FREQUENCY OF WAR — AMONG THE ANCIENTS — AMONG THE MODERNS — THE FRENCH — THE ENGLISH.— CAUSES OF WAR. — PENAL LAWS. — DESPOTISM. — DEDUCTION. — ■ ENUMERATION OF ARGUMENTS..
WHILE we enquire whether government is capable of BOOK I. improvement, we fhall do well to confider its prefent FrcQiiciicv o£ efFeds. It is an old obfervation, that the hiftoiy of mankind war: is little elfe than the hiftory of crimes. War has hitherto been confidered as the infeparable ally of political inftitutlon. The among the ancients i earlieft records of time are the annals of conquerors and heroes, a Bacchus, a Sefoftris, a Semiramis and a Cyrus. Thefe princes led millions of men under their flandard, and ravaged innume- rable provinces. A fmall number only of their forces ever re- turned to their native homes, the reft having perifhed of dif- eafes, hardfhips and mifery. The evils they infli£led, and the mortality introduced in the countries againft which their expe- ditions were directed, were certainly not lefs fevere than thofe which their countrymen fufFered. No fooner does hiftoiy be- come more precife, than we are prefented with the four great monarchies, that is, with four fuccelsful projeds, by means- of bloodfhed^, 6 HISTORYOF BOOK I. bloodflied, violence and murder, of ennavinjr mankind. The chap.il ' ' V ' expeditions of Cambyfes againft Egypt, of Darius againft the Scythians, and of Xerxes againft the Greeks, feem almoft to fet credibility at defiance by the fatal confequences with which they were attended. The conquefts of Alexander coft innumerable lives, and the immortality of Cxlar is computed to have been purchafed by the death of one million two hundred thoufand men. Indeed the Romans, by the long duration of their wars, and their inflexible adherence to their purpofe, are to be ranked among the foremoft deftroyers of the human fpecies. Their wars In Italy endured for more than four hundred years, and their conteft for fupremacy with the Carthaginians two hundred.
The Mlthridatic war began with a maflacre of one hundred and ■fifty thoufand Romans, and in three fingle a£lions of the war five hundred thoufand men were loft by the eaftern monarch.
Sylla, his ferocious conqueror, next turned his ai-ms againft his country, and the ftruggle between him and Marius was attended with profcriptions, butcheries and murders that knew no reftralnt from mercy and humanity. The Romans, at length, fuffered the penalty of their iniquitous deeds; and the world was vexed for three hundred years by the irruptions of Goths, Van- «dals, Oftrogoths, Huns, and innumerable hordes of barbarians.
Emong the I forbear to detail the vidorious- progrefs of Mahomet and the pious expeditions of Charlemagne. 1 will not enumerate -the crufades againft the infidels, the exploits of Aurungzebe, Gen- POLITICAL SOCIETY. 7 Genglfkan and Tamerlane, or the extenfive murders of the ^OOK L Spaniards in the new world. Let us examine the civilized and * " ' favoured quarter of Europe, or even thofe countries of Europe which are thought moft enlightened.
' France was- wafted by fucceflive battles during a whole cen- the Frencb: tury, for the queftion of the Salic law, and the claim of the Plantagenets, Scarcely was this conteft terminated, before the religious wars broke out, fome idea of which we may form from the fiege of Rochelle, where of fifteen thoufand perfons Ihut up eleven thoufand pcrifhed of hunger and mifery; and from the nialTaci-e of Saint Bartholomew, in which the numbers airaffinated' were forty thoufand.. This quarrel was appeafed by Henry the fourth, and fucceeded by the thirty years war in Germany for fuperiority with the houfa of Auftria, and afterwards by the military tranfa^Stions of Louis the fourteenths In England the war of CrefTy and 'Agincourt only gave place the EngHtho to the civil war of York and Lancafter, and again after an in- terval to the war of Charles the firft and his parliament. No fooner was the conftitution fettled by the revolution, than we ■ were engaged in a wide field of continental warfare by king William, the duke of Marlborough, Maria Therefa and thej king of Pruifia.
And what are in moft cafes the pretexts upon which war Is Caufes of war, under- ^ HISTORY OF cUAPii t^ndertaken? What rational man could poffibly have given hlm- *^ ^' ' felf the leaft difturbance for the fake of choofing whether Henry the fixth or Edward the fourth fhould have the ftyle of king of England? What Englifhman could reafonably have drawn his fvvord for the purpofe of rendering his country an inferior de- pendency of France, as it muft neceffarily have been if the am- bition of the Plantagenets had fucceeded? What can be more deplorable than to fee us firft engage eight years in war rather than fuffer the haughty Maria Therefa to live with a diminifhed foverelgnty oi in a private ftation; and then eight years more to fupport the free-booter who had taken advantage of her helplefs (Condition?
The ufual caufes of war are excellently defcrlbed by Swift. " Sometimes the quarrel between two princes is to decide which •fcf-th^m fliall difpolTefs a third of his dominions, where neither of them pretends to any right. Sometimes one prince quarrels with another, for fear the other fhould quarrel with him. Sometimes a war is entered upon becaufe the enemy is too ftrong; and fometimes becaufe he is too weak. Sometimes our neighbours want the things which w:e have, or have the things which we want; and we both -fight, till they taT^e-ours, or give us theirs. It is a very juftifiable caufe of war to invade a country after the people have been wafted by famine, deftroyed by pef- tilence, or embroiled by factions among themfelves. It is jufti- iiable to enter into a war againft our neareft ally, when one of Jus towns lies convenient for us, or a territory of -land, that would . POLITICAL SOCIETY. 9 would render our dominions round and compad:. If a prince BOOK T.
fends forces into a nation where the people are poor and igno- ^^ ^ — ^ rant, he may lawfully put the half of them to death, and make flaves of the reft, in order to civilize and reduce them from their barbarous way of living. It is a very kingly, honourable and frequent pradice, when one prince defires the afliftance of an- other to fecure him againft an invafion, that the alliftant, when he has driven out the invader, fhould feize on the dominions himfelf, and kill, imprifon or banifh the prince he came to re- lieve *."
If we turn from the foreign tranfadlions of ftates with each Penal laws. other, to the principles of their domeftic policy, we fhall not find much greater reafon to be fatisfied. A numerous clafs of mankind are held down in a ftate of abjeft penury, and are con- tinually prompted by difappointment and diftrefs to commit violence upon their more fortunate neighbours. The only mode which is employed to reprefs this violence, and to maintain the order and peace of fociety, is punifhment. Whips, axes and gibbets, dungeons, chains and racks are the moft approved and eftabliihed methods of perfuading men to obedience, and im- prefling upon their minds the leflbns of reafon. Hundreds of vidims are annually facrificed at the fhrine of pofitive law and political inftitution.
* Gulliver's Travels, Part IV. Ch. v.
C Add lo HISTORYOF -JOOK I. Add to this the fpecles of government which prevails over ^TT^ — ' iiine tenths of the globe, which is defpotifm: a government, as Mr. Locke juftly obferves, altogether " vile and miferable," and " more to be deprecated than anarchy itfelf *."
Deduftion. This account of the hiftory and ftate of man is not a declamation, but an appeal to fads. He that confiders it cannot poflibly regard political difquifition as a trifle, and government as a neutral and unimportant concern. I by no means call uport the reader implicitly to admit that thefe evils are capable of re- medy, and that wars, executions and defpotifm can be extir- pated out of the world. But 1 call upon him to confider whe- ther they may be remedied. I would have him feel that civil policy is a topic upon which the feverefl inveftigation may laudably be employed.
If government be a fubjedt, which, like mathematics, natural *■ Locke on Government, Book I. Ch. i. J. i; and Book II. Ch. vii. J. 91. The words in the lafl place are: " Wherever any two men are, who have no Hand- ing rule and common judge to appeal to on earth for the determination of con- troverfies of right betwixt them, there they are flill in the Jl ate of natur&y and under all the inconveniences of it, with only this woeful difference to the fub- jeft, &c."
Mofl: of the above arguments may be found much more at large in Burke's- Vindication of Natural Society; a treatife, in which the evils of the exifiing political jnfiitutions are'difplayed with incomparable force of reafoning andluftre ef eloquence, while the intention of the author was to fliew that thefe evils were to be confidered as trivial.
4 philofophy POLITICAL SOCIETY.
philofophy and morals, admits of argument and demonftratlon, then may we reafonably hope that men fhall fome time or other agree refpeding it. If it comprehend every thing that is moft important and interefting to man, it is probable that, when the theory is greatly advanced, the pradice will not be wholly neg- leded. Men may one day feel that they are partakers of a common nature, and that true freedom and perfedl equity, like. | food and air, are pregnant with benefit to every conftitution. |^ 4 siff ^ i^ ^ If there be the fainteft hope that this fhall be the final refult, W ^ -t^i' "" '" then certainly no fubjed can infpire to a found mind fuch ge- nerous enthufiafm, fuch enlightened ardour and fuch invincible perfeverance.
The probability of this improvement will be fufficiently efta- EnumeratioV blifhed, if we confider, first, that the moral charaders of men ° f^ are the refult of their perceptions: and, secondly, that of all the modes of operating upon mind government is the moft con- ^ fiderable. In addition to thefe arguments it will be found, ' '^ ^ Jii, THIRDLY, that the good and ill effeds of political inftitution ^v'^ 1^*^ " are not lefs confpicuous in detail than in principle; and, \'» *|!| "^ f^ FOURTHLY, that perfedibility is one of the moft unequivocal.^ i f 4^ J"t" charaderiftics of the human fpecies, fo that the political, as well ^ - '^ ^ i!!
as the intelledual ftate of man, may be prefumed to be in a '^ ^ J ^ X V courfe of progreflive improvement. \^^ N^^x"^ ^C2 CHAP.
THE MORAL CHARACTERS OF MEN CHAP. III.
THE MORAL CHARACTERS OF MEN ORIGINATE IN THEIR PERCEPTIONS.
NO INNATE PRINCIPLES. — OBJECTIONS TO THIS ASSERTION — FROM THE EARLY ACTIONS OF INFANTS — FROM THE DESIRE OF SELF-PRESERVATION — FROM SELF-LOVE FROM PITY FROM THE VICES OF CHILDREN — TYRANNY ■ — SULLENNESS, CONCLUSION.
E bring into the world vflth us no innate principles: confequently we are neither virtuous nor vicious as we firll come into exiftence. No truth can be more evident than this, to any man who will yield the fubjedl an impartial con- fideration. Every principle is a propofition. Every propofition confifts in the connexion of at leaft two diftind ideas, which are affirmed to agree or difagree with each other. If therefore the principles be innate, the ideas muft be fo too. But nothing can be more incontrovertible, than that we do not bring pre-eftab- lllhed ideas into the world with us.
Let the innate principle be, that virtue is a rule to which we are obliged to conform. Here are three great and leading ideas, not to mention Subordinate ones, which it is neceflary to form,, before we can fo much as underftand the propofition.
The ORIGINATE IN THEIR PERCEPTIONS. 13 What is virtue? Previoufly to our forming an idea correfpond- ing to this general term, it feems neceflary that we fhould have obferved the feveral features by which virtue is diflinguiflied, and the feveral fubordinate articles of right condud, that taken together, conftitute that mafs of praiftical judgments to which we give the denomination of virtue. Virtue may perhaps be defined, that fpecies of operations of an intelligent being, which conduces to the benefit of intelligent beings in general, and is pro- duced by a defire of that benefit. But taking for granted the uni- verfal admiflion of this definition, and this is no very defenfible afTumption, how widely have people of different ages and countries difagreed in the application of this general conception to particulars? a difagreement by no means compatible with the fuppofition that the fentiment is itfelf innate.
The next innate idea included in the above propofition, is that of a rule or flandard, a generical meafure with which individuals are to be compared, and their conformity or difagreement with which is to determine their value.
Laftly, there is the idea of obligation, its nature and fourcCj the obliger and the fanftion, the penalty and the reward.
Who is there in the prefent ftate of fcientifical improvement, that will believe that this vafl chain of perceptions and notions is fomething li^ i ^J ii< ,^ THE MORAL CHARACTERS OF MEN BOOK I. fomething that we bring into the worid with us, a myftical CHAP. III. •-^ -— ^ magazine, fhut up in the human embryo, whofe trealures are to be gradually unfolded as circumftances fliall require? Who does not perceive that they are regularly generated in the mind by a feries of impreffions, and digefted and arranged by affociation and reflexion? ^.
Objeaions to Experience has by many been fuppofed adverfe to thefe reaf5om the early fonin<^s: but it wiU upou examination be tound to be periectiy fants: ^^ harmony with them. The child at the moment of his birth is totally unprovided with ideas, except fuch as his mode of exift- ence in the womb may have fupplied. His firft impreffions are thofe of pleafure and pain. But he has no forefight of the ten- dency of any adion to obtain either the one or the other, pre- vioufly to experience.
A certain irritation of the palm of the hand will produce that contradion of the fingers, which accompanies the adion of grafp- ing. This contradion will at firft be unaccompanied with defign, the objea will be grafped without any intention to retain it, and let go again without thought or obfervation. After a certain number of repetitions, the nature «f the aftion will be perceived; it will be performed with a confcioufnefs of its tendency; and even the Jiand llretched out upon the approach of any objeft that is de- ^ "^;^ ■ fired. Prefent to the child, thus far inftruded, a lighted candle. ^ *^ ^ The fight of it will produce a pleafurable ftate of the organs ot ^^ ^ U 'c^w j.Ut^f^Ji^^^^-f^y*^ ^^- ^f%'^^ M.^^^ perception. '^.
/f^ii /f^ii ORIGINATE IN THEIR PERCEPTIONS. 15 perception. He will ftretch out his hand to the flame, and will rH^p^m have no apprehenfion of the pain of burning till he has felt the * "■ ' fenfation.
At the age of maturity, the eyelids inftantaneoufly clofe, when any fubftance, from which danger is apprehended, is advanced towards them; and this adlion is fo fpontaneous, as to be with great difBcuIty prevented by a grown perfon, though he fhould explicitly defire it. In infants there is no fuch propenfity; and an objeft may be approached to their organs, however near and however fuddenly, without producing this effedt. Frowns will be totally indifferent to a child, who has never found them afl!b ciated with the effects of anger. Fear itfelf is a fpecies of fore- fight; and in no cafe exifts till introduced by experience.
It has been faid, that the defire of felf-prefervation is innate. I from the de- demand what is meant by this defire? Muft we not underftand prefervation: by itj a preference of exiftence to non-exiftence? Do we prefer any thing but becaufe it is apprehended to be good? It follows, that we cannot prefer exiftence, previoufly to our experience of the motives for preference it poffefTes. Indeed the ideas of life and death are exceedingly complicated, and very tardy in their formation. A child defires pleafure and loathes pain, long before he can have any imagination refped:ing the ceafing to exift.
Again, it has been faid, that felf-love is innate. But there fromfelf-love; cannot be an error more eafy of detedion. By the love of felf i6 THE MORAL CHARACTERS OF MEN felf we underfland the approbation of pleafure, and diflike of pain: but this is only the facuity of perception under another name. "Who ever denied that man was a percipient being? Who ever dreamed that there was a particular inftinft neceiTary to render him percipient? -■'- o^l o;.
from pity: Pity has fometimes been fuppofed an inftance of innate principle; particularly as it feems to arife more inflantaneoufly in young perfons, and perfons of little refinement, than in others. But it was reafonable to expedt, that threats and anger, circum- ftances that have been aflbciated with our own fufferings, fhould excite painful feelings in us in the cafe of others, independently of any laboured analyfis. The cries of diftrefs, the appearance of agony or corporal infli£tion, irrefiftibly revive the memory of the pains accompanied by thofe fymptoms in ourfelves. Longer experience and obfervation enable us to feparate the calamities of others and our own fafety, the exiflence of pain in one fubje(ft and of pleafure or benefit in others, or in the fame at a future period, more accurately than we could be exped:ed, to do pre- vioufly to that experience.
from the vkes Sucli then is univcrfally the fubjeit of human inftitutlon and education. We bring neither virtue nor vice with us at our ' entrance into the world. But the feeds of error are ordinarily fown fo early as to pafs with fuperficial obfervers for innate.
Our ORIGINATE IN THEIR PERCEPTIONS. 17 Our conftitutlon prompts us to utter a cry at the unexpeiSled pfr^l^^^Jy ienfation of pain. Infants early perceive the affiftance they "^ ^ ' obtain from the volition of others; and they have at firft no means of inviting that affiftance but by an inarticulate cry. In this neutral and innocent circumftance, combined with the folly and imbecility of parents and nurfes, vre are prefented with the firft occafion of vice. Affiftance is neceflary, conducive to the exiftence, the health and the mental faulty of the infant. Em- pire in the infant over thofe who proted him is unneceJary. If we do not withhold our affiftance precifely at the moment when it ceafes to be rcquifite, if our compliance or our refufal be not in every cafe irrevocable, if we grant any thing to im- patience, importunity or obftinacy, from that moment we be- come parties in the intelledual murder of our offspring.
In this cafe we inftil Into them the vices of a tyrant; but we fuUennefs. are in equal danger of teaching them the vices of a flave. It is not till very late that mankind acquire the ideas of juftice, retri- bution and morality, and thefe notions are far from exifting in the minds of infants. Of confequence, when we ftrike, or when we rebuke them, we rifk at leaft the exciting in them a fenfe of injury, and a feeling of refentment. Above all, fentiments of this fort cannot fail to be awakened, if our a£tion be accom- panied with fymptoms of anger, cruelty, harfhnefs or caprice. The fame imbecility, that led us to infpire them with a fpirit of tyranny by yielding to their importunities, afterwards didates to D us iS THE MORAL CHARACTERS OF MEN, &c.
us an inconfiftent and capricious condudl, at one time denying them as abfurdly, as at another we gratified them unreafonably* Who, that has obferved the confequences of this treatment, how generally thefe miftakes are committed, how infeparable they are in fome degree from the wifeft and the beft, will be furprifed at the early indications of depravity in children *?
Conclufion. From thefe reafonings it fufficiently appears, that the moral qualities of men are the produce of the impreffions made upon them, and that there is no inftance of an original propenfity to evil.. Our virtues and vices may be traced to the incidents which make the hiftory of our lives i and if thefe incidents could be divefted of every improper tendency, vice would be extirpated from the world. The tafk may be difBcult, may be of flow progrefs, and of hope undefined and uncertain. But hope will never defert it; and the man who is anxious for the benefit of his fpecies, ' will willingly devote a portion of his activity to an enquiry into the mode of efFedling this extirpation in whole or in part, an enquiry which promifes much, if it do not in reality promife every thing.
* The arguments of this chapter are for the mofl; part an abftrafl, the dire£t ones from Locke on the Human Underftandhig, thofe which relate to experience from Hartley's Obfervations on Man, and thofe refpe(3;ing education from the Emilc of J. J. RouiTeau.
CHAP.
CHAP. IV.
THREE PRINCIPAL CAUSES OF MORAL IMPROVE- MENT CONSIDERED.
I. LITERATURE.
lENEFITS OF LITERATURE. — EXAMPLES. — ESSENTIAL PRO- PERTIES OF LITERATURE. — ITS DEFECTS.
II. EDUCATION.
BENEFITS OF EDUCATION. — CAUSES OF ITS IMBECILITY.
III. POLITICAL JUSTICE.
BENEFITS OF POLITICAL INSTITUTION. — UNIVERSALITY OF ITS INFLUENCE — PROVED BY THE MISTAKES OF SOCIETY. — ORIGIN OF EVIL.
THERE are three principal caufes by which the human BOOK L CHAP IV. mind Is advanced towards a ftate of perfedlon; literature, ' /— — ■ or the diffufion of knowledge through the medium of difcuflion, whether written or oral; education, or a fcheme for the early impreflion of right principles upon the hitherto unprejudiced mind; and political juftice, or the adoption of any principle of morality and truth Into the pradlice of a community. Let us take a momentary review of each of thefe.
Few engines can be more powerful, and at the fame time more falutary in their tendency, than literature. Without en- quiring for the prefent into the caufe of this phenomenon, \t is fufEciently evident in fad:, that the human mind is ftrongly infeded with prejudice and miftake. The various opinions prevailing in different countries and among different claffes of men upon the fame fubjed, are almoft innumerable; and yet oF all thefe opinions only one can be true. Now the effedual way for extirpating thefe prejudices and miftakes feems to be lite- rature.
Example?* Literature has reconciled the whole thinking world refpeding the great principles of the fyftem of the univerfe, and extirpated upon, this fubjed the dreams of romance and the dogmas of fuperftition. Literatiure has unfolded the nature of the human mind, and Locke and others have eftablifhed certain maxims refpeding man, as Newton has done refpeding matter, that are^ generally admitted for unqueftionable. Difcuflion has afcer- tained' with tolerable perfpicuity the preference of liberty over flavery; and the Mainwarings, the Sibthorpes, and the Filmers, the race of fpeculative reafoners in favour of defpotifm, are almofl extinii. Local prejudice had introduced innumerable privifeges and prohibitions upon the fubjed of trade; fpecu- lation has nearly afcertained that perfed freedom is moll favour- able MORAL IMPROVEMENT CONSIDERED. 21 able to her profperity. If in many Inftances the collation of BOOK r.
evidence have failed to produce univerfal conviifllon, it muft *— -n ' however be confidered, that it has not failed to produce irre- fragable argument, and that falfhood would have been much fliorter in duration, if it had not been protected and inforced by the authority of political government..
Indeed, if there be fuch a thing as truth, it muft infallibly Effentlal pro- perties of li- be ftruck out by the collifion of mind with mind. The reftlefs teruture.
activity of intelle£l will for a time be fertile in paradox and error; but thefe will be only diurnals, while the truths that occafionally fpring up, like fturdy plants, will defy the rigour of feafon and climate. In proportion as one reafoner compares his deductions with thofe of another, the weak places of his argument will be deteded, the principles he too haftlly adopted will be overthrown, and the judgments, in which his mind was expofed to no fmlfter influence, will be confirmed. All that is requifite in thefe difcuflions is unlimited fpeculation, and a fufficient variety of fyftems and opinions. While we only dif.
pute about the beft way of doing a thing in itfelf wrong, we fhall indeed make but a trifling progrefs; but, when we are once perfuaded that nothing is too facred to be brought to the touch-^ ftone of examination, fcience will advance with rapid fl;rides» Men, who turn their attention to the boundlefs field of enquiry, and ftill more who recolledl the innumerable errors and caprices of. mind, are. apt to imagine that the labour. is without benefit and'.
THREE PRINCIPAL CAUSES OF and endlefs. But this cannot be the cafe, if truth at laft have any real exiftence. Errors will, during the whole period of their reign, combat each other; prejudices that have paffed un- fufpeded for ages, will have their era of detedion; but, if in any fcience we difcover one folitary truth, it cannot be over- i^thrown.
Its defease ' Such are the arguments that may be adduced in favour of literature. But, even fhould we admit them in their full force, and at the fame time fuppofe that truth is the omnipotent arti- ficer by which mind can infallibly be regulated, it would yet by no means fufficiently follow that literature is alone adequate to all the purpofes of human improvement. Literature, and particularly that literature by which prejudice is fuperfeded, and the mind is ftrung to a firmer tone, exifts only as the portion of a few. The multitude, at leaft in the prefent ftate of human fociety, cannot partake of its illuminations. For that purpofe it would be neceffary, that the general fyftem of policy fhould become favourable, that every individual fhould have leifure for rcafoning and refiedion, and that there fhould be no fpecies of public inflitution, which, having falfhood for its bafis, fhould counterad their progrefs. This ftate of fociety, if it did not precede the general diiTemination of truth, would at leaft be the immediate refult of it.
But in reprefenting this ftate of fociety as the ultimate refult, 2 we MORAL IMPROVEMENT CONSIDERED. 23 we fliould incur an obvious fallacy. The difcovery of truth is BOOK i, _ ^ •' CHAP. IV. a purfuit of fuch vaft extent, that it is fcarcely poflible to pre- ^^ v * fcribe bounds to it. Thofe great lines, which fecm at prefent to mark the limits of human underftanding, will, like the mills that rife from a lake, retire farther and farther the more clofely we approach them. A certain quantity of truth will be fuffi- cient for the fubverfion of tyranny and ufurpation; and this fubverfion, by a refleded force, will affift our underftandings in the difcovery of truth. In the mean time, it is not eafy to define the exa£t portion of difcovery that miifh neceffarily pre- cede political melioration. The period of partiality and injuftice will be fliortened, in proportion as political redlitude occupies a principal fhare in our dlfquifition. When the mofl confider- able part of a nation, either for numbers or influence, becomes convinced of the flagrant abfurdity of its infUtutions, the whole will foon be prepared tranquilly and by a fort of common eon-- fent to fuperfede them.
11. EDUCATION.
11. EDUCATION.
But, if it appear that literature, unaided by the regularity Bencfis of of inftitution and difcipline, is inadequate to the reformation of the fpecies, it may perhaps be imagined, that education, com- monly fo called, is the befl of all fubfidiaries for making up its defeats. Education may have the advantage of taking mind in its original ftate, a foil prepared for culture, and as yet uninfefted ■Vr' 34 THREE PRINCIPAL CAUSES J?9P^^^ }\ felled with weeds; and it is a common and a reafonable opi- ^ •« ' nion, that the tafk is much eafier to plant right and virtuous difpofitions in an unprejudiced underftanding, than to root up the errors that have ah-eady become as it were a part of ourfelves. If an erroneous and vicious education be, as it has been fhewn to be, the fource of all our depravity, an education, deprived of thefe errors, feems to prefent itfelf as the moft na- tural exchange, and mufl neceffarily render its fubjedt virtuous and pure.
I will imagine the pupil never to have been made the victim of tyranny or the flave of caprice. He has never been per- mitted to triumph in the fuccefs of importunity, and cannot therefore well have become reftlefs, inconftant, fantaftical or unjuft. He has been inured to ideas of equality and inde- pendence, and therefore is not pailionate, haughty and over- bearing. The perpetual witnefs of a temperate condu<St and reafonable fentiments, he is. not blinded with prejudice, is not liable to make a falfe eflimate of things, and of confequence has no immoderate defires after wealth, and fplendour, and the grati- fications of luxury. Virtue has always been prefented to him under the moft attractive form, as the fureft medium of fuccefs in every honourable purfuit, the never-failing confolation of dif- appointment, and infinitely i*iperior in value to every other ac- quifition.
It OF MORAL IMPROVEMENT CONSIDERED. 25 It cannot be doubted that fuch an education is calculated to I'OOIC I.
CHAP. IV.
produce very confiderable effedls. In the world indeed the ' ^ — r* Caufcs of its