foregoing passage of Athenæus, for Attica itself was so barren in corn that it produced not enough even to maintain the peasants. Tit. Liv., lib. 43; cap. 6, Lucian, in his _navigium sive vota_, says that a ship, which by the dimensions he gives seems to have been about the size of our third rates, carried as much corn as would maintain all Attica for a twelvemonth. But perhaps Athens was decayed at that time, and besides it is not safe to trust such loose rhetorical calculations.
[81] Diod. Sic., lib. 17. When Alexander attacked Thebes we may safely conclude that almost all the inhabitants were present. Whoever is acquainted with the spirit of the Greeks, especially of the Thebans, will never suspect that any of them would desert their country when it was reduced to such extreme peril and distress. As Alexander took the town by storm, all those who bore arms were put to the sword without mercy, and they amounted only to 6000 men. Among these were some strangers and manumitted slaves. The captives, consisting of old men, women, children, and slaves, were sold, and they amounted to 30,000. We may therefore conclude that the free citizens in Thebes, of both sexes and all ages, were near 24,000, the strangers and slaves about 12,000, These last, we may observe, were somewhat fewer in proportion than at Athens; as is reasonable to imagine from this circumstance, that Athens was a town of more trade to support slaves, and of more entertainment to allure strangers. It is also to be remarked that thirty-six thousand was the whole number of people, both in the city of Thebes and the neighbouring territory; a very moderate number, it must be confessed, and this computation being founded in facts which appear undisputable, must have great weight in the present controversy. The above-mentioned number of Rhodians, too, were all the inhabitants of the island who were free and able to bear arms.
[82] _De rep. Laced._ This passage is not easily reconciled with that of Plutarch above, who says that Sparta had 9000 citizens.
[83] Strabo, lib. 5, says that the Emperor Augustus prohibited the raising houses higher than seventy feet. In another passage, lib. 16, he speaks of the houses of Rome as remarkably high. See also to the same purpose Vitruvius, lib. 2, cap. 8. Aristides the Sophist, in his oration εις Ρωμην, says that Rome consisted of cities on the top of cities; and that if one were to spread it out and unfold it, it would cover the whole surface of Italy. Where an author indulges himself in such extravagant declamations, and gives so much in to the hyperbolical style, one knows not how far he must be reduced. But this reasoning seems natural: if Rome was built in so scattered a manner as Dionysius says, and ran so much into the country, there must have been very few streets where the houses were raised so high. It is only for want of ground that anybody builds in that inconvenient manner.
[84] Lib. 2, epist. 16; lib. 5, epist. 6. It is true Pliny there describes a country house; but since that was the idea which the ancients formed of a magnificent and convenient building, the great men would certainly build the same way in town. “In laxitatem ruris excurrunt,” says Seneca of the rich and voluptuous, epist. 114.
Valerius Maximus, lib. 4, cap. 4, speaking of Cincinnatus’ field of four acres, says: “Augustus se habitare nunc putat, cujus domus tantum patet quantum Cincinnati rura patuerant.” To the same purpose see lib.
36, cap. 15; also lib. 18, cap. 2.
[85] “Mœnia ejus (Romæ) collegere ambitu imperatoribus, censoribusque Vespasianis, A.U.C. 828, pass. xiii. MCC, complexa montes septem, ipsa dividitur in regiones quatuordecim, compita earum 265. Ejusdem spatii mensura, currente a milliario in capite Rom. Fori statuto, ad singulas portas, quæ sunt hodie numero 37, ita ut duodecim portæ semel numerentur, prætereanturque ex veteribus septem, quæ esse desierunt, efficit passuum per directum 30,775. Ad extrema vero tectorum cum castris prætoris ab eodem Milliario, per vicos omnium viarum, mensura collegit paulo amplius septuaginta millia passuum. Quo si quis altitudinem tectorum addat, dignam profecto, æstimationem concipiat, fateaturque nullius urbis magnitudinem in toto orbe potuisse ei comparari.” (Pliny, lib. 3, cap. 5.)
All the best manuscripts of Pliny read the passage as here cited, and fix the compass of the walls of Rome to be thirteen miles. The question is, what Pliny means by 30,775 paces, and how that number was formed?
The manner in which I conceive it is this: Rome was a semicircular area of thirteen miles circumference. The Forum, and consequently the Milliarium, we know was situated on the banks of the Tiber, and near the centre of the circle, or upon the diameter of the semicircular area. Though there were thirty-seven gates to Rome, yet only twelve of them had straight streets, leading from them to the Milliarium. Pliny, therefore, having assigned the circumference of Rome, and knowing that that alone was not sufficient to give us a just notion of its surface, uses this further method. He supposes all the streets leading from the Milliarium to the twelve gates to be laid together into one straight line, and supposes we run along that line so as to count each gate once, in which case, he says that the whole line is 30,775 paces; or, in other words, that each street or radius of the semicircular area is upon an average two miles and a half, and the whole length of Rome is five miles, and its breadth about half as much, besides the scattered suburbs.
Père Hardouin understands this passage in the same manner, with regard to the laying together the several streets of Rome into one line in order to compose 30,775 paces; but then he supposes that streets led from the Milliarium to every gate, and that no street exceeded 800 paces in length. But (1) a semicircular area whose radius was only 800 paces could never have a circumference near thirteen miles, the compass of Rome as assigned by Pliny. A radius of two miles and a half forms very nearly that circumference. (2) There is an absurdity in supposing a city so built as to have streets running to its centre from every gate in its circumference. These streets must interfere as they approach. (3) This diminishes too much from the greatness of ancient Rome, and reduces that city below even Bristol or Rotterdam.
The sense which Vossius, in his _Observationes Variæ_, puts on this passage of Pliny errs widely in the other extreme. One manuscript of no authority, instead of thirteen miles, has assigned thirty miles for the compass of the walls of Rome; and Vossius understands this only of the curvilinear part of the circumference, supposing that, as the Tiber formed the diameter, there were no walls built on that side. But (1) this reading is allowed contrary to almost all the manuscripts.
(2) Why should Pliny, a concise writer, repeat the compass of the walls of Rome in two successive sentences? (3) Why repeat it with so sensible a variation? (4) What is the meaning of Pliny’s mentioning twice the Milliarium if a line was measured that had no dependence on the Milliarium? (5) Aurelian’s wall is said by Vopiscus to have been drawn _laxiore ambitu_, and to have comprehended all the buildings and suburbs on the north side of the Tiber, yet its compass was only fifty miles; and even here critics suspect some mistake or corruption in the text. It is not probable that Rome would diminish from Augustus to Aurelian. It remained still the capital of the same empire; and none of the civil wars in that long period, except the tumults on the death of Maximus and Balbinus, ever affected the city. Caracalla is said by Aurelius Victor to have increased Rome. (6) There are no remains of ancient buildings which mark any such greatness of Rome.
Vossius’s reply to this objection seems absurd—that the rubbish would sink sixty or seventy feet below ground. It appears from Spartian (_in vita Severi_) that the five-mile stone _in via Lavicana_ was out of the city. (7) Olympiodorus and Publius Victor fix the number of houses in Rome to be between forty and fifty thousand. (8) The very extravagance of the consequences drawn by this critic, as well as Lipsius, if they be necessary, destroys the foundation on which they are grounded—that Rome contained fourteen millions of inhabitants, while the whole kingdom of France contains only five, according to his computation, etc.
The only objection to the sense which we have affixed above to the passage of Pliny seems to lie in this, that Pliny, after mentioning the thirty-seven gates of Rome, assigns only a reason for suppressing the seven old ones, and says nothing of the eighteen gates, the streets leading from which terminated, according to my opinion, before they reached the Forum. But as Pliny was writing to the Romans, who perfectly knew the disposition of the streets, it is not strange he should take a circumstance for granted which was so familiar to everybody. Perhaps, too, many of these gates led to wharves upon the river.
[86] Not to take the people too much from their business, Augustus ordained the distribution of corn to be made only thrice a year; but the people, finding the monthly distribution more convenient (as preserving, I suppose, a more regular economy in their family), desired to have them restored. (Sueton. August. cap. 40.) Had not some of the people come from some distance for their corn, Augustus’s precaution seems superfluous.
[87] Quintus Curtius says its walls were only ten miles in circumference when founded by Alexander (lib. 4, cap. 8). Strabo, who had travelled to Alexandria, as well as Diodorus Siculus, says it was scarce four miles long, and in most places about a mile broad (lib.
17). Pliny says it resembled a Macedonian cassock, stretching out in the corners (lib. 5, cap. 10). Notwithstanding this bulk of Alexandria, which seems but moderate, Diodorus Siculus, speaking of its circuit as drawn by Alexander (which it never exceeded, as we learn from Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. 22, cap. 16), says it was μεγεθει διαφεροντα, extremely great (_ibid._). The reason why he assigns for its surpassing all cities of the world (for he excepts not Rome) is that it contained 300,000 free inhabitants. He also mentions the revenues of the kings—viz., 6000 talents—as another circumstance to the same purpose, no such mighty sum in our eyes, even though we make allowances for the different value of money. What Strabo says of the neighbouring country means only that it was well peopled, οἰκουμενα καλως. Might not one affirm, without any great hyperbole, that the whole banks of the river from Gravesend to Windsor are one city? This is even more than Strabo says of the banks of the lake Mareotis, and of the canal to Canopus. It is a vulgar saying in Italy that the King of Sardinia has but one town in Piedmont—for it is all a town. Agrippa in Josephus (_de bello Judaie_, lib. 2, cap. 16), to make his audience comprehend the excessive greatness of Alexandria, which he endeavours to magnify, describes only the compass of the city as drawn by Alexander, a clear proof that the bulk of the inhabitants were lodged there, and that the neighbouring country was no more than what might be expected about all great towns, very well cultivated and well peopled.
[88] He says ἐλευθεροι, not πολιται, which last expression must have been understood of citizens alone, and grown men.
[89] He says (in _Nerone_, cap. 30) that a portico or piazza of it was 3000 feet long; “tanta laxitas ut porticus triplices milliarias haberet.” He cannot mean three miles, for the whole extent of the house from the Palatine to the Esquiline was not near so great. So when Vopiscus, in _Aureliano_, mentions a portico of Sallust’s gardens, which he calls _porticus milliariensis_, it must be understood of a thousand feet. So also Horace— “Nulla decempedis Metata privatis opacam Porticus excipiebat Arcton.” (Lib. ii. ode 15.)
So also in lib. i. Satyr. 8— “Mille pedes in fronte, trecentos cippus in agrum Hic dabat.”
[90] Lib. ix. cap. 10. His expression is ἀνθρωπος, not πολιτης; inhabitant, not citizen.
[91] Such were Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, Ephesus, Lyons, etc., in the Roman Empire. Such are even Bordeaux, Toulouse, Dijon, Rennes, Rouen, Aix, etc., in France; Dublin, Edinburgh, York, in the British dominions.
[92] The warm southern colonies also become more healthful; and it is remarkable that in the Spanish histories of the first discovery and conquest of these countries they appear to have been very healthful, being then well peopled and cultivated. No account of the sickness or decay of Cortes’s or Pizarro’s small armies.
[93] He seems to have lived about the time of the younger Africanus.
(Lib. i. cap. 1.)
[94] Cæsar, _De bello Gallico_, lib. 16. Strabo (lib. 7) says the Gauls were not much more improved than the Germans.
[95] Ancient Gaul was more extensive than modern France.
[96] It appears from Cæsar’s account that the Gauls had no domestic slaves, who formed a different order from the Plebes. The whole common people were indeed a kind of slaves to the nobility, as the people of Poland are at this day; and a nobleman of Gaul had sometimes ten thousand dependants of this kind. Nor can we doubt that the armies were composed of the people as well as of the nobility. An army of 100,000 noblemen from a very small state is incredible. The fighting men amongst the Helvetii were the fourth part of the whole inhabitants—a clear proof that all the males of military age bore arms. See Cæsar, We may remark that the numbers in Cæsar’s commentaries can be more depended on than those of any other ancient author, because of the Greek translation which still remains, and which checks the Latin original.
[97] “Nec numero Hispanos, nec robore Gallos, nec calliditate Pœnos, nec artibus Græcos, nec denique hoc ipso hujus gentis, ac terræ domestico nativoque sensu, Italos ipsos ac Latinos—superavimus.” (_De harusp. resp._, cap. 9.) The disorders of Spain seem to have been almost proverbial: “Nec impacatos a tergo horrebis Iberos.” (Virg.
_Georg._, lib. 3.) The Iberi are here plainly taken by a poetical figure for robbers in general.
[98] Though the observations of l’Abbé du Bos should be admitted that Italy is now warmer than in former times, the consequence may not be necessary that it is more populous or better cultivated. If the other countries of Europe were more savage and woody, the cold winds that blew from them might affect the climate of Italy.
[99] The inhabitants of Marseilles lost not their superiority over the Gauls in commerce and the mechanic arts till the Roman dominion turned the latter from arms to agriculture and civil life. (See Strabo, lib. 4.) That author, in several places, repeats the observation concerning the improvement arising from the Roman arts and civility, and he lived at the time when the change was new and would be more sensible. So also Pliny: “Quis enim non, communicato orbe terrarum, majestate Romani imperii, profecisse vitam putet, commercio rerum ac societate festae pacis, omniaque etiam, quae occulta antea fuerant, in promiscuo usu facta.” (Lib. 14, proœm.) “Numine deum electa [speaking of Italy] quae coelum ipsum clarius faceret, sparsa congregaret imperia, ritusque molliret, et tot populorum discordes, ferasque linguas fermonis commercio contraheret ad colloquia, et humanitatem homini daret; breviterque, una cunctarum gentium in toto orbe patria fieret.” (Lib. 2, cap. 5.) Nothing can be stronger to this purpose than the following passage from Tertullian, who lived about the age of Severus:—“Certe quidem ipse orbis in promptu est, cultior de die et instructior pristino. Omnia jam pervia, omnia nota, omnia negotiosa.
Solitudines famosas retro fundi amoenissimi obliteraverunt, silvas arva domuerunt, feras pecora fugaverunt; arenae seruntur, saxa panguntur, paludes eliquantur, tantae urbes, quantae non casae quondam. Jam nec insulae horrent, nec scopuli terrent; ubique domus, ubique populus, ubique respublica, ubique vita. Summum testimonium frequentiae humanae, onerosi sumus mundo, vix nobis elementa sufficiunt; et necessitates arctiores, et quaerelae apud omnes, dum jam nos natura non sustinet.”
(_De anima_, cap. 30.) The air of rhetoric and declamation which appears in this passage diminishes somewhat from its authority, but does not entirely destroy it. The same remark may be extended to the following passage of Aristides the Sophist, who lived in the age of Adrian. “The whole world,” says he, addressing himself to the Romans, “seems to keep one holiday, and mankind, laying aside the sword which they formerly wore, now betake themselves to feasting and to joy.
The cities, forgetting their ancient contentions, preserve only one emulation, which shall embellish itself most by every art and ornament?
Theatres everywhere arise, amphitheatres, porticoes, aqueducts, temples, schools, academies; and one may safely pronounce that the sinking world has been again raised by your auspicious empire. Nor have cities alone received an increase of ornament and beauty; but the whole earth, like a garden or paradise, is cultivated and adorned; insomuch that such of mankind as are placed out of the limits of your empire (who are but few) seem to merit our sympathy and compassion.”
It is remarkable that though Diodorus Siculus makes the inhabitants of Egypt, when conquered by the Romans, amount only to three millions, yet Josephus (_De bello Jud._, lib. 2, cap. 16) says that its inhabitants, excluding those of Alexandria, were seven millions and a half in the reign of Nero, and he expressly says that he drew this account from the books of the Roman publicans who levied the poll-tax. Strabo (lib. 17) praises the superior police of the Romans with regard to the finances of Egypt above that of its former monarchs, and no part of administration is more essential to the happiness of a people; yet we read in Athenæus (lib. 1, cap. 25), who flourished during the reign of the Antonines, that the town Mareia, near Alexandria, which was formerly a large city, had dwindled into a village. This is not, properly speaking, a contradiction. Suidas (August) says that the Emperor Augustus, having numbered the whole Roman Empire, found it contained only 4,101,017 men (ἀνδρες). There is here surely some great mistake, either in the author or transcriber; but this authority, feeble as it is, may be sufficient to counterbalance the exaggerated accounts of Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus with regard to more early times.
[100] Lib. 2, cap. 62. It may perhaps be imagined that Polybius, being dependent on Rome, would naturally extol the Roman dominion; but, in the first place, Polybius, though one sees sometimes instances of his caution, discovers no symptoms of flattery. Secondly, this opinion is only delivered in a single stroke, by the by, while he is intent upon another subject, and it is allowed, if there be any suspicion of an author’s insincerity, that these oblique propositions discover his real opinion better than his more formal and direct assertions.
[101] I must confess that that discourse of Plutarch concerning the silence of the oracles is in general of so odd a texture, and so unlike his other productions, that one is at a loss what judgment to form of it. It is written in dialogue, which is a method of composition that Plutarch commonly little affects. The personages he introduces advance very wild, absurd, and contradictory opinions, more like visionary systems or ravings of Plato than the solid sense of Plutarch. There runs also through the whole an air of superstition and credulity which resembles very little the spirit that appears in other philosophical compositions of that author; for it is remarkable that though Plutarch be an historian as superstitious as Herodotus or Livy, yet there is scarcely in all antiquity a philosopher less superstitious, excepting Cicero and Lucian. I must therefore confess that a passage of Plutarch, cited from this discourse, has much less authority with me than if it had been found in most of his other compositions.
There is only one other discourse of Plutarch liable to like objections—viz., that concerning those whose punishment is delayed by the Deity. It is also written in dialogue, contains like superstitious, wild visions, and seems to have been chiefly composed in rivalship to Plato, particularly his last book, _De Republica_.
And here I cannot but observe that Monsieur Fontenelle, a writer eminent for candour, seems to have departed a little from his usual character when he endeavours to throw a ridicule upon Plutarch on account of passages to be met with in this dialogue concerning oracles.
The absurdities here put into the mouths of the several personages are not to be ascribed to Plutarch. He makes them refute each other, and in general he seems to intend the ridiculing of those very opinions which Fontenelle would ridicule him for maintaining. (See _Histoires des Oracles_.)
[102] He was contemporary with Cæsar and Augustus.
OF THE ORIGINAL CONTRACT.
As no party, in the present age, can support itself without a philosophical or speculative system of principles annexed to its political or practical one, we accordingly find that each of the parties into which this nation is divided has reared up a fabric of the former kind, in order to protect and cover that scheme of actions which it pursues. The people being commonly very rude builders, especially in this speculative way, and more especially still when actuated by party zeal, it is natural to imagine that their workmanship must be a little unshapely, and discover evident marks of that violence and hurry in which it was raised. The one party, by tracing up the origin of government to the Deity, endeavour to render government so sacred and inviolate that it must be little less than sacrilege, however disorderly it may become, to touch or invade it in the smallest article. The other party, by founding government altogether on the consent of the people, suppose that there is a kind of original contract by which the subjects have reserved the power of resisting their sovereign whenever they find themselves aggrieved by that authority with which they have, for certain purposes, voluntarily entrusted him. These are the speculative principles of the two parties, and these too are the practical consequences deduced from them.
I shall venture to affirm that both these systems of speculative principles are just, though not in the sense intended by the parties; and that both the schemes of practical consequences are prudent, though not in the extremes to which each party, in opposition to the other, has commonly endeavoured to carry them.
That the Deity is the ultimate author of all government will never be denied by any who admits a general providence, and allows that all events in the universe are conducted by a uniform plan and directed to wise purposes. As it is impossible for the human race to subsist, at least in any comfortable or secure state, without the protection of government, government must certainly have been intended by that beneficent Being, who means the good of all His creatures; and as it has universally, in fact, taken place in all countries and all ages, we may conclude, with still greater certainty, that it was intended by that omniscient Being, who can never be deceived by any event or operation. But since he gave rise to it, not by any particular or miraculous interposition but by his concealed and universal efficacy, a sovereign cannot, properly speaking, be called his vicegerent in any other sense than every power or force being derived from him may be said to act by his commission. Whatever actually happens is comprehended in the general plan or intention of providence; nor has the greatest and most lawful prince any more reason, upon that account, to plead a peculiar sacredness or inviolable authority, than an inferior magistrate, or even a usurper, or even a robber and a pirate. The same divine superintendent who, for wise purposes, invested an Elizabeth or a Henry[103] with authority, did also, for purposes no doubt equally wise, though unknown, bestow power on a Borgia or an Angria. The same causes which gave rise to the sovereign power in every state, established likewise every petty jurisdiction in it, and every limited authority. A constable therefore, no less than a king, acts by a divine commission, and possesses an indefeasible right.
When we consider how nearly equal all men are in their bodily force, and even in their mental powers and faculties, till cultivated by education, we must necessarily allow that nothing but their own consent could at first associate them together, and subject them to any authority. The people, if we trace government to its first origin in the woods and deserts, are the source of all power and jurisdiction, and voluntarily, for the sake of peace and order, abandoned their native liberty, and received laws from their equal and companion.
The conditions upon which they were willing to submit were either expressed, or were so clear and obvious that it might well be esteemed superfluous to express them. If this, then, be meant by the original contract, it cannot be denied that all government is at first founded on a contract, and that the most ancient rude combinations of mankind were formed entirely by that principle. In vain are we sent to the records to seek for this charter of our liberties. It was not written on parchment, nor yet on leaves or barks of trees. It preceded the use of writing and all the other civilized arts of life. But we trace it plainly in the nature of man, and in the equality which we find in all the individuals of that species. The force which now prevails, and which is founded on fleets and armies, is plainly political, and derived from authority, the effect of established government. A man’s natural force consists only in the vigour of his limbs and the firmness of his courage, which could never subject multitudes to the command of one. Nothing but their own consent, and their sense of the advantages of peace and order, could have had that influence.
But philosophers who have embraced a party (if that be not a contradiction in terms) are not contented with these concessions.
They assert, not only that government in its earliest infancy arose from consent or the voluntary combination of the people, but also that, even at present, when it has attained its full maturity, it rests on no other foundation. They affirm that all men are still born equal, and owe allegiance to no prince or government unless bound by the obligation and sanction of a promise. And as no man, without some equivalent, would forgo the advantages of his native liberty and subject himself to the will of another, this promise is always understood to be conditional, and imposes on him no obligation unless he meets with justice and protection from his sovereign. These advantages the sovereign promises him in return, and if he fails in the execution, he has broke, on his part, the articles of engagement, and has thereby freed his subjects from all obligations to allegiance.
Such, according to these philosophers, is the foundation of authority in every government, and such the right of resistance possessed by every subject.
But would these reasoners look abroad into the world they would meet with nothing that in the least corresponds to their ideas, or can warrant so refined and philosophical a theory. On the contrary, we find everywhere princes who claim their subjects as their property, and assert their independent right of sovereignty from conquest or succession. We find also everywhere subjects who acknowledge this right in their princes, and suppose themselves born under obligations of obedience to a certain sovereign, as much as under the ties of reverence and duty to certain parents. These connections are always conceived to be equally independent of our consent, in Persia and China; in France and Spain; and even in Holland and England, wherever the doctrines above mentioned have not been carefully inculcated. Obedience or subjection becomes so familiar that most men never make any inquiry about its origin or cause, more than about the principle of gravity, resistance, or the most universal laws of nature. Or if curiosity ever move them, so soon as they learn that they themselves and their ancestors have for several ages, or from time immemorial, been subject to such a government or such a family, they immediately acquiesce and acknowledge their obligation to allegiance.
Were you to preach, in most parts of the world, that political connections are founded altogether on voluntary consent or a mutual promise, the magistrate would soon imprison you, as seditious, for loosening the ties of obedience; if your friends did not shut you up, as delirious, for advancing such absurdities. It is strange that an act of the mind which every individual is supposed to have formed—and after he came to the use of reason too, otherwise it could have no authority—that this act, I say, should be so unknown to all of them, that over the face of the whole earth there scarce remain any traces or memory of it.
But the contract on which government is founded is said to be the original contract, and consequently may be supposed too old to fall under the knowledge of the present generation. If the agreement by which savage men first associated and conjoined their force be here meant, this is acknowledged to be real; but being so ancient, and being obliterated by a thousand changes of government and princes, it cannot now be supposed to retain any authority. If we would say anything to the purpose, we must assert that every particular government which is lawful, and which imposes any duty of allegiance on the subject, was at first founded on consent and a voluntary compact. But besides that this supposes the consent of the fathers to bind the children, even to the most remote generations (which republican writers will never allow), besides this, I say, it is not justified by history or experience in any age or country of the world.
Almost all the governments which exist at present, or of which there remains any record in story, have been founded originally either on usurpation or conquest, or both, without any pretence of a fair consent or voluntary subjection of the people. When an artful and bold man is placed at the head of an army or faction, it is often easy for him, by employing sometimes violence, sometimes false pretences, to establish his dominion over a people a hundred times more numerous than his partisans. He allows no such open communication that his enemies can know with certainty their number or force. He gives them no leisure to assemble together in a body to oppose him. Even all those who are the instruments of his usurpation may wish his fall, but their ignorance of each other’s intentions keeps them in awe, and is the sole cause of his security. By such arts as these many governments have been established, and this is all the original contract they have to boast of.
The face of the earth is continually changing by the increase of small kingdoms into great empires, by the dissolution of great empires into smaller kingdoms, by the planting of colonies, by the migration of tribes. Is there anything discoverable in all these events but force and violence? Where is the mutual agreement or voluntary association so much talked of?
Even the smoothest way by which a nation may receive a foreign master, by marriage or a will, is not extremely honourable for the people; but supposes them to be disposed of, like a dowry or a legacy, according to the pleasure or interest of their rulers.
But where no force interposes, and election takes place, what is this election so highly vaunted? It is either the combination of a few great men who decide for the whole, and will allow no opposition, or it is the fury of a rabble that follow a seditious leader, who is not known, perhaps, to a dozen among them, and who owes his advancement merely to his own impudence, or to the momentary caprice of his fellows.
Are these disorderly elections, which are rare too, of such mighty authority as to be the only lawful foundation of all government and allegiance?
In reality there is not a more terrible event than a total dissolution of government, which gives liberty to the multitude, and makes the determination or choice of a new establishment depend upon a number which nearly approaches the body of the people; for it never comes entirely to the whole body of them. Every wise man, then, wishes to see, at the head of a powerful and obedient army, a general who may speedily seize the prize and give to the people a master, which they are so unfit to choose for themselves. So little correspondent is fact and reality to those philosophical notions.
Let not the establishment at the Revolution deceive us, or make us so much in love with a philosophical origin to government as to imagine all others monstrous and irregular. Even that event was far from corresponding to these refined ideas. It was only the succession, and that only in the regal part of the government, which was then changed; and it was only the majority of seven hundred who determined that change for near ten millions. I doubt not, indeed, but the bulk of these ten millions acquiesced willingly in the determination; but was the matter left, in the least, to their choice? Was it not justly supposed to be from that moment decided, and every man punished who refused to submit to the new sovereign? How otherways could the matter have ever been brought to any issue or conclusion?
The Republic of Athens was, I believe, the most extensive democracy which we read of in history. Yet if we make the requisite allowances for the women, the slaves, and the strangers, we shall find that that establishment was not at first made, nor any law ever voted, by a tenth part of those who were bound to pay obedience to it; not to mention the islands and foreign dominions which the Athenians claimed as theirs by right of conquest. And as it is well known that popular assemblies in that city were always full of licence and disorder, notwithstanding the forms and laws by which they were checked, how much more disorderly must they be where they form not the established constitution, but meet tumultuously on the dissolution of the ancient government in order to give rise to a new one? How chimerical must it be to talk of a choice in any such circumstances?
The Achæans enjoyed the freest and most perfect democracy of all antiquity; yet they employed force to oblige some cities to enter into their league, as we learn from Polybius.
Henry IV. and Henry VII. of England had really no other title to the throne but a parliamentary election; yet they never would acknowledge