God is that of endeavouring to make His creation happy. All preaching that has not this for its object is nonsense and hypocrisy.

THOMAS PAINE.

Agrarian Justice

To preserve the benefits of what is called civilized life, and to remedy at the same time the evil which it has produced, ought to be considered as one of the first objects of reformed legislation.

Whether that state that is proudly, perhaps erroneously, called civilization, has most promoted or most injured the general happiness of man, is a question that may be strongly contested. On one side, the spectator is dazzled by splendid appearances; on the other, he is shocked by extremes of wretchedness; both of which it has erected. The most affluent and the most miserable of the human race are to be found in the countries that are called civilized.

To understand what the state of society ought to be, it is necessary to have some idea of the natural and primitive state of man; such as it is at this day among the Indians of North America. There is not, in that state, any of those spectacles of human misery which poverty and want present to our eyes in all the towns and streets in Europe.

Poverty, therefore, is a thing created by that which is called civilized life. It exists not in the natural state. On the other hand, the natural state is without those advantages which flow from agriculture, arts, science and manufactures.

The life of an Indian is a continual holiday, compared with the poor of Europe; and, on the other hand it appears to be abject when compared to the rich. Civilization, therefore, or that which is so called, has operated two ways: to make one part of society more affluent, and the other more wretched, than would have been the lot of either in a natural state.

It is always possible to go from the natural to the civilized state, but it is never possible to go from the civilized to the natural state. The reason is that man in a natural state, subsisting by hunting, requires ten times the quantity of land to range over to procure himself sustenance, than would support him in a civilized state, where the earth is cultivated.

When, therefore, a country becomes populous by the additional aids of cultivation, art and science, there is a necessity of preserving things in that state; because without it there cannot be sustenance for more, perhaps, than a tenth part of its inhabitants. The thing, therefore, now to be done is to remedy the evils and preserve the benefits that have arisen to society by passing from the natural to that which is called the civilized state.

In taking the matter upon this ground, the first principle of civilization ought to have been, and ought still to be, that the condition of every person born into the world, after a state of civilization commences, ought not to be worse than if he had been born before that period.

But the fact is that the condition of millions, in every country in Europe, is far worse than if they had been born before civilization began, or had been born among the Indians of North America at the present day. I will show how this fact has happened.

It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural, uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race. In that state every man would have been born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with the rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable and animal.

But the earth in its natural state, as before said, is capable of supporting but a small number of inhabitants compared with what it is capable of doing in a cultivated state. And as it is impossible to separate the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that improvement is made, the idea of landed property arose from that inseparable connection; but it is nevertheless true, that it is the value of the improvement, only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property.

Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes to the community a ground-rent (for I know of no better term to express the idea) for the land which he holds; and it is from this ground-rent that the fund proposed in this plan is to issue.

It is deducible, as well from the nature of the things as from all the histories transmitted to us, that the idea of landed property commenced with cultivation, and that there was no such thing as landed property before that time. It could not exist in the first state of man, that of hunters. It did not exist in the second state, that of shepherds: neither Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, nor Job, so far as the history of the Bible may be credited in probable things, were owners of land.

Their property consisted, as is always enumerated in flocks and herds, and they travelled with them from place to place. The frequent contentions at that time about the use of a well in the dry country of Arabia, where those people lived, also show that there was no landed property. It was not admitted that land could be claimed as property.

There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not make the earth, and, though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it; neither did the Creator of the earth open a land-office, from whence the first title-deeds should issue. Whence then, arose the idea of landed property? I answer as before, that when cultivation began the idea of landed property began with it, from the impossibility of separating the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that improvement was made.

The value of the improvement so far exceeded the value of the natural earth, at that time, as to absorb it; till, in the end, the common right of all became confounded into the cultivated right of the individual. But there are, nevertheless, distinct species of rights, and will continue to be, so long as the earth endures.

It is only by tracing things to their origin that we can gain rightful ideas of them, and it is by gaining such ideas that we discover the boundary that divides right from wrong, and teaches every man to know his own. I have entitled this tract 'Agrarian Justice' to distinguish it from 'Agrarian Law'.

Nothing could be more unjust than agrarian law in a country improved by cultivation; for though every man, as an inhabitant of the earth, is a joint proprietor of it in its natural state, it does not follow that he is a joint proprietor of cultivated earth. The additional value made by cultivation, after the system was admitted, became the property of those who did it, or who inherited it from them, or who purchased it. It had originally no owner. While, therefore, I advocate the right, and interest myself in the hard case of all those who have been thrown out of their natural inheritance by the introduction of the system of landed property, I equally defend the right of the possessor to the part which is his.

Cultivation is at least one of the greatest natural improvements ever made by human invention. It has given to created earth a tenfold value. But the landed monopoly that began with it has produced the greatest evil. It has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation of their natural inheritance, without providing for them, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss, and has thereby created a species of poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before.

In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right, and not a charity, that I am pleading for. But it is that kind of right which, being neglected at first, could not be brought forward afterwards till heaven had opened the way by a revolution in the system of government. Let us then do honour to revolutions by justice, and give currency to their principles by blessings.

Having thus in a few words, opened the merits of the case, I shall now proceed to the plan I have to propose, which is,

To create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property:

And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.

Means by which the Fund is to be Created

I have already established the principle, namely, that the earth, in its natural uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race; that in that state, every person would have been born to property; and that the system of landed property, by its inseparable connection with cultivation, and with what is called civilized life, has absorbed the property of all those whom it dispossessed, without providing, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss.

The fault, however, is not in the present possessors. No complaint is intended, or ought to be alleged against them, unless they adopt the crime by opposing justice. The fault is in the system, and it has stolen imperceptibly upon the world, aided afterwards by the agrarian law of the sword. But the fault can be made to reform itself by successive generations; and without diminishing or deranging the property of any of the present possessors, the operation of the fund can yet commence, and be in full activity, the first year of its establishment, or soon after, as I shall show.

It is proposed that the payments, as already stated, be made to every person, rich or poor. It is best to make it so, to prevent invidious distinctions. It is also right it should be so, because it is in lieu of the natural inheritance, which, as a right, belongs to every man, over and above the property he may have created, or inherited from those who did. Such persons as do not choose to receive it can throw it into the common fund.

Taking it then for granted that no person ought to be in a worse condition when born under what is called a state of civilization, than he would have been had be been born in a state of nature, and that civilization ought to have made, and ought still to make, provision for that purpose, it can only be done by subtracting from property a portion equal in value to the natural inheritance it has absorbed.

Various methods may be proposed for this purpose, but that which appears to be the best (not only because it will operate without deranging any present possessors, or without interfering with the collection of taxes or emprunts necessary for the purposes of government and the Revolution, but because it will be the least troublesome and the most effectual, and also because the subtraction will be made at a time that best admits it) is at the moment that property is passing by the death of one person to the possession of another. In this case, the bequeather gives nothing: the receiver pays nothing. The only matter to him is that the monopoly of natural inheritance, to which there never was a right, begins to cease in his person. A generous man would not wish it to continue, and a just man will rejoice to see it abolished.

My state of health prevents my making sufficient inquiries with respect to the doctrine of probabilities, whereon to found calculations with such degrees of certainty as they are capable of. What, therefore, I offer on this head is more the result of observation and reflection than of received information; but I believe it will be found to agree sufficiently with fact. In the first place, taking twenty-one years as the epoch of maturity, all the property of a nation, real and personal, is always in the possession of persons above that age. It is then necessary to know, as a datum of calculation, the average of years which persons above that age will live. I take this average to be about thirty years, for though many persons will live forty, fifty, or sixty years, after the age of twenty-one years, others will die much sooner, and some in every year of that time.

Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time, it will give, without any material variation one way or other, the average of time in which the whole property or capital of a nation, or a sum equal thereto, will have passed through one entire revolution in descent, that is, will have gone by deaths to new possessors; for though, in many instances, some parts of this capital will remain forty, fifty, or sixty years in the possession of one person, other parts will have revolved two or three times before those thirty years expire, which will bring it to that average; for were one-half the capital of a nation to revolve twice in thirty years, it would produce the same fund as if the whole revolved once.

Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time in which the whole capital of a nation, or a sum equal thereto, will revolve once, the thirtieth part thereof will be the sum that will revolve every year, that is, will go by deaths to new possessors; and this last sum being thus known, and the ratio per cent to be subtracted from it determined, it will give the annual amount or income of the proposed fund, to be applied as already mentioned.

In looking over the discourse of the English Minister, Pitt, in his opening of what is called in England the budget (the scheme of finance for the year 1796), I find an estimate of the national capital of that country. As this estimate of a national capital is prepared ready to my hand, I take it as a datum to act upon. When a calculation is made upon the known capital of any nation, combined with its population, it will serve as a scale for any other nation, in proportion as its capital and population be more or less.

I am the more disposed to take this estimate of Mr Pitt, for the purpose of showing to that minister, upon his own calculation, how much better money may be employed than in wasting it, as he has done, on the wild project of setting up Bourbon kings. What, in the name of heaven, are Bourbon kings to the people of England? It is better that the people have bread.

Mr Pitt states the national capital of England, real and personal, to be one thousand three hundred millions sterling, which is about one-fourth part of the national capital of France, including Belgia. The event of the last harvest in each country proves that the soil of France is more productive than that of England, and that it can better support twenty-four or twenty-five millions of inhabitants than that of England can seven or seven and a half millions.

The thirtieth part of this capital of £1,300,000,000 is £43,333,333 which is the part that will revolve every year by deaths in that country to new possessors; and the sum that will annually revolve in France in the proportion of four to one, will be about one hundred and seventy-three millions sterling. From this sum of £43,333,333 annually revolving, is to be subtracted the value of the natural inheritance absorbed in it, which, perhaps, in fair justice, cannot be taken at less, and ought not to be taken for more, than a tenth part.

It will always happen that of the property thus revolving by deaths every year a part will descend in a direct line to sons and daughters, and the other part collaterally, and the proportion will be found to be about three to one; that is, about thirty millions of the above sum will descend to direct heirs, and the remaining sum of £13,333,333 to more distant relations, and in part to strangers.

Considering, then, that man is always related to society, that relationship will become comparatively greater in proportion as the next of kin is more distant; it is therefore consistent with civilization to say that where there are no direct heirs society shall be heir to a part over and above the tenth part due to society.

If this additional part be from five to ten or twelve per cent, in proportion as the next of kin be nearer or more remote, so as to average with the escheats that may fall, which ought always to go to society and not to the government (an addition of ten per cent more), the produce from the annual sum of £43,333,333 will be:

Having thus arrived at the annual amount of the proposed fund, I come, in the next place, to speak of the population proportioned to this fund and to compare it with the uses to which the fund is to be applied.

The population (I mean that of England) does not exceed seven millions and a half, and the number of persons above the age of fifty will in that case be about four hundred thousand. There would not, however, be more than that number that would accept the proposed ten pounds sterling per annum, though they would be entitled to it. I have no idea it would be accepted by many persons who had a yearly income of two or three hundred pounds sterling. But as we often see instances of rich people falling into sudden poverty, even at the age of sixty, they would always have the right of drawing all the arrears due to them. Four millions, therefore, of the above annual sum of £5,666,666 will be required for four hundred thousand aged persons, at ten pounds sterling each.

I come now to speak of the persons annually arriving at twenty-one years of age. If all the persons who died were above the age of twenty-one years, the number of persons annually arriving at that age must be equal to the annual number of deaths, to keep the population stationary. But the greater part die under the age of twenty-one, and therefore the number of persons annually arriving at twenty-one will be less than half the number of deaths.

The whole number of deaths upon a population of seven millions and an half will be about 220,000 annually. The number arriving at twenty-one years of age will be about 100,000. The whole number of these will not receive the proposed fifteen pounds, for the reasons already mentioned, though, as in the former case, they would be entitled to it. Admitting then that a tenth part declined receiving it, the amount would stand thus:

There are, in every country, a number of blind and lame persons totally incapable of earning a livelihood. But as it will always happen that the greater number of blind persons will be among those who are above the age of fifty years, they will be provided for in that class. The remaining sum of £316,666 will provide for the lame and blind under that age, at the same rate of £10 annually for each person.

Having now gone through all the necessary calculations, and stated the particulars of the plan, I shall conclude with some observations.

It is not charity but a right, not bounty but justice, that I am pleading for. The present state of civilization is as odious as it is unjust. It is absolutely the opposite of what it should be, and it is necessary that a revolution should be made in it. The contrast of affluence and wretchedness continually meeting and offending the eye, is like dead and living bodies chained together. Though I care as little about riches as any man, I am a friend to riches because they are capable of good.

I care not how affluent some may be, provided that none be miserable in consequence of it. But it is impossible to enjoy affluence with the felicity it is capable of being enjoyed, while so much misery is mingled in the scene. The sight of the misery, and the unpleasant sensations it suggests, which, though they may be suffocated cannot be extinguished, are a greater drawback upon the felicity of affluence than the proposed ten per cent upon property is worth. He that would not give the one to get rid of the other has no charity, even for himself.

There are, in every country, some magnificent charities established by individuals. It is, however, but little that any individual can do, when the whole extent of the misery to be relieved is considered. He may satisfy his conscience, but not his heart. He may give all that he has, and that all will relieve but little. It is only by organizing civilization upon such principles as to act like a system of pulleys, that the whole weight of misery can be removed.

The plan here proposed will reach the whole. It will immediately relieve and take out of view three classes of wretchedness — the blind, the lame, and the aged poor; and it will furnish the rising generation with means to prevent their becoming poor; and it will do this without deranging or interfering with any national measures.

To show that this will be the case, it is sufficient to observe that the operation and effect of the plan will, in all cases, be the same as if every individual were voluntarily to make his will and dispose of his property in the manner here proposed.

But it is justice, and not charity, that is the principle of the plan. In all great cases it is necessary to have a principle more universally active than charity; and, with respect to justice, it ought not to be left to the choice of detached individuals whether they will do justice or not. Considering, then, the plan on the ground of justice, it ought to be the act of the whole growing spontaneously out of the principles of the revolution, and the reputation of it ought to be national and not individual.

A plan upon this principle would benefit the revolution by the energy that springs from the consciousness of justice. It would multiply also the national resources; for property, like vegetation, increases by offsets. When a young couple begin the world, the difference is exceedingly great whether they begin with nothing or with fifteen pounds apiece. With this aid they could buy a cow, and implements to cultivate a few acres of land; and instead of becoming burdens upon society, which is always the case where children are produced faster than they can be fed, would be put in the way of becoming useful and profitable citizens. The national domains also would sell the better if pecuniary aids were provided to cultivate them in small lots.

It is the practice of what has unjustly obtained the name of civilization (and the practice merits not to be called either charity or policy) to make some provision for persons becoming poor and wretched only at the time they become so. Would it not, even as a matter of economy, be far better to adopt means to prevent their becoming poor? This can best be done by making every person when arrived at the age of twenty-one years an inheritor of something to begin with.

The rugged face of society, chequered with the extremes of affluence and want, proves that some extraordinary violence has been committed upon it, and calls on justice for redress. The great mass of the poor in all countries are become an hereditary race, and it is next to impossible for them to get out of that state of themselves. It ought also to be observed that this mass increases in all countries that are called civilized. More persons fall annually into it than get out of it.

Though in a plan of which justice and humanity are the foundation-principles, interest ought not to be admitted into the calculation, yet it is always of advantage to the establishment of any plan to show that it is beneficial as a matter of interest. The success of any proposed plan submitted to public consideration must finally depend on the numbers interested in supporting it, united with the justice of its principles.

The plan here proposed will benefit all, without injuring any. It will consolidate the interest of the republic with that of the individual. To the numerous class dispossessed of their natural inheritance by the system of landed property it will be an act of national justice. To persons dying possessed of moderate fortunes it will operate as a tontine to their children, more beneficial than the sum of money paid into the fund: and it will give to the accumulation of riches a degree of security that none of the old governments of Europe, now tottering on their foundations, can give.

I do not suppose that more than one family in ten, in any of the countries of Europe, has, when the head of the family dies, a clear property left of five hundred pounds sterling. To all such the plan is advantageous. That property would pay fifty pounds into the fund, and if there were only two children under age they would receive fifteen pounds each (thirty pounds), on coming of age, and be entitled to ten pounds a year after fifty.

It is from the overgrown acquisition of property that the fund will support itself, and I know that the possessors of such property in England, though they would eventually be benefited by the protection of nine-tenths of it, will exclaim against the plan. But without entering into any inquiry how they came by that property, let them recollect that they have been the advocates of this war, and that Mr Pitt has already laid on more new taxes to be raised annually upon the people of England, and that for supporting the despotism of Austria and the Bourbons against the liberties of France, than would pay annually all the sums proposed in this plan.

I have made the calculations stated in this plan, upon what is called personal, as well as upon landed property. The reason for making it upon land is already explained; and the reason for taking personal property into the calculation is equally well founded though on a different principle. Land, as before said, is the free gift of the Creator in common to the human race. Personal property is the effect of society; and it is as impossible for an individual to acquire personal property without the aid of society, as it is for him to make land originally.

Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man's own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.

This is putting the matter on a general principle, and perhaps it is best to do so; for if we examine the case minutely it will be found that the accumulation of personal property is, in many instances, the effect of paying too little for the labour that produced it; the consequence of which is that the working hand perishes in old age, and the employer abounds in affluence.

It is, perhaps, impossible to proportion exactly the price of labour to the profits it produces; and it will also be said, as an apology for the injustice, that were a workman to receive an increase of wages daily he would not save it against old age, nor be much better for it in the interim. Make, then, society the treasurer to guard it for him in a common fund; for it is no reason that, because he might not make a good use of it for himself, another should take it.

The state of civilization that has prevailed throughout Europe, is as unjust in its principle, as it is horrid in its effects; and it is the consciousness of this, and the apprehension that such a state cannot continue when once investigation begins in any country, that makes the possessors of property dread every idea of a revolution. It is the hazard and not the principle of revolutions that retards their progress. This being the case, it is necessary as well for the protection of property as for the sake of justice and humanity, to form a system that, while it preserves one part of society from wretchedness, shall secure the other from depredation.

The superstitious awe, the enslaving reverence, that formerly surrounded affluence, is passing away in all countries, and leaving the possessor of property to the convulsion of accidents. When wealth and splendour, instead of fascinating the multitude, excite emotions of disgust; when, instead of drawing forth admiration, it is beheld as an insult upon wretchedness; when the ostentatious appearance it makes serves to call the right of it in question, the case of property becomes critical, and it is only in a system of justice that the possessor can contemplate security.

To remove the danger, it is necessary to remove the antipathies, and this can only be done by making property productive of a national blessing, extending to every individual. When the riches of one man above another shall increase the national fund in the same proportion; when it shall be seen that the prosperity of that fund depends on the prosperity of individuals; when the more riches a man acquires, the better it shall be for the general mass; it is then that antipathies will cease, and property be placed on the permanent basis of national interest and protection.

I have no property in France to become subject to the plan I propose. What I have, which is not much, is in the United States of America. But I will pay one hundred pounds sterling towards this fund in France, the instant it shall be established; and I will pay the same sum in England, whenever a similar establishment shall take place in that country.

A revolution in the state of civilization is the necessary companion of revolutions in the system of government. If a revolution in any country be from bad to good, or from good to bad, the state of what is called civilization in that country, must be made conformable thereto, to give that revolution effect.

Despotic government supports itself by abject civilization, in which debasement of the human mind, and wretchedness in the mass of the people, are the chief criterions. Such governments consider man merely as an animal; that the exercise of intellectual faculty is not his privilege; that he has nothing to do with the laws but to obey them; 【1】 and they politically depend more upon breaking the spirit of the people by poverty, than they fear enraging it by desperation.

It is a revolution in the state of civilization that will give perfection to the Revolution of France. Already the conviction that government by representation is the true system of government is spreading itself fast in the world. The reasonableness of it can be seen by all. The justness of it makes itself felt even by its opposers. But when a system of civilization, growing out of that system of government, shall be so organized that not a man or woman born in the Republic but shall inherit some means of beginning the world, and see before them the certainty of escaping the miseries that under other governments accompany old age, the Revolution of France will have an advocate and an ally in the heart of all nations.

An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot; it will succeed where diplomatic management would fail: it is neither the Rhine, the Channel, nor the ocean that can arrest its progress: it will march on the horizon of the world, and it will conquer.

Means for Carrying the Proposed Plan into Execution, and to Render it at the Same Time Conducive to the Public Interest

Ⅰ. Each canton shall elect in its primary assemblies, three persons, as commissioners for that canton, who shall take cognizance, and keep a register of all matters happening in that canton, conformable to the charter that shall be established by law for carrying this plan into execution.

Ⅱ. The law shall fix the manner in which the property of deceased persons shall be ascertained.

Ⅲ. When the amount of the property of any deceased persons shall be ascertained, the principal heir to that property, or the eldest of the co-heirs, if of lawful age, or if under age, the person authorized by the will of the deceased to represent him or them, shall give bond to the commissioners of the canton to pay the said tenth part thereof in four equal quarterly payments, within the space of one year or sooner, at the choice of the payers. One-half of the whole property shall remain as a security until the bond be paid off.

Ⅳ. The bond shall be registered in the office of the commissioners of the canton, and the original bonds shall be deposited in the national bank at Paris. The bank shall publish every quarter of a year the amount of the bonds in its possession, and also the bonds that shall have been paid off, or what parts thereof, since the last quarterly publication.

Ⅴ. The national bank shall issue bank notes upon the security of the bonds in its possession. The notes so issued, shall be applied to pay the pensions of aged persons, and the compensations to persons arriving at twenty-one years of age. It is both reasonable and generous to suppose, that persons not under immediate necessity, will suspend their right of drawing on the fund, until it acquire, as it will do, a greater degree of ability. In this case, it is proposed, that an honorary register be kept, in each canton, of the names of the persons thus suspending that right, at least during the present war.

Ⅵ. As the inheritors of property must always take up their bonds in four quarterly payments, or sooner if they choose, there will always be numéraire [cash] arriving at the bank after the expiration of the first quarter, to exchange for the bank notes that shall be brought in.

Ⅶ. The bank notes being thus put in circulation, upon the best of all possible security, that of actual property, to more than four times the amount of the bonds upon which the notes are issued, and with numéraire continually arriving at the bank to exchange or pay them off whenever they shall be presented for that purpose, they will acquire a permanent value in all parts of the Republic. They can therefore be received in payments of taxes, or emprunts equal to numéraire, because the Government can always receive numéraire for them at the bank.

Ⅷ. It will be necessary that the payments of the ten per cent be made in numéraire for the first year from the establishment of the plan. But after the expiration of the first year, the inheritors of property may pay ten per cent either in bank notes issued upon the fund, or in numéraire.

If the payments be in numéraire, it will lie as a deposit at the bank, to be exchanged for a quantity of notes equal to that amount; and if in notes issued upon the fund, it will cause a demand upon the fund equal thereto; and thus the operation of the plan will create means to carry itself into execution.

注释

【1】 An expression used by Bishop Horsley in the Parliament of England. — Paine.

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企鹅口袋书系列·伟大的思想



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中文目录

论复仇

论双亲与子女

论婚姻和独身

论妒忌

论爱

论高位

论善与本性之善

论游历

论君权

论狡猾

论利己的学问

论新事物

论消费

论养生

论猜疑

论言谈

论财富

论野心

论美

论残疾

论建筑

论花园

论交涉

论请托者

论学问

论虚荣

论愤怒

返回总目录

论复仇

复仇乃是一种对公道的粗暴寻求,人的本性愈是趋向于此,法律越是要将其禁止。之前别人的罪行,诚然已经触犯了法律;但针对此罪行的复仇却是将法律置于不顾。固然,一个人采取复仇行为不过是为了与其仇敌相互扯平,但若能既往不咎,他便更胜一筹,因为宽恕乃是内在于贵族气质的。我确信所罗门曾言:“宽恕人的过失,便是自己的荣耀。” 〔1〕 过去的已经逝去,亦无法挽回,智者在当下和未来所要处理的事何其之多,让自己缠绕于过去的纷扰不过是徒增负担。没有人是为了犯罪的目的而去犯罪,不过是为了使自己从中能获得利益、愉悦或者名誉等诸如此类的好处罢了。既然如此,我何必因为一个人爱他自己胜过爱我而耿耿于怀呢?即使有人纯粹出于其邪恶的本性而去犯罪,那又如何呢?也就像是荆棘一般,除了刺扎擦划,其所能及不过如此。最可容忍的一类复仇是针对那种没有相应的法律可以主持公道的罪行的报复:但即便如此,实施复仇的人也需注意不要触及刑律;否则此人的仇敌仍然占上风,与仇敌相比,复仇者则会遭受双倍的困苦。有些时候,当给予复仇时,人们会希望对方明白这报复从何而来。这是更为宽宏的一种做法,因为复仇带来的快感似乎不在于使对方受到伤害,而是在于使其悔过。但卑鄙奸诈的懦夫却喜欢暗箭伤人。佛罗伦萨大公科斯莫斯, 〔2〕 对那些背信弃义或忘恩负义的朋友有过一番极端的言论,仿佛那些罪行是不可饶恕的,他说:“你应在圣书中读到过教诲我们原谅仇敌的话语,但却不会读到原谅自己朋友的话语。”还是约伯的精神格调更高,他说:“难道我们从神手里得福,不也受祸吗?” 〔3〕 从而由此推及朋友一定程度上也应如此。可以肯定的是,一个人若对复仇念念不忘,那么他的伤口将久久不能愈合,若非如此他的伤口应早已痊愈。报公仇者多半幸运:例如为恺撒 〔4〕 被刺、为珀尔提那克斯 〔5〕 被杀、为法兰西国王亨利三世 〔6〕 被害此类事件而进行的复仇;但私仇的报复则不然。与之相反,那些报复心切的人过着妖巫般的生活,他们生时于人有害,死时不得善终。

注释

〔1〕  《旧约·箴言》,第19章第11节。

〔2〕  即Cosimo de′Medici(1519~1574),1537年至1574年为佛罗伦萨大公。他这番话的出处未被考证。

〔3〕 《旧约·约伯》,第2章第10节。

〔4〕  恺撒,即盖乌斯·尤利乌斯·恺撒(Gaius Julius Caesar,公元前100~公元前44),罗马末期军事统率,也称为恺撒大帝,公元前44年遭暗杀身亡。——译者注

〔5〕  珀尔提那克斯,即(Publius Elvius Pertinax,126~193),罗马皇帝,193年即位,即位87天后遭兵变,被士兵杀害身亡。——译者注

〔6〕  法兰西国王亨利三世(Henri III,原名Henri Alexandre,1551~1589),1589年在雅各宾修道院被一名多明我会修士雅克·克列孟(Jacques Clément,1567~1589)刺死。——译者注

论双亲与子女

双亲的欢愉是秘而不宣的,他们的悲伤和恐惧也是如此:他们既难以言述他们的欢愉,也不愿意去表达他们的悲伤和恐惧。子女既使得艰辛变得甘甜,也使得不幸更为苦痛:他们增添了双亲生活的负担,也减轻了他们关于死亡的忧惧。繁衍自身将血脉永存延续对于其他动物来说都是一样的,但名留青史、建立功勋和创造伟业则是人类特有的。的确不难看到有些最为卓越的成就和建树来自没有子嗣之人,在他们肉体的形象不能得到延续之处,他们寻求以精神形象的方式实现自身的延续。所以,没有子嗣的人实际上是最为关心后代的。那些作为家族创立者的人对于他们的子女也最为溺爱,他们不仅将子女视为他们家族的后裔,也将其视为他们事业的继承者;所以,在他们眼中,子女既是后代又是事业。

双亲倾注在他们的几个子女身上的情感在许多时候是不平均的,有时甚至是不合理的,在母亲身上表现得尤为突出。如所罗门所言:“智慧之子使父亲欢乐,愚昧之子叫母亲蒙羞。” 〔1〕 通常可见的是,在一个子孙满堂的家族中,一两个最年长的子女受到器重,最年幼者则被娇惯纵容,但处在中间的几个似乎处于被遗忘的境地,然而他们却往往成为最优秀的。父母在零用钱方面对他们的子女若太吝惜会犯有害的错误,会使得他们的子女感觉卑微,使之变得善于说谎,使之与小人为伍,使之在有了大量的钱财后容易贪欲无度。人们对他们的子女保持权威,而不是捂紧自己的钱包应是最为恰当的。人们(父母、教师、仆人皆如此)有一种并不明智的习惯,就是当兄弟们还在孩提时代就开始就创造和培养一种竞争的氛围,其结果往往是使得当弟兄们长大成人时,难以同心同德,并且使家庭分崩离析。意大利人将子女、侄甥和近亲的孩子都视为己出;只要这些孩子同出一门,是否为自己亲生他们并不看重。并且,完全可以说,在自然界也大抵有些类似的情况;有时我们看到侄子更像他的叔伯而不像他自己的父亲,这是血气使然。为父母者,应及早选择他们希望自己的子女将来从事的职业和所学的课程,因为孩子越长大就越不容易塑造。但是为人父母者也不应过多地将自己的想法强加于子女身上,认为自己最感兴趣的也是对自己子女最有益处的。但确实如果子女的性情和才能卓尔不群,不去妨碍其是较好的:一般来说如下的格言是很好的,“做最佳选择,若养成了习惯就会使之充满乐趣和轻松。” 〔2〕 弟兄之中的年幼者通常有这种幸运,但在弟兄之中的年长者被剥夺了继承权的时候,上述情况则很少发生甚至不会发生。

注释

〔1〕  《旧约·箴言》,第10章第1节。

〔2〕  来自毕达哥拉斯(Pythagoras,约公元前572~公元前497)的追随者的警句,出自普罗塔克(Plutarch,约公元46~120)的《论流放》,第8节(《道德小品》,602B)。原文为拉丁文。

论婚姻和独身

有妻子和子女的人已经向命运做了抵押,因为家室乃是大事业的累赘,不论是成就一番美德还是要践行一番恶举。毋庸置疑的,对于大众而言的一流作品和最善之举,都来自于那些独身或没有子女的人士,这些人士在情感上以大众为伴侣,其钱财也捐赠给了大众。然而,那些有子女的人去心系未来才是合情合理的,因为未来是他们最珍爱的抵押品将要送抵之处。有些人虽然过着独身的生活,他们的想法却不会超出自我之外,对未来也漠不关心。不但如此,有些人将妻子和子女视同一叠索费账单。更有甚者,也就是那些愚蠢而富有的悭吝人反而以没有子女为豪,因为他们认为这样在别人眼中他们就更为富有了。或许他们曾有耳闻这样的话:“这人可真是个大富翁”,但其他人却反驳说:“是啊,但是他有一堆儿女要照顾呢”,仿佛这会削减他的财力似的。但导致独身生活的最普通的原因是此类生活的自在清净,对于那些具有容易自我满足和幽默感心灵的人尤为如此。这类人对于任何约束都十分敏感,以至于他们会将自己的腰带和袜带也视为束缚和桎梏。独身的人是最可靠的朋友,最善良的主人,最令人满意的仆人;但并不总是最恭顺的臣民,因为他们很容易一走了之;并且几乎所有的逃亡者都属于这种没有牵挂的状况。独身生活对于教会中的人士是适合的,因为善举若先注满一池,则难以润泽四方。对于法官和地方官员来说则不一样,因为如果他们易被人左右且贪污受贿,你会发现一个仆人带来的祸害能比一个妻子带来的五倍有余。对于军人而言,我发现将军们在训导中通常让他的部下将妻儿铭记在心;并且我认为土耳其人对婚姻的普遍不尊使得他们粗鄙的士兵更为不堪。的确,妻子和子女是对人性的一种训练;而独身的人,虽然他们很多时候更为慷慨,因为他们在财务上支出不多,但从另一方面来说,他们也更为冷酷和硬心肠(去做审讯官倒是不错),因为他们的恻隐之心并不那么常常被触发。通常深爱妻子的丈夫是本性端庄、受风俗教化,从而忠贞不渝的,就如尤利西斯 〔1〕 被称道的:“他宁要糟糠之妻也不愿要长生不老” 〔2〕 贞洁的妇女常常骄傲自负,因为她们自认为保持操守就有此资本。若一个妇女认为她的丈夫是有才识的,那就是她尽自己为人妻的贞洁和顺从的最好维系条件之一,但如果她发现丈夫生性猜忌,她就不会那么做。妻子是青年人的情人,中年人的伴侣,老年人的看护。所以一个人若要结婚是不会缺乏理由的。然而有一个智者,当有人问他“人应该什么时候结婚”的时候,他这样回答:“青年人结婚还为时尚早,老年人则完全不该结婚。”常可见到的是,性格不好的丈夫往往有温柔贤惠的妻子;或许这使得当丈夫的性情和善时让人更觉可贵,又或者这类妻子以自己的耐性为荣。但有一点绝对错不了,那就是如果性格不好的丈夫是因为不顾亲友的意见而自己做的选择,她们就不得不去为自己的愚蠢行为付出代价。

注释

〔1〕  尤利西斯,即希腊神话中的英雄奥德修斯(Odysseus),设计了特洛伊战争中的木马攻城计,荷马史诗《奥德修斯》中描述奥德修斯曾漂流到一个海岛上,岛上的女神以长生不老的许诺挽留他。——译者注

〔2〕  出自西塞罗(Cicero,公元前106~前43)《论雄辩家》,第1章,第44节。原文为拉丁文。

论妒忌

除了爱情和妒忌之外,没有哪种情感能使人神魂颠倒和心醉神迷。爱情与妒忌都包含着强烈的愿望;它们能使自身、幻想和暗示轻易地结合;它们容易在眼神中流露,尤其是相关对象出现在眼前之时:如果存在类似的事物的话,这些便是导致迷醉的原因。我们在《圣经》中读到过将妒忌称为“凶眼”,并且占星家将星宿的不利影响称为“凶相”,为此妒忌的行为似乎总是被认为与目光灼灼伤人的样子相连。不仅如此,有一些爱探究的人注意到,当妒忌的目光最伤人的时候,正是被妒忌的一方最得意得志之时,这正使得妒忌之心越发显露了:除此之外,在这种时候被妒忌之人扬扬自得的情绪表露无遗,妒忌并非无风起浪。

将这些奇趣怪谈放在一边(虽然在适当的时候它们也并非不值得思考),我们将讨论什么样的人倾向于妒忌别人,什么样的人最容易招致别人的妒忌以及公妒与私妒有何区别。

自身缺乏美德的人在任何时候都妒忌别人的德行。因为人的心灵不是充盈着自身的善,便是塞满着别人的恶;而且缺乏自身之善者必将以他人之恶补之,然后无望能及他人美德的人,会通过贬损他人的幸福来寻求平衡。

多事好问之人通常是好妒忌的。因为费心费力打探别人许多事情不会是因为这些都与他自身有利害关系:因而他在看待别人的命运时,持有一种幸灾乐祸的心态那是必然的。只专注于自己的事物的人不会发现有多少值得妒忌的事情。因为妒忌是一种飘忽不定的激情,总是在街上游荡,而不肯守在家中:“没有好穷根究底而不心怀恶意的。” 〔1〕

出身高贵之人对正在上升的新贵是充满妒意的。因为他们之间的距离被改变了,就像观察中的错觉,当别人向自己前进时,自己却以为自己向后退了。

残疾之人、宦官、老人和私生子是好妒忌的。因为他不太可能改变自己的处境,所以便尽其所能去损害别人……

对于那些经历了灾祸和不幸之后东山再起的人来说也有类似的情况存在。他们如同那些时代的弃儿一般,将他人所受到的伤害视为对自己痛苦的补偿。

那些渴望在各个方面出人头地的,过于浮躁和自负的人也每每富于妒忌之心。他们不缺乏能让他们心生妒意的事,因为在各类事情当中虽然他不可能事事都独占鳌头,但总有那么几件事情他比别人要稍胜一筹。这就类似于哈德良皇帝 〔2〕 的性格:他对诗人、画家和工匠都抱有极其嫉妒的心理,因其本人在这些人从事的工作中也有些过人的才华。

最后,近亲、办公室同事和一同被培养的人,在侪辈得到升迁提拔之时更容易犯妒忌的毛病。因为这种状况对他们而言,映衬出自己命运之不济,就像是对他们的谴责,并且无时无刻不在敲打着他们的记忆,使得他们更为留意这些发迹的侪辈;而且,言谈和名声的传播使得妒忌倍加炽热。该隐对他的兄弟亚伯的妒忌更为恶劣且恶毒,因为亚伯的贡品被视为更好的但没有人见证到。 〔3〕 以上这些就是关于那些容易产生妒忌的人的讨论。

再说说那些或多或少招致妒忌的人。首先,那些德高望重的人,当他们的德行累积越多,他们被妒忌的也越少。因为他们的好运气似乎是他们应得的,没有人会对债务被偿还感到嫉妒,但对获得报酬和慷慨大方却不然。其次,妒忌总是伴随着人与自身的比较,如果没有比较,就没有妒忌了;从而君王是不被人所嫉妒的,他的妒忌只能来自其他君王。然而被注意到的是,默默无名者显贵之初最容易招致妒忌,但随后妒忌却慢慢消减了;不过与之相反的是,功名在身的人的荣耀持续很久时最不容易摆脱妒忌。因为到了那个时候,虽然这些建功立业的人的美德依旧,但已不如当初那样闪亮,新出现的人物的光辉掩盖了他们的光芒,使其黯然失色。

出身名门者的成功不那么容易让人妒忌,因为这似乎与之家世是相称的。此外,他们的成功似乎对其好运也未增益;而妒忌就像阳光一样,照耀在河岸或陡坡上时比照耀在平地上要热得多。出于相同的原因,那些一步步升迁的人比起那些一步登天、一跃而飞黄腾达的人所遭受的妒忌要少一些。

那些将他们的荣誉与艰辛的付出、操劳忧虑和出生入死的经历相联系的人较少受到别人的嫉妒。因为人们觉得他们的这些荣誉来之不易,甚至有时还会对他们表示怜惜;而怜悯则可以将妒忌治愈。这是为什么人们可以观察到,越是老练稳重的政坛中人,在其身处高位、鼎盛之时,越是哀叹他们一生之不济,吟诵着“我们遭受了多少痛苦!”并非他们真有这样的感受,而仅仅是为了减缓妒忌的锋芒。不过这对于那些被强加事务在身的人尚可理解,但对于那些自己想要如此的人就不是这样了。因为没有什么比不必要地、雄心勃勃地热衷于各种事务更容易增长来自别人的妒忌。并且,没有什么比一个大人物能做到保护他所有下属的充分权利及杰出地位,更能够将妒忌的乌云驱散的。因为这意味着在他和他的敌人之间竖起了道道屏障。

那些最容易招致妒忌的,首当其冲地是那些对自己的好运带着极其傲慢无礼态度的人,如果他们不显示自己有多伟大,他们就会觉得不舒服,他们或通过外在赤裸裸地炫耀,或通过对抗和竞争来压倒别人成就自己。然而也有一些明智的人愿做妒忌祭坛上的献品,有时在与其自身干系不大的事情中有目的地忍受别人的倾轧和压制。纵然如此,如下也是事实,即如果对成就怀以一颗平常心并且处以一种开放的心态(不带有骄傲自大和虚荣自负的成分),比起那种使用欺诈狡猾手段的方式来说,招致的嫉妒要少。因为在后一种方式中,这种人简直就是在否定自己的好运,并且好像意识到自己不配拥有这样的运气;由此,他竟是教导别人来妒忌他了。

最后,作为对这一部分的结束语:我们在一开始已经了解到妒忌的行为与巫术有几分关联,那么要治愈妒忌,只有借助治愈巫术的良方;也就是将那“歹运”(人们所谓的)除去并加于别人身上。为此目的,一些比较聪明的大人物总是将一些人推到台前,从而将那些针对自身的妒忌被分散到那些人身上;有时妒忌旁落到臣子或仆人身上,有时落到同事或同伙身上,诸如此类;就此来说,总不缺乏某些生性暴烈的人,为了获得权利和地位,不惜一切代价。

现在,谈一谈公妒。在公妒中还有些好处,然而在私妒当中就一点儿好处也没有了。因为公妒乃是一种放逐,将那些势力增长得太快的人的风头压制住。从而公妒对于其他大人物也是一种约束,能使他们的行为不超越界限。

这种妒忌,在拉丁文中称为invidia,在现代的语言中用“公愤”一词表达,这我们将在处理叛乱的文章中进行讨论。它是一种在国家中容易传染的疾病。就像传染病一样,把那些本来健康的部分感染了,当妒忌传入了一个国家,它甚至会中伤最好的行为,并将其变为一种声名不佳的行为。然而如果企图将不齿的行为与善举相互混淆,胜算是很小的。那样做不过是显示了对妒忌的软弱和惧怕,会火上浇油越来越糟;通常就像传染病一样,如果你害怕它们,反而会被它们传染。

这种公妒似乎主要冲击身居要职的官员和大臣,而不是针对国王或是权制本身。但有一个确定的规则,如果对某位大臣的妒忌太盛,而该大臣本身引起妒忌的责任并不大,或者妒忌在某种意义上已经指向了一个国家中的所有大臣,那么这种妒忌(虽然是隐藏的)实际上是施加在国家身上的。这些就是关于公妒或不满,及其与前面最开始就讨论过的私妒的区别。

我们就触动妒忌的情感再说几句,与其他所有情感相较,这种情感是最为胡搅蛮缠和没完没了的。因为其他的情感都不过是偶尔有之。因此常言道:“妒忌从不休假”,因为它总是在影响某些人。此外还可以注意到的是,爱情和妒忌使人憔悴,而其他情感则不会这样,因为其他情感不像爱情和妒忌那样频繁连续。妒忌也是最恶劣的情感,并且是最堕落的情感,因此它是魔鬼的固有属性,魔鬼就是“那个夜间在麦子中播撒稗子的妒忌者”; 〔4〕 就像一直以来那样,妒忌狡猾地在黑暗中行事,对诸如麦子等好的东西造成损害。

注释

〔1〕  出自普劳图斯(Plautus,约公元前254~前184)的《斯提库斯》,第1章,第3节,第54段。原文为位丁文。

〔2〕  哈德良(Publius Aelius Traianus Hadrianus,76~138),罗马帝国皇帝,117~138年在位。——译者注

〔3〕  该隐和亚伯是亚当和夏娃的儿子,他们都将自己的劳动成果献给上帝,在没有旁人的情况下上帝接受了亚伯的贡品,而上帝没有接受该隐的,该隐因嫉妒将亚伯骗杀。见《旧约·创世纪》,第4章。——译者注

〔4〕  《新约·马太福音》,第13章第25节。

论爱

相较人生而言,舞台从爱那里得益更多。因为在舞台上,爱从来就是喜剧的素材,有时也是悲剧的素材;但在生活中,爱带来的是灾祸,有时像希腊神话中那位用歌声诱惑水手的海妖,有时像是复仇女神。你能注意到,在一切伟大和杰出的人物(不论是在古代还是在今日,只要是为人们的记忆所铭记的)当中,没有谁是被爱这种强烈的情绪所导致癫狂的,这表明,伟大的灵魂和伟大的事业能将这种软弱的情感排斥在外。不过你可能会反驳说,曾执掌罗马帝国半壁江山的马克·安东尼, 〔1〕 以及曾为十人执政官之一的立法者阿庇乌斯·克劳狄乌斯 〔2〕 是这方面的例外:前者确实是沉溺于酒色之人,并且过着放纵无节制的生活,而后者却是一个严肃朴实和聪明的人。从而看起来(虽然并不多见)爱不仅可以进入坦荡的心胸,也可以遁入严格设防的心灵——如果看守不严的话。伊壁鸠鲁 〔3〕 曾说过一句不怎么高明的话,“我们每一个人充其量不过是别人的听众罢了”: 〔4〕 仿佛人类生来就应沉思天宇和各种高贵事物的造化,除了在一个渺小的偶像面前五体投地、俯首称臣之外别无作为,虽然不是作为口舌的奴隶(如野兽那样),但却是眼睛的臣子,眼睛被赋予人,是出于更高贵的目的。留意到这种情感的过度,以及这种情感对事物本性及其价值的违抗,是令人惊异的,因为:没完没了的夸张只在爱当中才显得打动人心,而在其他地方就什么都不是。这不仅仅是俗语而已,因为早就有一句话是这么说的:第一阿谀者就是人自己,与之比起来其他那些微不足道的阿谀者都还是有头脑的,毋庸置疑的,情人要比这第一阿谀者更为过分。因为一个骄傲自负的人无论能把自己荒谬地想成多么不可一世者,也比不上情人对自己的爱人所奉承谄媚的程度。所以曾有人说,“不可能既在爱中又保持明智”。 〔5〕 这种弱点也不仅仅是显露给旁观者,而不会显露给被爱的一方,其实在被爱者那里尤为明显,除非这爱是相互回应的。因为一条真实的规则是,爱从来都是通过两种方式得到回报的,或通过两情相悦,或通过内心秘而不宣的轻蔑。由此更多的人应如何提防这种情感,在这种情感中失去的不仅是其他的一切,更失去了自身……因为不论是谁,若对情爱过于痴迷,就会同时失去财富和智慧。爱这种情感在人有弱点的时候最容易泛滥成灾,也就是一个人十分春风得意或者非常困顿不幸之时(当然后一种情况是不那么容易见到的);当这样的境况将爱的火焰点燃,就会让它燃烧得更为热烈,从而表明情爱不过是愚蠢的产物罢了。那些做得很好的人,如果他们不得不将情爱接纳,也仍能保持适度,并将情爱与他们生活的重要事务和行动完全分开;因为如果情爱一旦与事业混淆,它就会对人的运程产生不利的影响,使得人们无法忠实于自己的目标。我不知道为什么会是这样,也就是尚武之人总是容易为情爱所俘:我想这或许就像他们容易为杯盏所俘一样。因为危险通常需要以欢愉作为补偿。在人的本性当中,存在着爱他人的隐秘倾向和意向,这种隐秘的倾向和意向如果不能施于某人或某些人身上,便会自然而然地被播撒到众人身上,使人变得仁慈和宽厚;就像有时在修道士身上可看到的那样。夫妻之爱使人类繁衍生生不息;朋友之爱使人更完美;放荡不羁的爱使人堕落卑微。

注释

〔1〕  马克·安东尼(约公元前83~前30),罗马政治家和军事家。恺撒被刺后,他与屋大维(Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus,公元前63~14,又名奥古斯都)和雷必达(约公元前89~前13年)一起组成了后三头同盟,共同执掌罗马政权。公元前33年后三头同盟分裂,前30年马克·安东尼与埃及女王克娄巴特拉七世(约公元前70~约公元前30)一同自杀身亡。——译者注

〔2〕  阿庇乌斯·克劳狄乌斯,古罗马政治家,前451年~前449年统治罗马并负责立法的十人委员会成员之一。——译者注

〔3〕  伊壁鸠鲁(公元前341~前270)古希腊哲学家、无神论者,伊壁鸠鲁学派的创始人。——译者注

〔4〕  出自塞内加,《书信集》,第7篇第2节。

〔5〕  出自普布里乌斯·西鲁斯《格言》,第15条。原文为拉丁文。

论高位

身处高位的人是三重身份的仆从:君主或国家的仆从,名声的仆从,事务的仆从。所以他们是没有自由的,既没有个人的自由,也没有行动的自由,更没有时间的自由。匪夷所思的欲望致使人们在寻求权力的同时失去了自由;或者在寻求驾驭别人的权力时失去了支配自身的权力。升迁到高位是一个艰苦的过程,但人们却喜欢通过付出痛苦的代价换取更大的痛苦;这个过程有时是卑劣的,人们通过不光彩的手段去获得尊贵的地位。居于高位并不稳固,高位的倒退若不是地位崩塌,也至少是黯然失色,都是令人叹息的。“当你不再是你曾经所是,就没有了继续活下去的理由。” 〔1〕 不仅如此,人在他希望能引退的时候往往不能如愿以偿;然而在他有理由引退的时候他又不情愿,即便是上了年纪或忍受病痛的折磨需要退居二线,他们也不甘于离群索居:就像城里有些老人喜欢坐在他们家临街的门口,尽管这样让别人嘲笑他们已经一把年纪了。当然,大人物们需要去借助别人的看法使自己感觉幸福,因为如果只通过他们自己的感觉进行判断,他们就难以感受到幸福。但如果他们把自己的想法与其他人是如何看待自己的想法一致起来,他们会因为街谈巷议而感到高兴,即使在内心里或许他们是感到矛盾的。因为他们是那种对自己的不幸反应最迅速的人,虽然他们也是那种最后才发现自己过失的人。的确,那些正走鸿运的人对于自身就像陌生人一样,当他们为纷繁事务缠扰之时,根本无暇顾及自己的健康,不论是身体或是精神上的。“当一个行将就木之人,别人对他的状况比他自身还更为了解的时候,死亡对于他可谓突如其来”。 〔2〕 在高位时人既可以为仁从善也可以为非作歹,而后者却是招致诅咒的;因为对于为恶来说,最好的就是不要想去这样做,其次是不能这样去做。但从善的权力却是真正且合法的追求目标。因为善的想法,虽然被上帝所接受,但对于人来说也不过是比美梦稍稍强些罢了,如果不能诉诸行动的话;而行善没有权力和地位作为一定的有利条件是不能实行的。功绩与善行是人行动的目标,并且在内心里能认同这一点才能使人余生有所成就。因为如果一个人能参与上帝的剧场,那么他同样可以参与上帝的安息。“于是上帝转身看他手造的一切,看见它们都是很好的”, 〔3〕 那么接着就是安息日了。履行你的职责时,应将楷模放在自己心中,因为仿效就仿佛一整套箴言。过了一段时间后,将你自己摆在楷模面前,以此严格地考察你最初的所作所为是否有不妥之处。不能忽视那些同样职位的人曾经做得不好的例子;不是要通过斥责别人的过失抬高自己,而是要提醒自己避免犯同样的错误。从而你在进行改革时,不要带着对前一时期和人物的愤慨或纠正的心态,而是把它视为在前人的基础上开创先例的事业。将事物还原至其最初的状况,并观察它们是在哪方面如何退化的,但仍然向两个不同的时代寻求忠告:向古代追问什么是最好的;向现代探询什么是最合适的。试图将你的行为举止规律起来,这样人们能事先预知什么会发生;但不要过于绝对和专断;也不要在违背了自己原则的时候把原因解释得太清楚。保持你的位置所拥有的权力,但不要引发管辖权上的争议,宁可不声不响地实际掌有这种权力,也不要去声张和质疑这种权力。同样的,维护下属相应的权力,并且将作为主要的指导者为荣而不是事必躬亲。包容和征求涉及你职务执行的帮助和建议,不要把那些给你带来信息的人当做爱管闲事的人驱赶,而是应该乐意接纳他们。当权者的弱点有四类:拖延、腐败、粗暴和易被左右。就拖延来说,应让人们容易接近;遵守时间的约定;将手头的事情尽快地完成;将必要之事放置在首位,避免杂事的掺杂。就腐败而言,不仅要将自己约束好,同时对你的手下要严加管教,以制止受贿,也要对那些请求者表明态度,以杜绝行贿。培养正直的品性可以约束自身和下属;一旦这种正直的品性宣扬开来,并且表明对贿赂的憎恶,即是对那些企图行贿者的告诫。并且,不仅要避免犯腐败的过失,也要避免被认为腐败的嫌疑。不管是谁,如果被发现是反复无常的,并且发生了明显的改变却缺乏明显的理由,那么就容易被别人猜疑为贪污之人。从而,当你改变自己的观点或行为方式时,永远记得一定要将此事坦然地公布于众,并且同时将促使你改变的理由也宣布出来;千万不要偷偷摸摸地去做改变。一个仆从或一个你欣赏的人,如果被纳入你的圈子里,而没有其他明显值得敬重的理由,通常会被认为是有秘不可宣的贪污门道。至于粗暴,它是不满的不必要原因:严厉产生畏惧,粗暴造成仇恨。甚至来自当权者的斥责也应该是严肃的,但不应该是辱骂嘲弄。至于易为人左右,它比贿赂更为糟糕。因为贿赂只是偶尔发生;但如果求情和无用的关系网将一个人牵制,他就从此陷入泥沼而难以脱身。正如所罗门所说:“看情面是不好的,因为这样的人是会为了一块面包而枉法的。” 〔4〕 有一句极为真切的古语说,“地位显示了人的本色。” 〔5〕 而地位显示了有些人是属于更好的那一类,也显示了有些人是属于更糟糕的那一类。“如果他没有做过皇帝,大家都会认为他是适合做皇帝的”,这是泰西塔斯 〔6〕 对加尔巴 〔7〕 的评价 〔8〕 ;但对维司巴西安 〔9〕 的评价,泰西塔斯说,“维司巴西安是因为居于皇帝之位而变得更善的唯一一个皇帝”; 〔10〕 不过前者指的是才能的充分,后者指的是风度和情感。一个人的荣耀增进了,是此人可敬和慷慨精神的确切证据。因为荣耀乃是,或者应该是,德行之所在;而就像在自然界当中,事物移向它们的位置时是猛烈的,而待在自己的位置上时则是平静的。所以德行在心怀抱负时是显著的,而在当权时则安稳平静。所有升至高位的途径都像是蜿蜒曲折的楼梯;如果存在着派系的分别,当一个人向上升迁时加入一方是不错的选择,而在他已经身居高位时应保持平衡中立。公平和温和地对待你的前任的名声;因为如果你不这样做的话,它就是一笔当你卸任之时不得不偿还的债务。如果你有同僚,要敬重他们,宁可在他们不希望被召见的时候召见他们,而不是在他们有理由被召见的时候将其拒之门外。不要在谈话和私人回复请求者时对你的职位过于敏感和时时放在心上;而是宁可让别人说,“在执行职务时,他完全就是另一个人”。

注释

〔1〕  出自西塞罗,《友人书信集》第7卷,第3篇第4节。原文为拉丁文。

〔2〕  出自塞内加,《梯厄斯忒斯》,第401-403页。原文为拉丁文。

〔3〕  出自《创世纪》第1章,第31节。原文为拉丁文。

〔4〕  出自《旧约·箴言》,第28章第21节。

〔5〕  这非常可能是出自希腊七贤之二的梭伦(Solon)和庇塔库斯(Pittacus)的一句格言。

〔6〕  泰西塔斯(Publius Cornelius Tacitus,约56~120),古罗马著名的历史学家、文学家和演说家,元老院议员。——译注

〔7〕  加尔巴,即塞尔维乌斯·苏尔皮基乌斯·加尔巴(Servius Sulpicius Galba,公元前3~69),罗马帝国皇帝,69年即位,当年即被杀害。——译者注

〔8〕  出自泰西塔斯的《历史》,第I卷第49章。原文为拉丁文。

〔9〕  维司巴西安,即提图斯·弗拉维乌斯·维斯帕西亚努斯(Titus Flavius Vespasianus,9~79),罗马皇帝,69年即位。——译者注

〔10〕  出自泰西塔斯的《历史》,第I卷第50章。原文为拉丁文。

论善与本性之善

我所采取的“善”的含义,就是有益于人的幸福,也就是希腊人称之为“爱人”;而“人道”一词用来表述它就有些分量不足。我将“爱人”称为“善”,而将天然的倾向成为“本性之善”。在心灵的所有美德和品质中,“善”是最为崇高的,是上帝的品性;如果没有这种品性,人就是庸庸碌碌、为恶为害、卑鄙可怜的躯壳,比虫虱高不了几分。“善”符合神学上德性之仁慈,并且没有过度之说,而只有错误。对权力的过度渴望导致天使折断了翅膀从天堂坠落;对知识的过度渴求使人堕落;但对于仁慈来说,没有所谓的过度,天使或人都不会因为仁慈而受到危险。对善的倾向被深深烙印在人的本性之中,就这种深刻的程度来说,如果这种倾向不为人所拥有,就要趋向其他生灵:就像在土耳其人那里可看到的,虽然他们是残忍的民族,然而他们对牲畜是和善的,对狗儿和鸟儿也会施舍;布斯拜洽斯 〔1〕 曾记述说,一个信奉基督教的少年在君士坦丁堡试图以硬撑开一只长喙鸟的喙为乐,这使其差点葬身于人们投掷的石块之下。善或仁慈的美德也确实会犯错误。意大利人有一句不礼貌的谚语说,“他如此之好,以至于他一无是处”。作为意大利的博学之人的一分子,尼古拉斯·马基雅维利, 〔2〕 也自信地将其诉诸笔端,而且几乎是用非常清晰的语言表达的,他说:“基督教把人变成鱼肉,贡献给那些专横无道的人。” 〔3〕 他所说的,的确在于没有哪种法律或宗教派别或思想观念像基督教信仰那样对“善”如此颂扬的。从而,为了同时避免诽谤和危险,对“善”这种如此优秀的习惯会导致的错误有清醒的认识就是完全必要的。在别人身上发掘善的品质,但不要被他们的外表和个人好恶所束缚,因为那样会容易为人左右或软弱屈从,这使得诚实正直的人的心灵被桎梏……上帝的例子给我们真切的教训:“他降雨以义人,也给不义的;叫日头照好人,也照歹人”; 〔4〕 但他不将财富或光辉的荣耀以及美德平等地泽被于每一个人。普通的好处应惠及所有人,但特殊的福利则应有所选择地施与。并且我们应谨防在临摹的时候把原型损毁,因为神学认为我们对自己的爱是原型,而我们对邻居的爱是对这种原型的仿效。“去变卖你所有的,分给穷人,并且来跟从我”; 〔5〕 但除非你要来跟随我,否则不要把你拥有的都变卖掉;也就是说,除非在可以使用非常少的钱财做非常多的事情那方面你赋有天职,否则对支流的灌注会使得源泉枯竭。为正确理由所引导的善的习性是存在的;而同时在一些人的本性当中也存在着作为善的对立面的本性的恶毒以及对这种恶毒的倾向。因为有些人的本性就不与人为善。这种恶毒当中较轻的类型变为一种执拗或刚愎顽固的个性,或是喜于与人作对的倾向,或是难以相处的性格等等;但较重的类型,就变为妒忌和纯粹的恶意中伤。这样的人,当别人处于不幸之时,在某种程度上,正是感觉良好,并且还不断地火上浇油唯恐天下不乱:还比不上舔舐麻风病人拉扎勒斯疮口的那些狗儿, 〔6〕 而是像那些围绕着暴露的伤口嗡嗡直叫的苍蝇一般;“愤世嫉俗者”,惯于将人引向自缢的树枝,但在他们的园子里却连供人自缢的树都没有一棵,像泰门那样。 〔7〕 这样的性情是人类本性的极大错误,然而却是造就伟大政治最合适不过的材料;就像弯曲的木料一样,用于制造注定要颠簸的船只是很合适的,而对于建造稳固坚实的房屋则不合适。善的作为和表现有许多种:如果一个人对异乡人亲切温和而彬彬有礼,那显示出他是世界的公民,并且他的心与其他陆地并不是隔绝开来的,而是与之相连接的大陆。如果他对别人的困难抱有同情之心,那表现他的心就像一棵珍贵的树木,它从自己的伤口中奉献出能给人疗伤的药膏。如果他能轻易地原谅和宽恕别人的过失,那说明了他的心灵是扎根在高于伤害的地方,所以他不会被伤害所击中。如果他对微小的获益也心存感激,那表明他重视的是人心,而不是那些其他无用的方面。但首要的,如果他有圣保罗的完美,即他为了弟兄们获得拯救而不惜被基督诅咒 〔8〕 ,那就显示出一种天赐的本性,并且是一种与基督本身相一致的本性。

注释

〔1〕  佛兰德学者和驻土耳其大使,逝于1592年。

〔2〕  意大利政治哲学家,著有《君主论》等。——译者注

〔3〕  马基雅维利《论李维》,第2卷第2章。

〔4〕  出自《马太福音》,第5章第45节。

〔5〕  出自《马可福音》,第10章第21节。

〔6〕  出自《路加福音》第16章,拉扎勒斯是一个躺在地主家门口的麻风病人,他从地主那里没有得到施舍,只有狗儿来舔舐他的疮口。——译者注

〔7〕  雅典的泰门,以作为愤世嫉俗者而闻名,他宣告说因为他准备将他园子里的一棵树砍掉,而这棵树曾有许多人在上面吊死过,所以想要自杀的人请从速。——译者注

〔8〕  《新约罗马书》,第9章,第3节。

论游历

游历对年轻人来说是教育的一部分;对于年长者而言,是经验的一部分。在尚未学习过一门语言之前到某个国家旅行,是去上学而不是去游历。青年人在家庭教师的带领下或在忠诚仆人的陪伴下进行游历,我是非常赞同的;家庭教师或仆人通晓当地的语言,或曾经到过当地,就能告诉青年人在这些要去的国家中什么是值得去看的,什么人他们要去结交,这些地方可以提供什么样的锻炼和训练。因为若不是这样,青年人就像是蒙住脑袋去到这些地方,在国外所能看到的也微乎其微。一件奇怪的事情是,在航海旅行中,人们虽然除了天空和大海什么都看不到,却常常写下日记;但在陆地的旅行中,可以观察到如此之多的事物,却往往大部分被人们所忽略;仿佛偶然的际遇比观察到的事物更值得记录。所以书写日记还是有必要的。游历中应当观览考察的事物是:国君的宫廷,尤其是当他们接见外国使节的时候;仲裁法律的法庭,尤其是法官开庭审讯的时候;教堂和修道院,以及其中陈列的历史遗迹;城市及镇子里的城墙和堡垒,以及港口和泊船之地;古迹和废墟;图书馆;大学、论辩和讲演——如果那里有的话;航运业和海军;大城市附近高大美丽的建筑和庭院;兵工厂;军械库;弹药库;交易所;国库;仓库货栈;马术训练、击剑以及士兵的操练等等;喜剧,上流人士常常流连之所;珠宝和华丽服饰的荟萃;私人收藏和珍奇物品;以及作为总结,在他们游历所到之处任何值得纪念的事物。家庭教师和仆人应对所有的这些都事先进行过详细的考察。至于凯旋庆典、化装舞会、节日盛宴、婚礼、葬礼、死刑的执行,等等这些方面,则不需要人记在心上;虽然也不至于全然被忽略掉。如果你让一个青年人将其游历局限在一个小小的地方,并且只给他较短的时间去获取大量的东西,这就是你所需要做的。首先,如前所述,他应当在去游历之前略通当地的语言。然后,就像之前谈到的那样,他应该有一位了解那个国家的家庭教师或仆人。让他带着一些描述将游历国家的卡片或书籍,这些将会是有助于他探索的好钥匙。让他要坚持写日记;让他不要在一座城市或市镇中停留过久;时间的长短视此地所具有的价值而定,但不能太久;而且,在他居留于一个城市或市镇时,让他变换自己居住的地方,从市区的一端搬到另一端,这样才能认识更多的人。他应该使自己与同乡保持一定的距离,不要与他们为伍,并且在能结交他所游历之处国民的地方用餐。当他从一个地方去往另一个地方时,应使之设法获得推荐,让他能够无论去哪里都能获得当地名流的款待,能够使之使用这种有利条件去浏览和了解他所想知道的。如此他就能在他有限的游历中获益匪浅。至于在游历中应结交的人,最有益的就是与那些各国使节的秘书和雇员结交,因为虽然是在一个国家中游历,他应该获取到更多国家的经验。他也应该参见和拜访各类著名人士,也就是那些在国外也享有盛名者,从而他能够辨别现实生活与名望之间是否相符。对于争吵,他们应该小心谨慎地避免。争吵一般都是为了情妇、为了杯中之物、为了座次和为了言语不和而起。并且,游历之人应在与性格暴躁的和好争斗的人相处时小心谨慎,因为他们会将他卷入他们自己的纷争中。当游历者返回家乡时,不要让他将曾经游历过的国家抛在脑后,而是应与他所结交的人中最有价值的那些通过书信保持联络。让他的游历经历体现在他的言谈中,而不是体现在他的服饰或举止;并且在他的言谈中,让他更多地在回答中审慎地用词,而不是迫不及待地夸夸其谈;让大家看到他不是以外国的那些风俗将自己本国的风俗取代,而仅仅是将他在国外学到的某种最好的事物输入 〔1〕 到自己国家的风俗中。

注释

〔1〕  种植。

论君权

所欲者甚少而所惧者甚多是一种可怜的状态。而对于君王来说这是非常普遍的情形,他们身处地位和权力的顶端,却缺乏渴求之物,这使得他们的心灵更为萎靡;与此同时,他们又有许多危险和不祥的想象密布在心头,这就使得他们的心智更为不清醒。这是致使《圣经》说“君心难测” 〔1〕 的一个原因。因为大量的猜忌,以及缺乏一个占主导地位的欲望,其他欲望得不到统领和规整,这会使得任何一个人的心都难以捉摸和把握。因此,君王们同样常常为自己制造欲望,并将他们的心思放在一些玩物上:有时是一座建筑;有时是要建立一种秩序;有时是要提拔一个人;有时是要拥有某一项艺术或技艺之长——就像尼禄爱好弹奏竖琴,图密善精于弓箭射术,康茂德善于骑术,卡拉卡拉喜欢驾驭战车, 〔2〕 等等都是如此。这似乎不可思议,对于那些不了解如下道理的人来说,也即人的心灵往往因为得益于一些细枝末节的事情而感到愉悦和振奋,这种愉悦和振奋比身处高位带来的还多。我们也能看到,在即位之初是幸运的征服者的君王们,后来无限地推进他们的战果是不太可能的,但他们往往被自己曾经的成就所局限,在位晚年变得迷信和阴郁;如亚历山大大帝、 〔3〕 戴克里先 〔4〕 和被我们铭记在心的查理五世 〔5〕 等等。因为已经习惯于不停地向前,而一旦发现停顿下来时,就从他的爱好中跌落,变得不再是曾经的自己了。

现在谈谈君权的调和之道:这是难以实现和保持的事情,因为调和与失调都是由对立面组成的。但将对立面交互交融是一回事,而将对立面相互交换又是另一回事。阿波尼罗对维斯佩西安所说的话就充满了极好的教训。维斯佩西安问他说:“尼禄覆灭的原因是什么?”他回答到:“尼禄虽然在竖琴的调试和弹奏方面是非常擅长的;但在统治方面,他有时把琴弦调得太高,有时又任其太低而不顾。” 〔6〕 没有什么比在权力上过分压制和过度松懈,这种不平衡和不合适宜的交替对权威的破坏更甚,这是肯定的。

一件事实是,所有近代讨论君王事务的学问,都热衷于分析如何转移和改变那些逼近君王的危险和灾祸,而不是探究那些能使君王保持洒脱的坚实和稳固的方针。但这种做法不过是试图做命运的主人罢了。君王们应该警惕,他们要小心谨防为自己所疏忽和坐视不管而酝酿的麻烦:没有人能禁止火星的迸发,也没人能辨出这些火星来自何方。在君王的事业中,困难重重并且难以克服,但最大的困难仍然来自他们的内心。因为对于君王而言(泰西塔斯曾说),有矛盾的欲望是非常普遍的:“帝王们的欲望大部分都是热烈的,同时是互不相容的。” 〔7〕 因为权力的谬误在于,想要拥有结果,却不能忍受手段的应用。

君王需要打交道的包括他们的邻国,他们的妻子,他们的子女,他们的高级教士或神职人员,他们的贵族,他们次一级的贵族或绅士,他们的商人,他们的百姓,以及他们的战士;如果不小心仔细和慎重的话,在这些打交道的过程中都有可能产生危害。

首先就他们的邻国来说:没有现成的普遍规则可以获取(因为情况是如此多变),但有一点是应该把握的。这就是,作为一国之君应该保持警觉,不要让他们的邻国势力增长到足以威胁到自己国家的安全(不管这些邻国是通过领土的扩张,还是通过贸易的包围,或是通过外交辞令,以及其他的方法)。要预见这种情况并防止这种情况发生,普遍的做法是设立一个委员会。英格兰国王亨利八世、法兰西国王弗朗西斯一世和皇帝查理五世三人在位执政的时期,就有这样的相互制约机制,他们三者当中没有谁能多占一寸土地,如果这样的事情发生,其他两个国王会立刻进行协调,或使用结盟的方式,或者如果需要的话,使用战争的方式;总之无论如何不会在利益面前采取不作为的态度。就像那不勒斯的国王费迪南多、洛伦佐·美狄斯和卢多维克斯·斯福尔扎——前者是佛罗伦萨的统治者,后者是米兰的统治者,他们所结成的同盟所起到的作用那样(即被奎恰迪尼称为意大利的安全保障)。一些经院学者所持有的一种不足取的观点认为:发起一场战争只有基于先前的伤害和挑拨才是正当的。这是毋庸置疑的,但对即将发生的危险的惧怕,虽然这即将到来的危险还未造成严重的打击,也是战争的合法原因。

就他们的妻子来说,有许多残忍的例子。里维亚因为把自己的丈夫毒杀而臭名昭著;苏里曼的妻子罗克塞拉纳,就是毁灭了著名的苏丹穆斯塔法王子的人,并且在王室中为所欲为,干扰王位继承; 〔8〕 英国国王爱德华二世的皇后 〔9〕 在废黜她丈夫的王位并将其谋杀的事件中要负最主要的责任。这种类型的危险是需要提防的,尤其是在君王的妻子密谋将自己亲生的孩子立为王位继承人的时候,或者她们有通奸行为的时候。

就他们的子女来说:发生在他们身上的类似悲剧不胜枚举。并且一般而言,父王对他们的子女一旦开始猜疑,结果总是不幸的。穆斯塔法的毁灭(我们之前提到过的)对于苏里曼统治的延续是致命的打击,继而土耳其王位的继任从苏里曼至今都被怀疑有猫腻并且已经落入别的血统之手;因为塞里姆斯二世被认为是私生子。克里斯普斯是一位难得的性格温和的年轻王子,被他的父亲——君士坦丁大帝亲手摧毁了,也造成了君士坦丁王室的致命伤:因为君士坦丁大帝的两个儿子君士坦丁和康斯坦斯,都死于暴力冲突;而他的另一个儿子君士坦提乌斯,结局没那么惨烈,他确实是死于疾病,但也是在尤里安与之兵刃相向之后因病而亡的。 〔10〕 马其顿的菲利普二世的儿子德米特里厄斯,他的毁灭给其父王带来报应,使之在悔恨中死去。 〔11〕 这样的事例还有很多,但几乎没有做父亲的能从这种不信任的关系中得到好处的;除非做儿子的公然举兵反抗父王,就如塞里姆斯一世与巴杰扎特对抗,以及英格兰国王亨利二世与他的三个儿子之间的对决。

就他们的高级神职人员来说,当这些人踌躇满志不可一世的时候,就会产生危害。安塞姆和托马斯·贝克特时代就是如此,他们两位都是坎特伯雷的大主教,都试图以手中的圭杖与君王的权杖相抗衡;但他们都遇到了强硬和骄横的国王——威廉·鲁夫斯、亨利一世以及亨利二世。 〔12〕 危害并非来自这种抗衡的情形,而是当这种情形有外国的权势作为支撑时,或者是教士职位的产生和当选不是通过国王的册封或特别的指派,而是通过民众实现的时候。

至于贵族,应与他们保持适当的距离;对贵族进行压制虽然会使得君王在权力上更为不受限制,但却不那么安全,并且使得君王去实现他的愿望变得不那么容易。我在关于英国国王亨利七世的历史著作中曾经提及,亨利七世对他的贵族进行压制,从而导致的后果就是,在他统治期间充满了各种难题和动乱,因为贵族们虽然仍然效忠于他,但他们并不协助他完成他的事业。所以实际上他不得不自己去做所有的事情。

就次一级贵族来说:作为一个分散的群体,他们倒是不会产生太多的危害。他们有时会高谈阔论,但通常是只说不做;此外,他们与地位更高的贵族之间形成了一种力量的抗衡,使得后者力量的扩张不至于过于强劲;最后,他们在老百姓当中具有最直接的影响力,在调和大众骚乱时他们的作用可以发挥到最大。

就商人来说:他们是门静脉,如果商人们不活跃兴盛,一个王国就会空有良好的四肢,而血管里却没有血液流淌,并且得不到什么滋养。向他们征收税费和税款对君王的财政收入没有明显的好处,因为虽然在百户区 〔13〕 那里获利了,他却在郡那里失利;个别的税率增加了,但贸易的总额度却反而下降。

就平民来说,平民基本上不会有太大的危害,除非他们当中出现了伟大的、具有强大影响力的领袖,或者除非你对他们的宗教思想、风俗、谋生手段进行干涉,那就有可能带来危害。

就战士而言,当他们作为一个整体生活和存在,并且习惯于无功受禄,是一种危险的状态;关于这方面,我们可以看看土耳其的近卫步兵 〔14〕 和罗马禁卫队 〔15〕 的例子。不过,对战士进行训练,将其部署在各地,由几位指挥官进行管辖,并且不要给予赏赐,这是防御的需要,没有什么危害。

君王就像天空中闪烁的星辰,会带来福运也会招致灾祸,他们拥有许多的景仰,但疲惫而不得休憩。所有关于君王的戒律实际上包含在如下两句应铭刻在心的话语中:要记住你是一个人,并且要记住你是一个神或者神的代表。前者约束他们的权力,后者约束他们的意志。

注释

〔1〕  出自《旧约·箴言》,第25章第3节。

〔2〕  尼禄逝于公元68年,图密善逝于公元96年,康茂德逝于192年,卡拉卡拉逝于217年,他们都是罗马皇帝;都以他们的残暴统治臭名昭著。——译者注

〔3〕  亚历山大大帝(公元前356~前323),即马其顿国王亚历山大三世。他用13年时间建立起东起印度河、西至尼罗河与巴尔干半岛的大帝国。——译者注

〔4〕  罗马皇帝,死于313年,被认为是第一位自愿让出自己权力的君王(他让位于305年)。

〔5〕  德国(以及圣罗马)皇帝,逝于1558年,他在1556年禅让王位。——译者注

〔6〕  出自菲勒斯特拉托斯的《阿波尼罗传》第5章,第28节。

〔7〕  不是出自泰西塔斯,而是出自塞勒斯特《朱古达战争》第113章,第1节。原文为拉丁文。

〔8〕  苏里曼大帝(或称塞里姆斯一世),是土耳其苏丹,于1520年至1566年在位,在王子的继母罗克塞拉纳的煽动下将自己的长子穆斯塔法置于死地。罗克塞拉纳自己的一个儿子巴耶塞特(或巴杰扎特)因叛乱而被苏里曼处死。苏丹之位被罗克塞拉纳的另一个儿子所继承,即塞里姆斯二世,塞里姆斯二世看来好像没有继承任何苏里曼的相貌特征或性格特点。——译者注

〔9〕  安茹的伊莎贝拉,逝于1358年。——译者注

〔10〕  罗马皇帝君士坦丁大帝,在位时间为306年至337年,在326年将他的儿子克里斯普斯判处死刑。在君士坦丁大帝去世时,帝国被他的三个儿子瓜分:君士坦丁二世在试图将其兄弟康士坦斯(培根称为康斯坦斯的那位)推翻的过程中被杀害;康士坦斯被自己人谋杀于睡梦之中;而君士坦提乌斯361年死在在他举兵征伐尤里安的路上,当时尤里安已经拥兵称王。——译者注

〔11〕  德米特里厄斯是马其顿菲利普五世的儿子,被其兄弟王太子珀修斯莫须有地指控为叛国罪。他的父亲于公元前179年将其杀害,培根在这里将菲利普五世与菲利普二世混淆了,菲利普二世是亚历山大大帝的父亲。——译者注

〔12〕  安塞姆,死于1109年,因为坚定地维护神职人员的权力,反对威廉·鲁夫斯和亨利一世的世俗权威,曾两次被流放。在与亨利二世发生了剧烈的争执后,托马斯·贝克特于1170年在坎特伯雷大教堂中被谋杀。——译者注

〔13〕  郡一级往下再划分出的行政区划。

〔14〕  土耳其皇帝的侍卫。

〔15〕  罗马皇帝的侍卫。