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Essays on the History of Mankind in Rude and Cultivated Ages by James Dunbar

1781

Essays on the History of Mankind in Rude and Cultivated Ages. by James Dunbar, LL.D. Professor of Philosophy in the King’s College and University of Aberdeen,

The Second Edition, with additions.

London: Printed for W. Strahan; T. Cadell in the Strand; and J. Balfour, Edinburgh. MDCCLXXXI.

Preface.

To solve some appearance in civil life, and, by an appeal to the annals of mankind, to vindicate the character of the species from vulgar prejudices, and those of philosophic theory, is the aim of the Volume now delivered to the Public. Its contents are digested on a regular plan; though the looser form of Essays has been preferred to a more systematical arrangement.

He who attempts to reform the world is actuated by a wild enthusiasm, or by a divine impulse. to stop the career of Vice, is the ultimate end of well-directed ambition. That ambition was felt by the great writers of antiquity. They erected a temple to Virtue, and exhausted on the opposite character all the thunder of eloquence.

Animated with the views, not with the genius of the antients, I occupy the same ground; for on that ground the efforts of inferior men may be of use.

Every Author is a candidate for the public favour, and the public alone is the arbiter of his fate. With such a sanction he will not need, and without it he ought to decline, even the patronage of kings.

The voice of the Public, like the voice of an oracle, it becomes an Author to hear with respectful silence. Even while it mortifies, it instructs; while it refuses approbation, it teaches wisdom. It checks ambition in its wild career; and reminds the candidate for fame to return into that deceiving path of life, from which he ought not to have deviated, and which, how mortifying soever to the Author, is perhaps the happiest for the Man.

Essay I.

On the Primeval Form of Society

Human Nature, in some respects is so various and fluctuating; so altered, or so disguised a by external things, that its independent character has become dark and problematical. The history of its exertions in their primeval form, would reflect a light upon moral and political science, which we endeavour in vain to collect in the annals of polished nations. What pity is it, that, the transactions of this early period being consigned to eternal oblivion, history is necessarily defective in opening the scene of man.

Consistently, however, with present appearances, and with the memorials of antiquity, the following changes, it is pretended, may have arisen successively to the species.

First, Man may have subsisted, in some sort, like other animals, in a separate and individual state, before the date of language, or the commencement of any regular intercourse.

Secondly, He may be contemplated in a higher stage; a proficient in language, and a member of that artless community which consists with equality, with freedom, and independence.

Last of all, by slow and imperceptible transitions, he subsists and flourishes under the protection and discipline of civil government.

It is the design of this Essay to enquire into the principles which either superseded the first, or hastened the second state; and led to a harmonious and social correspondence, antecedently to the aera of subordination, to the grand enterprises of art, to the institution of laws, or any of the arrangement of nations. But it is the order of improvement merely, not the chronological order of the world, that belongs to this enquiry. Degeneracy, as well as improvement, is incident to man: and we are not here concerned with the original perfection of his nature, nor with the circumstances in which he was placed at the beginning by his Creator.

There is one general observation strongly applicable, in all ages, to human nature: the appearance of proper objects is essential to the exertion of its powers. As therefore talents belong to individuals, which, for want of their objects, have lain for ever dormant; so perhaps there are talents inherent in the species which at no time have been called forth into action, and which may yet appear conspicuous in some succeeding period. Any alteration in the human fabric would seem to affect the identity of our being; but from the novelty and variety of the objects with which it is conversant, the Soul of man may become progressive; and, without undergoing any actual transformation in its powers, may open and expand itself in energy through the successive periods of duration. The celebrated distinctions of Aristotle will then appear to have an ample foundation in nature. Thus much is certain, a mutual intercourse gradually opens latent powers; and the extension of this intercourse is generally attended with new exertions of intellect. Withdraw this intercourse, and what is man! “Let all the powers and elements of nature (says an illustrious philosopher) conspire to serve and obey one man: let the sun rise and set at his command: the sea and rivers roll as he pleases, and the earth furnish spontaneously whatever may be useful or agreeable to him: he will still be miserable till you give him some one person at least, with whom he may share his happiness, and whose esteem and friendship he may enjoy.”

Society then is the theatre on which our genius expands with freedom. It is essential to the origin of all our ideas of natural and of moral beauty. It is the prime mover of all our inventive powers. Every effort, beyond what is merely animal, has reference to a community; and the solitary savage, who traverses the desert, is scarce raised so far by nature above other animals, as he is sunk by fortune beneath the standard of his own race.

The destitute condition of man, as an animal, has been a usual topic of declamation among the learned; and this alone, according to some theories, is the foundation both of social union and of civil combinations.

After the population of the world, and the growth of arts, mutual alliances and mutual support became indeed essential in our divided system: and it is no wonder if certain appearances in the civil aera have been transferred, in imagination, to all preceding times. At first, however, it may be questioned, whether there reigned not such an independence in our oeconomy, as is observable in other parts of the creation.

It is the arts of life which, by enervating our corporeal powers, and multiplying the objects of desire, have annihilated personal independence, and formed an immense chain of connexions among collective bodies. Nor is it perhaps so much the call of necessity, or mutual wants, as a certain delight in their kind, congenial with all natures, which constitutes the fundamental principle of association and harmony throughout the whole circle of being. But man, it is pretended, by nature timid, runs to society for relief; and finds an asylum there. Nor is he singular in this: all animals in the hour of danger crowd together, and derive confidence and security from mutual aid.

Danger, however, it may be answered, far from suggesting a confederacy, tends in most cases to dissolve rather than to confirm the union. Secure from danger, animals herd together, and seem to discover a complacency towards their kind. Let but a single animal of more rapacious form present himself to view, they instantly disperse; they derive no security from mutual aid, and rarely attempt to supply their weakness in detail, by their collective strength. This single animal is a match for thousands of a milder race. The law of dominion in the scale of life is the strength of the individual merely, not the number of the tribe; and of all animals, man almost alone becomes considerable by the combination of his species.

In society, animals are rather more prone to timidity from the prevalence of the softer instincts. Those of the ravenous class, generally the most solitary, are accordingly the most courageous; and man himself declines in courage in proportion to the extent of his alliances: not indeed in that species of it which is the genuine offspring of magnanimity and heroic sentiment; but in that constitutional boldness and temerity which resides, if I may say so, in our animal nature. Hence intrepidity is a predominant feature in the savage character: hence the savage himself, separately bold and undaunted, when he acts in concert with his fellows, is found liable to panic from this public sympathy, this reciprocal collision of minds. And it is hence, perhaps, according to the observation of a distinguished writer [A], that the most signal victories recorded in the annals of nations have been uniformly obtained by the army of inferior number.

But to return to the analogy of animals: I am not ignorant that some are gregarious from necessity, are formed for offensive or defensive wars, and require joint labour for their subsistence or accommodation. Yet in such examples the common functions are directed by instinct rather than by art; and evidence less the policy of the animal, than, if I may call it so, the policy of nature. When these provinces [B] are well defined, many of the appearances we so much admire will no longer be regarded as marks of invention, or concerted plan. Where no option is, there is no agency; and within a contracted sphere, while separate acts of sagacity in various tribes are so often observable, their concurring efforts are comparatively rare. Each creature below us is constituted the sole guardian of its own privileges, seems, as it were, a separate system, and the resources of its own constitution its natural and its only support. Even the union of the sexes, formed for the continuance of the kind, is a temporary union, and dissolves at the instant when its operations are no longer necessary. As for larger conventions, they are often purely casual; and the invitation of the same pasture will at times solve such appearances, without resorting to the ties either of dependence or of love. It is thus the fowls of the air alight so often on the same field. Thus the ravens and other creatures of prey convene around the body of a dead animal. And thus the insect tribes are wont to assemble on the same putrefaction in such amazing swarms, that naturalists have been seduced, by the appearance, into the belief of an equivocal generation, as if these insects were actually produced from the mass of corruption on which they feed.

An opinion of intercourse in the lower ranks of being is often suggested or favoured by a propensity there is in man, to confer on every creature a portion of his own nature. Suitable to this propensity, in observing a concourse of animals, however fortuitous, he magnifies every appearance in favour of the social principle, and presumes a concert and government where none in reality subsist. It is the same propensity which gives life to inanimate objects, and leads us so irresistibly, on some occasions, to consider them as active and percipient beings. Withdraw the aid of imagination, and the embellishments of fiction, and much of that intercourse is destroyed, which we presume to reign in many departments of the animal world.

Yet if urgent necessity did not produce a separation, it is probable that the love of herding would be universal. Animals, accordingly, that are solitary in one country, are gregarious in another. Even the antipathies among different tribes necessity often creates. For in some regions of the globe, where that necessity does not subsist, animals of prey suspend their hostilities; and tribes, usually accounted the most implacable by nature, fulfil, in harmony, their peculiar destinations, without encroaching on each other’s happiness or security[C].

Upon the whole, we may pronounce that interested intercourse in the animal kingdom, is greater in appearance than in reality; that the concourse of a tribe is often accidental; that all regular oeconomy is under the direction of instinct; and that in all the freer combinations, the society is held together by the tie of affection or conscious delight, more than by fear, or mutual wants, or any necessary call of nature.

Such is the constitution of the inferior creation. Is the same analogy observed in man? Was he ever in this independent and individual state? Or wherein does his pre-eminence consist? Not, surely, in the mechanism of those instincts which direct him to procure subsistence. The senses of other animals are as acute as his. Not in atchievements by bodily strength. For, in that particular, many of them far surpass him. Not in performing jointly, what so many creatures can perform apart. Manifestly, that would be no perfection. But in this his pre-eminence consists, that being as independent as they in all the corporeal functions, impelled by no necessity, but by generous passions, he rises to improvements which flow from the union of his kind.

In some parts of our constitution, it cannot be denied, we resemble the other animals. If therefore a time was when those parts chiefly or alone were exercised, our objects, and pursuits, and habits of living must have been nearly similar. I am far from affirming that ever there was no distinction. At all times, in our walk, there is some nobler aim. There is some inward consciousness, some decisive mark of superiority in every condition of men. But the line which measures that superiority is of very variable extent. Let us allow but equal advantages from culture to the mind and body; and it is consequential to infer, that savages, in some of the wilder forms, must be as inferior to civilized man in intellectual abilities, and in the peculiar graces of the mind, as they surpass him in the activity of their limbs, in the command of their bodies, and in the exertion of all the meaner functions. Nor is this merely specious in theory. Some striking instances of savage tribes with so limited an understanding, as is scarce capable of forming any arrangement for futurity, are produced by a Historian who traces the progress of human reason through various stages of improvement, and unites truth with eloquence in his descriptions of mankind.{William Robertson, History of America, v. i., p. 309, London, 1777}

In some corners of the globe, if we may credit report, man and beast lead in the forest a sort of promiscuous life; and the boundary is scarce discernable which divides the rational from the animal world. This fact, no doubt magnified by travellers and historians, and tortured in the theories of philosophy, has however some foundation, and is in part consonant to our own experience. The progress of nations and of men, though not exactly parallel, is found in several respects to correspond: and in the interval from infancy to manhood, we may remark this gradual opening of the human faculties. First of all, those of sense appear, grow up spontaneously, or require but little culture. Next in order, the propensities of the heart display their force; a fellow-feeling with others unfolds itself gradually on the appearance of proper objects; for man becomes sociable long before he is a rational being. Last in the train, the powers of intellect begin to blossom, are reared up by culture, and demand an intercourse of minds.

When we observe, then, this analogy between the individual and the species; when we observe the gradation of improvement, and the slow departure of man from the confines of animal life; is there no intimation here concerning his original state, or rather concerning that state which human nature uninformed, and unenlightened by Providence, must have at first assumed? When arts and dependence grow together, and subsist so nearly in the same proportion, ought we not to regard them in the relation of cause and effect, and consequently allow of little or no dependence before the birth of arts? But the arts are formed in the bosom of society. Society therefore had another origin than mutual dependence and mutual wants. It is not, if I may say so, the sickly daughter of calamity, nor even the production of an aspiring understanding, but the free and legitimate offspring of the human heart.

Yet the attempt were vain to refer the origin of large communities to domestic relation and the ties of blood.

That natural affection which belongs to man belongs also to the inferior classes, and subsists among them with equal vigour. In both, the mechanism is the same, and calculated with the same design. At first therefore, perhaps, it was proportioned to the exigency of things, and as in them, so in us likewise, of limited duration. The period of gestation, in animals, is so contrived as to prevent all possibility of incumbrance from a second brood. But the period of pregnancy, it is allowed, were by far too short to dispense, in the human species, with the parental cares. The connexion, therefore, is necessarily more durable, its functions more various and progressive, and suited to the different ages and circumstances of a connected and rising progeny. Yet the improvements of social life, by the introduction of order, and by refining on all the passions and feelings of our frame, have given to this instinct a perpetuity unknown in the primeval state.

Prior to single marriages, and the more accurate ascertainment of families, an uncertainty with regard to the progeny must have often suppressed the instinct in the breast of one parent; and in the breast of the other parent, the equal licence of both tended ultimately to its extinction or decay. It is observable, even in our own times, that the affections of a woman, mother to several distinct families, are exceedingly liable to be estranged from the children of a former bed.[D] This remark o the female character is at least as ancient as Homer.

Even Ulysses’s queen was not presumed exempt from a frailty so natural to her sex. The young prince of Ithaca is accordingly warned by Minerva to return home, before absence and new engagements had estranged the heart of Penelope from the son of Ulysses.

Thou know’st the practice of the female train.

Lost in the children of the present spouse,

They slight the pledges of their former vows;

Their love is always with the lover past,

Still the succeeding flame expels the last.

Odyssey, B. xv. v. 24.

Is love then at first devoted to a single object? Is such absolute confinement of appetite a maxim of uninstructed nature? The supposition, though it were not repugnant to every mode of appetite, and to the wilder range of life, is irreconcileable with the history of the ruder ages. Some latitude, in this respect, is almost universal after society has received a form; and by degrees only is established that stricter rule which is so often violated, when connected with the moral harmony of the world, and guarded by the sanctions of divine and human laws. [E] The interest of a family, the order of society, justifies the restraint. Even the amorous passion, when associated with moral sentiment, leads to an exclusive and indissoluble union; and the sweets of domestic life make ample amends for its most severe engagements. But this adjustment of things seems to be an improvement, or refinement on the first oeconomy; owing its original either directly to divine command, or to the wisdom of human policy.

In some rude countries, according to the information of modern travellers, rendered credible by several passages of antiquity, the women are not only at the head of domestic government, but possess a voice and ascendency in public councils and deliberations.[F]

Here then is probably displayed a peculiar and striking effect of gratitude and natural authority; and the weaker sex, though destined in the intermediate ages of barbarism to the most deplorable subjection, have derived from the love and reverence of children, who know no other parent, a rank and consideration superior to what rules of gallantry or generosity prescribe among the most refined nations.

On the commencement of domestic order, filial reverence, one of the strongest sentiments that can touch the heart, fails not to recognize its object, and acts with redoubled vigour when accumulated in one direction. A variety of circumstances augments its force; and that natural love which seems not, in any other species, to ascend from the youth to the parent, ascends in ours with the first dawnings of reason and morality, and forms a distinguishing characteristic of human kind.

But as, in such instances, the paternal instincts are of more precarious exertion, at an aera farther back, the maternal instincts likewise may have been constituted in circumstances which render them fluctuating and temporary.

It is not then such partial principles which could have formed or embodied the larger communities of mankind. It is not a parent, a child, or a brother, but the species itself, that is the object embraced by humanity. In some cases, perhaps, the patriarchal government may have furnished the model of a larger plan; but mankind were before in possession of the sweets of an independent society. The members of a family become members of this society, before they became members of a state. A thousand circumstances in the range of being, convening numbers of the species on the same stage, must have presented the opportunities of social life. The only question is, how regular intercourse was formed, how strangers were converted into acquaintance, and how those who came together at first by accident, came afterwards to assemble by appointment.

With similar appetites and congenial passions, the excursions of individuals will often coincide. They will be found occasionally on the banks of the same river, or in the same corner of the grove. The reiterated appearance of the objects slowly and imperceptibly calls forth new desires. Each interview has its effect. The brutality of the savage begins to vanish. Some refinement appears. An appetite for society ripens, which afterwards must be gratified as well as other appetites. Little plans are carried on in concert; and at a time when no discordant interests, or various pursuits, had diversified the seene, a small community might be kept together by the tie of sociability and reciprocal love.

In these days of envy, and of interest, we are little able to conceive its force; nor, if the feelings remained, could artificial language, in this respect, supply the language of nature. When similar functions and occupations in civil society prove so often a bond of union among those of the same order, how immense must have been the effect of an exact conformity of life! That resemblance of disposition and of character, which is the cement of little associations, and is the principle of private friendship, was the original basis of public union. The history of the Soldurii in Gaul, of the ancient Germans, and of other public bodies, of which there are so many examples in the simple ages, evidences the stability of those sacred bonds and confederacies that originate in the heart. The history too of some of the South Sea isles, which the late voyages of discovery have tended to disclose, enables us to glance at society in some of its earlier forms, and to mark, in some striking examples, the inviolable fidelity of social love.

The principles of union are, in the order of things, prior to the principles of hostility. the former are, in truth, productive of the latter, which, in a more advanced period, bursting forth, like a torrent, against other tribes, disfigure the character of uncivilized nations.

The affections of the heart are of limited exertion; and that mutual love, which is confined within a narrow sphere, triumphs, as it were, over the sentiment which gave it birth, and creates, in a competition of interests, such fierce animosity among contending tribes.

As emigrants in rude ages usually pass their own frontiers with hostile minds, they are regarded by others with a jealous eye; and in the penury of language, a stranger and an enemy may receive one common name. It was thus the ancient Romans, addicted to piracy and war, and consequently jealous of the designs of others, used the same term in both these senses; for this is far more probable, according to the observation of an ingenious modern, that the solution of Tully, who takes occasion, from this coincidence, to extol the humanity of his ancestors. But such criticisms affect not the general history of rude nations. When there is no ground of variance, the original sentiment revives in all its force, the rights of hospitality are peculiarly revered, and an unsuspected stranger is embraced with a fondness and cordiality which redeems the character of the species.

Thus have we reached that universal principle which reigns, in some degree, in every district of nature. The most rapacious of animals confess its power; and while at war with the rest of the creation, sympathize with each other, and refuse to taste the blood of any of their own kind. This harmony of things, so conspicuous in the inferior orders of like, seems to affront the conduct of the rational species. Moralists and poets have availed themselves of this topic, and inveigh with indignant spirit against that prostitution of sentiment which, forming an exception to a law almost universal, requires the effusion of human blood. Thus the Roman poet expostulates with a degenerate age in these admirable lines:

–– Quando leoni

Fortior eripuit vitam leo? quo nemore unquam

Expiravit aper majoris dentibus apri?

Indica tigris agit rbida cum tigride pacem

Perpetuam: faevis inter se convenit ursis.

Ast homini ––

Juv. Sat. xv. lib. 5.

Such reproaches indeed are chargeable on mankind; but touch not the clear dictates of morality, nor the primeval rectitude of the heart. “Nature,” says an animated writer,[Sterne’s Letters] “never made an unkind creature. Ill usage and bad habits have deformed a fair and lovely creation.”

The great lines of humanity are legible in all communities; and it is the description of every country under heaven,

–— Sunt hic etiam sua praemia laudi;

Sunt lachrymae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.

The love of the species is the grand principle of attraction, as essential to the rational, and, in some degree, to the animal, as gravitation to the material world: nor wilder were the attempt to expound the harmony of the solar system from the limited attraction of magnetism, than to expound the combination of tribes, and the moral harmony of nations, from the operation of partial instincts. Even pride, the passion which divides mankind, was originally a principle of union. It was a sense of the dignity of the species, not an opinion of superiority among individuals; and, with exalted notions of their own rank, they reserved for the inferior creatures that sovereign contempt which they can now bestow so liberally on their fellowmen.

In such circumstances it was impossible for mankind not to meditate, from the beginning, a separation from the life of brutes. They must have conceived the plan of holding the dominion of the world; and, actuated with a decent pride, the consciousness of their own pre-eminence, they became daily more and more susceptible of reason, of morality, and of religion. Thus are the foundations laid, upon which were afterwards reared, by slow advances, the superstructure of policy and arts. In society the faculties have an object. The springs of ingenuity are put into motion; and the language of nature gradually participates of art. The efforts of genius excite admiration. The acquisitions of industry, or invention, confer a right which suggests the idea of property; and the distinctions of natural talents lay a foundation for corresponding distinctions in society.

But these inventions and improvements, which do honour to our nature, tended at the same time to divide mankind. On this account it may be questioned, whether the enlargement of our faculties, and all the advantages from arts, counterbalance the feuds and animosities which they soon introduced into the world. The serene and joyous interval between the rudeness of mere animal life, and the dissensions of civil society, constituted, perhaps, that short but happy period, to which antiquity refers in her descriptions of the golden age.

No theory, indeed, in morals, or in government, was then devised. Yet moral rules were seldom broken, when an equal and generous commerce was the rule of government. And it is amusing to observe into what absurdities speculative men have been so often carried upon these subjects by presumption, by affection, or by the love of paradox.

Hence a variety of theories, ancient and modern, concerning the origin of moral sentiment; hence the absurdities of the Epicurean school.

Epicurus, observing the external advantages resulting to the individual from moral conduct, pursued the idea so far as to allow superior advantages, and pleasures of a higher relish, altogether to escape his notice. It is indeed strange, that any observer should omit this obvious comment on human life, That to be the object of love, of esteem, and of respect, is in itself far more desirable than all the consequences with regard to external ease and security that can be derived from that fountain. But Epicurus could contemplate beauty neither in nature nor in man. And what better could be expected from the philosopher who had ascribed the origin of worlds to a fortuitous concourse of atoms? Yet the life of Epicurus himself formed a contradiction to his system; and whoever attempts to vindicate his humanity, will be led to question his candor.

A Writer of the last age, in the composition of a philosophical romance, is still more extravagant.

All virtue, according to him, consists in obedience to the public magistrate; and all moral obligations are the offspring of civil government.

But has government, it may be asked, any creative power? Or whence the duty of allegiance, if there was no primeval law? Would not Amphion and Orpheus have strung their lyres in vain?

It is no wonder that the same Writer should arraign the genius of the ancient republics, and condemn to the flames all Greek and Roman learning as a sovereign expedient for strengthening the hands of government.[G]

But I am not called upon, by my subject, to explain or to refute such systems. And I shall content myself with observing, that a late publication, much read and admired in our fashionable world, is more dangerous than any speculative theory to the morals of the rising generation. As patrons of licentiousness, Epicurus and Hobbes, and even Machiavel and Mandeville, must bow to the noble author.

It is in the spirit of his performance to separate the bonestum from the decorum of life; to insult whatever is venerable in domestic alliance; to substitute artificial manners in the room of the natural; to raise superficial above solid accomplishment, and to hold up dissimulation and imposture as the essentials of character.

This is a species of refinement avowed in no former age. It contains a solecism in education, and in the oeconomy of civil affairs.

To exalt the Graces above Virtue, is, if I may say so, to exalt creatures above their Creator. The Graces are chiefly amiable as emblems of Virtue. Break this alliance, and they are no more. Unite them with the opposite character, and this fantastical conjunction renders a monster still more deformed. For my own part, I had as soon behold the monster itself in all the horrors of its native deformity, as in such insolent attire.

The Graces are the handmaids of Virtue, not the sovereigns; and all their honours are derived. But Virtue, though naked and unadorned, were Virtue still.

Quam ardentes amores no excitaret sui, si videretur!

How different was the conduct of a Roman statesman, when, in the person of a father, he delivered instructions to youth! The instructions of the Roman fill the young with rapture. Those of the Briton excite indignation in the aged. But I ask pardon of the reader, when I name the British author in the same breath with Cicero. And if the system of the noble lord was designed merely for the courtier, with the courtier let it rest. Without the formality of system, the strict observance of moral rules is dispensed with in the negociations of courts.

Let if be numbered then among courtly privileges to patronize deceit. When perfidy and dissimulation are declared by patent to belong to the members of the diplomatic body, they will become, perhaps, more emphatically, the representatives of kings.

But while things are thus adjusted to the meridian of courts; while the civil code, in many countries, is no more than the breath of kings; and, in all countries, may be dissolved by legislative power; the moral code, which is paramount to all civil authority, and from which all civil obligations arise, remains eternally in force.

It was delivered from heaven to the people, and to maintain its authority is the jus divinum of nations.

With these sentiments I close the Essay: and such sentiments are addressed more particularly to the British youth by one of their public guardians, who then only feels the full importance of his station when he animates the rising generation in the pursuits of honour.

NOTES.

NOTE [A], p. 9.

Sir William Temple, in an Essay on Heroic Virtue, descends into the following detail, which, on account of its importance, I lay before my Readers, in the words of that intelligent and agreeable writer.

“The second observation I shall make upon the subject of victory and conquest is, that they have in general been made by the smaller numbers over the greater; against which I do not remember any exception in all the famous battles registered in story, excepting that of Tamerland and Bajazet, whereof the first is said to have exceeded about a fourth part in number, though they were so vast on both sides that they were not very easy to be well accounted. For the rest, the numbers of the Persians with Cyrus were small to those of the Assyrians: those of the Macedonians were in no battle against the Persians above forty thousand men, though sometimes against three, four, or six hundred thousand.

“The Athenian army exceeded ten thousand, and, fighting for the liberties of their country, beat about six score thousand Persians at Marathon.

“The Lacedemonians, in all the famous exploits of that state, never had above twelve thousand Spartans in the field at a time, and seldom above twenty thousand men with their allies.

“The Romans ever fought with smaller against greater numbers, unless in the battles of Cannae and Thrasymene, which were the only famous ones they lost against foreign enemies; and Caesar’s army at Pharsalia, as well as in Gaul and Germany, were in not proportion to those he conquered. That of Marius was not above forty thousand against three hundred thousand Cimbers. The famous victories of AEtius and Belifarius against the barbarous northern nations were with mighty disproportion of numbers, as likewise the first victories of the Turks upon the Persian kingdom; of the Tartars upon the Chinese: and Scanderbeg never saw together above sixteen thousand men in all the renowned victories he atchieved against the Turks, though in number sometimes above a hundred thousand.

“To descend to later times, the English victories so renowned at Cressy, and Poictiers, and Agincourt, were gained with disadvantages of numbers out of all proportion. The great atchievements of Charles VIII in Italy, of Henry IV in France, and of Gustavus Adolphus in Germany, were ever performed with smaller against greater numbers; and among all the exploits which have so justly raised the reputation and honour of Mons. Turenne for the greatest Captain in his time, I do not remember any of them were atchieved without disadvantage of number; and the late defeat of the Turks at the siege of Vienna, which saved Christendom, and has eternized the memory of the duke of Lorrain, was too fresh and great an example of this assertion to need any more, or leave it in dispute.”

Upon these incontestible facts the argument proceeds thus:

“If it be true, which I think will not be denied, that the battle is lost where the fright first enters, then the reason will appear why victory has generally followed the smaller numbers; because, in a body composed of more parts, it may sooner enter upon one than in that which consists of fewer, as likelier to find ten wise men together than an hundred, and an hundred fearless men than a thousand. And those who have the smaller forces endeavour most to supply that defect by the choice discipline and bravery of their troops; and where the fright once enters an army, the greater the number the greater the disorder, and thereby the loss of the battle more certain and sudden.”

The truth of the above might be illustrated by more recent examples, and a more copious induction. The observation, since our author’s time, is confirmed by the experience of another century. In the memorable battle of Plassy, the English army under Lord Clive defeated an enemy which outnumbered them ten to one.

The king of Prussia’s battles in the last war would form a series of splendid examples in support of the same conclusion, if the superior abilities of that great Prince were not alone sufficient to account for his superiority in arms.

But the facts above specified are fully sufficient for the ascertainment of so curious a phaenomenon, on the causes of which our Author had descanted with so much ability.

NOTE [B], p. 9

There are certain principles in the constitution both of men and animals, which lead blindly and irresistibly to unknown edns. To these we give the name of instinct; and to define its exertions in all their variety and extent, forms one of the nicest questions in philosophy. The province of reason having been confined to abstract conclusions, it has been doubted whether it belongs at all to animals; and habits and instincts have been deemed sufficient to account for their whole oeconomy. Jealous of our prerogative, we would not have inferior creatures to claim, in this particular, any kindred with the human mind.

It is however certain, that animals are capable of recollection, and of foresight; and by consequence possess the faculty which infers the future from the past. Many of them too discover an inventive faculty; and when drawn into artificial circumstances beyond their usual tract of life, extricate themselves with an address and sagacity that would be deemed rational in man. Admitting then to animals some degree of reason, as well as instinct, it is of importance to define their respective functions.

It is one criterion of instinct to be uniform in its proceedings: reason is various, and supposes a choice. The one principle, as far as it extends, is infallible in its determinations; but the other principle is liable to error. The one acquires maturity at once, and supersedes experience, and is incapable of culture. The other is guided by experience, and stands in need of culture, and arrives gradually at different stages of perfection.

Instinct is fixed and immutable, not in the fabric only of a single animal; the same exertions of it are common to the species. But reason, which becomes more or less perfect in the same individual, is dealt out in various measure and proportion to the several individuals of the kind.

These principles seem counterparts to each other in the system of creation. In proportion as the one is denied, the other comes in aid of the defect.

The perfection of reason would supersede the necessity of instinct; but its imperfection calls aloud for this auxiliary.

Instinct accordingly is, in the human species, more conspicuous in infancy than in manhood; and reigns most absolutely in all the meaner departments of animal life. The fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, and the insect tribes, seem wiser, in this respect, than he who styles himself Lord of the Creation.

But is this the wisdom of the animal? It is rather the wisdom of nature.

–- Hinc ille avium concentus in agris,

Et laetae pecudes, & ovantes gutture corvi.

Nature has drawn a veil over this part of her proceedings, and that veil what mortal can remove? At least sure I am, I may apply to my own speculations on this mysterious theme what the poet Simonides, when revolving on the nature of the gods, observed to the King of Syracuse,

Quanto diutius considero, tanto mihi res videtur obscurior.

NOTE [C], p. 12.

A Navigator, whose present voyage, we hope, for the honour of civilized nations, will not be disturbed by the present hostilities, thus describes, in a former voyage, the condition of animals on a sequestered island, near Statenland in the South Sea.

“It is amazing to see how the different animals which inhabit this little spot are mutually reconciled. They seem to have entered into a league not to disturb each others tranquillity. The sealions occupy most of the sea-coast; the sea-bears take up their abode on the isle; the shags have post in the highest cliffs; the penguins fix their quarters where is the most easy communication to and from the sea; and the other birds chuse more retired places. We have seen all these animals mix together, like domestic cattle and poultry in a farm-yard, without any one attempting to molest the other. Nay, I have often observed the eagles and vultures sitting in the hillocks among the shags, without the latter, either young or old, being disturbed at their presence. It may be asked how these birds of prey live? I suppose on the carcases of the seals, and birds which die by various causes; and probably not a few, as they are so numerous.”

A Voyage towards the South Pole, &c.

by James Cook. vol. ii. p. 206.

NOTE [D], p. 19.

It is the tendency of a second marriage to weaken the ties of filial, as of parental love: and this effect is by far more conspicuous in the second marriage of a mother than of a father; a circumstance which suggests a curious question in the theory of moral sentiment, an ingenious solution of which may be seen in the philosophy of Hume.

Treatise of Hum. Nat. v. ii. p. 140.

NOTE [E], p. 21.

The plan of domestic society is various in different ages and nations. In different climates and situations it becomes more or less expedient to controul the love of variety, and the natural licentiousness of desire.

A community of wives was allowed in Spatra. A latitude of the same kind was indulged at Rome. such communities were found established among the ancient Britons, and take place among various tribes of Barbarians. In other cases, the irksome situation of fathers under an impression of a dubious progeny, has led to a system of restraint, and prevention, no less barbarous than inhuman. Some nations, distrustful of all the moral guardians of female virtue, prevent, by physical expedients, the possibility of transgression. The modern Arabians in particular, among whom jealousy is the reigning passion, are guilty of a species of violence too shocking for description.

Polygamy however, in some form or other, appears to have been almost universal. The moderation indeed of the ancient Germans is mentioned by Tacitus; yet among them a plurality of wives was not without example. Even a plurality of husbands, according to Strabo, took place in certain provinces of the Median empire: and such plurality is recognized in the Gentoo code.

The abolition therefore of polygamy has been represented by some writers as a sort of sumptuary law, founded on the exigencies of civil society.

But against one species of polygamy the want of the ascertainment of the father forms an insuperable objection. Nor is it by any means clear that polygamy, in its more admissible form, and how ell soever regulated, is conducive to population or public prosperity; and the near equality in the number of each sex, sufficiently arraigns the justice of this establishment. Where that proportion subsists, a community of wives, though deservedly exploded as tending to relax or to annihilate the paternal tie, is, perhaps, more defensible than the exclusive possession of a plurality. But should the proportion be interrupted or broken by pestilence, by war, of other signal calamity, a well-ordered polygamy might possibly serve as a temporary expedient for repairing the depopulation of mankind.

On such emergency it was allowed at Athens; and from a conviction, no doubt, of its propriety, Socrates and Euripides availed themselves of the indulgence. But such conjunctures are rare; and an exclusive polygamy must, in general. be regarded in a less favourable light, as the most dangerous monopoly that ever claimed the protection of government, and in its origin and progress as an usurpation of the powerful and opulent on the equal pretensions of mankind.

Perhaps the liberty of divorce tended, at least in the more temperate climates, to reconcile all ranks to a more equal plan.

The institution of single marriage accordingly was in Greece as ancient as Cecrops, and was adopted by the Romans as the most perfect plan of domestic life. Yet even under this institution, the perpetuity of the marriage-union may be vindicated on solid grounds: and a rising progeny, the offspring of mutual love, tends to consolidate the alliance, as well as to render its obligations indissoluble. It is accordingly remarkable, that divorces, though permitted by law, were, during a period of five hundred years, unprecedented in the annals of Rome.

It is no less remarkable, according to the observation of a learned prelate, [The Bishop of Llandaff] that the number of divorces in the present reign equals the accumulated number upon record, in all preceding reigns, in the annals of England.

The decline of public manners is surely alarming, and calls perhaps, for the interpotion of legislative power. But it is seldom in the power of government to mend the morals of a people, while ill-digested attempts may serve rather to hasten corruption.

Whether it is possible for the wisdom of a British Parliament, to recal, in our age, the dignity of domestic life, I pretend not to decide. Let is suffice to observe, that, in the dissolute ages of antiquity, this liberty of divorce, authorized on so slight pretences by the legislation of Greece and Rome, and even tolerated under the Jewish oeconomy, became a source of the most odious corruption. The circumstances of the world called aloud for reformation. A latitude in this article was found alarming to the peace and order of society, and was finally reprobated and abolished by the maxims of our holy religion.

Upon the whole, it may be affirmed, that the institution of marriage, more or less perfect in different countries, is regulated in the best manner possible, under the Christian system. Chastity is a dictate of morality; celibacy is repugnant to nature. The liberty of divorce is dangerous, a community barbarous, and polygamy unjust.

It may farther be observed, that the laws of most countries, relative to incest, though not the immediate suggestions of instinct, are founded on obvious views of expediency and public order. Incest in the ascending and descending lines is so uniformly odious and shocking, that the prohibition may be regarded as the unalterable and declared sense of mankind, wherever these relations are known. The incestuous marriages of the Assyrians, Persians, and some others, which seem to militate against this conclusion, are rightly imputed to dictates of a false religion, which is found, in so many instances, to triumph over the clearest maxims of reasons and morality

There is no ground then to accuse such salutary regulations, or envying the unlimited indulgence of other times, to exclaim, in the intemperate language of the Poet,

––— Felices quibus ista licent!

–- human malignas

Cura dedit leges: & quod natura remittit

Invida jura negant.

Ovid. L. 10

NOTE [F], p. 22.

Tacitus, Plutarch, and others, bear testimony to the honourable rank of the other sex among the ancient Gauls. — They are even said to have conferred the supreme judicature on their wives, supplanted, however, in that function by an artful priesthood. The women were no less honoured among the ancient Britons. They were not only suffered to vote in public assemblies, but raised occasionally to the sovereignty of provinces, and even to the command of armies. Their importance among the ancient Germans, and in general under the Gothic constitutions, is established by a Writer who has illustrated the liberal genius of feudal associations, and vindicated, in some material points, the character of our remote ancestors. [See a View of Society in Europe, by G. Stewart, LL.D.]

The provinces of each sex in civil life, which seem to be defined by nature, were, in some measure, interchanged in antient Egypt. The more active occupations were allotted to the women; to the men, the more sedentary. And it was, accordingly, by law incumbent on the daughters, not the sons, to maintain their parents in declining age.

In several countries of Africa the women are still permitted to vote in public; and a multitude of similar examples might be drawn from the annals of uncivilized nations. but the Author of the Essay on the History of Civil Society, [Dr Adam Ferguson] in delineating the character of rude nations, prior to the establishment of property, explains the facts alluded to somewhat differently.

He admits, that children are considered as pertaining to the mother, with little regard to descent on the father’s side. He admits, that domestic functions are committed to the women, that the property of the household is vested in them, and even that the hunter and the warrior are numbered as a part of their treasure; but contends, “at this species of property is in reality a mark of subjection; not, says he, as some writers allege, of their having acquired the ascendant.”

But should we admit to this ingenious Author, that the occupations allotted for the women are accounted more inglorious than the toils of war, and would even be thought to sully and debase the character of the warrior or hero; yet such arrangements, without derogating from the prerogative of the superior sex, must render the condition of the inferior more eligible far than in several of the succeeding stages in civil society. “And if,” to use the language of our Author, “in this tender, though unequal alliance, the affections of the heart prevent the severities practised on slaves; we have in the custom itself, as, perhaps, in many other instances, reason to prefer the first suggestions of nature to many of her after-refinements.”

In such circumstances too, the matrons, as the only ascertained parents of the rising generation, could not fail to command exclusively that respect and reverence which is the usual tribute of filial love. The due balance of domestic authority being maintained by the equal ascertainment of both parents, where the descent is dubious on one side, the balance must incline strongly to the other; and though it is scarcely credible that mankind ever carried their jealousy of this authority so far, as to undermine its foundations, by changing the children as soon as born; [Diod. Sicul.] we may believe that uncertainty of descent on the father’s side contributed to the importance at which the women arrived in Britain, in Gaul, in Sparta, and other states.

When it was observed by one of another country to the wife of Leonidas, that at Sparta alone the women ruled the men, she replied, with becoming spirit, “We are the only women who bring forth men.”

The love of war and of women is combined, according to Aristotle, in the character of nations. And it must be admitted, that a spirit of gallantry, and a generous protection of the weaker sex, which form distinguishing features of the heroic age, are by no means unexercised in the earliest arrangements of the human species.

The fair sex commanded more veneration among the ancient Celtic nations of Europe than among the Greeks and Romans, whom we are accustomed to regard as the most civilized nations of antiquity. And their condition, though not to be envied, was less unhappy among the rude tribes in North America, than in the cultivated empires of Peru and Mexico, in other respects the most enlightened governments of the new hemisphere.

NOTE [G], p. 35.

In this judgment Mr Hobbes was certainly consistent with himself. For the dignity of human nature, which resists the establishment of civil tyranny, will be asserted by every people, conversant in the immortal productions of Greece and Rome.

“Quae natio,” says Cicero, in the generous triumph of humanity, “Quae natio non comitatem, non benignitatem, non gratum animum, et beneficii memorem diligit? Quae superbos, quae malificos, quae crudeles, quae ingratos non aspernatur, non odit?”

De Leg. lib. I.

Cicero, in the same Treatise, in which he opens the source of all law and government, has animated distant ages with the spirit of his own times, and with that enthusiasm of public virtue,

Et maribus Curiis, et decantata Camillis.

The example of the Roman Orator is peculiarly instructive, in this free country, to aspiring youth. He formed himself to eloquence on the Grecian model; and Plato was his favourite among the philosophers. On his entrance into public life, he was called the Greek, and the Scholar. But he acquired and merited a superior title: a title, which exalts him above conquerors and heroes, and which, while yet unprostituted by the adulatio of slaves, implied the consummation of human glory. He was saluted Father of his Country by a free people:

––— Roma parentum,

Roma, patrem patriae, Ciceronem libera duxit.

To vindicate the honours of man, nothing more is necessary than to transcribe the antients. But there are, it must be owned, anomalous productions in the moral, as in the natural world. The Leviathan was born in the last age. A more singular phaenomenon has appeared in ours. A Stanhope has appeared among our contemporaries, who, in an attempt to delineate and embellish human nature, has only descanted on his own deformity.