dunbar10
Author: Unknown
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Essay X

Of Man, As the Arbiter of his Own Fortune

Natural and moral ills are essential to our system. It is in vain to enquire into their origin. An exemption from the former, would imply physical independence; an exemption from the latter, all moral perfection. Such attributes are divine. Yet man is neither chained down by necessity, nor impelled by fate. And resignation to the unalterable order of things, a sentiment so becoming his condition, ought not to arrest the hand of industry, or to contract the sphere of active enterprize. After all the efforts he can boast, after exhausting the accumulated exertions of ages, there remains, and will remain, abundant scope for all the passive virtues in the life of man. Let him then sustain with dignity the weight of his condition; yet not meanly acquiesce in grievances within his province to redress.

The actions of the elements on his frame is not more conspicuous, than his reciprocal action on those very elements which are permitted to annoy his being. He has a range allowed him in the creation peculiar to himself alone; and he seems to have had delegated to him a certain portion of the government of the natural world. Revolutions, indeed, are brought about in various regions by the universal laws of motion, uncontrouled, and uncontroulable by any human power. But, under certain limitations, soil and climate are subject to his dominion; and the natural history of the terraqueous globe varies with the civil history of nations.

In the descriptions of antient and modern Europe, the same countries appear to be essentially different. The climates beyond the Atlantic, are altered since the days of Columbus. But such differences and alterations are more rightly imputed to the conduct and operations of men, than to any mutability in the course of nature. Nor are such alterations confined to those settlements on which the additional culture has been bestowed. The arts of tillage and agriculture have a more diffusive and general effect. The country of Italy, though not better cultivated than in the days of the Romans, has undergone since those days a vicissitude of temperature, which has arisen, in all probability, from the more improved state of German and France.

The temperature of climates throughout America, so different from that which predominates under the same parallels of latitude in the antient world, is not entirely to be ascribed to fixed and permanent causes, but rather to the more recent existence of nations in the new hemisphere, and the inferior cultivation it has consequently received from the hand of man. Thus much is certain: by opening the soil, by clearing the forests, by cutting out passages for the stagnant waters, the new hemisphere becomes auspicious, like the old, for the growth and population of mankind.

Let us learn then to wage war with the elements, not with our own kind; to recover, if one may say so, our patrimony from chaos, and not to add to his empire.

The history of the colonies, and commercial establishments of the European nations, testifies that, in almost every corner, a healthful and salubrious climate is the sure effect of persevering and well-conducted labour. Nor is the opposite effect changeably merely on the neglect of culture, and the atmosphere that overhangs the desert alone malignant. The malignancy is often directly chargeable on manners, on police, and on civil establishments. In some of the most malignant climates on the Guinea coast, the impure habits of the natives have been assigned as the efficient cause.

The exhalations of a negro village, negroes only can endure.

ţThe plague, says Dr Chandler in his Travels into the East, might be wholly averted from these countries, or at least prevented from spreading, if lazarettos were erected, and salutary regulations enforced, as in some cities of Europe. Smyrna would be affected as little perhaps as Marseilles, if the police were as well modelled. But this is the wisdom of a sensible and enlightened people.ţ

A species of necessity, however, in some countries, conducts mankind to certain decorums in life and manners, which wait, in other countries, the ages of taste and refinement. The Dutch certainly are not the most polite among the European nations; yet the nature of their civil settlement, as if anticipating the dictates of refinement, introduced among them, from the beginning, a degree of order in their police, and of cleanliness in their household oeconomy, not surpassed, perhaps unequalled, by any other people. On a principle of health, an attention to cleanliness is more or less incumbent on all communities. It presents an emblem of inward purity, and is dignified, perhaps not improperly, in some systems of ethics, with the appellation of a moral virtue. But with all imaginable precaution of this score, the confluence of numbers in a crowded scene is generally productive of disease. Hence pestilential distempers are so often bred in the camp, and usually march in the train of war. And hence the establishment of great cities, under the best regulated police, can be demonstrated, from the bills of mortality, to be destructive in a high degree of population and public health. [See Dr Priceţs Observations on Reversionary Payments] But all these examples relate to artificial, not to natural, climate; and there seems to be little ground, in the history of the terraqueous globe, to associate with any fixed and immutable constitution of the atmosphere, the happiness or perfections of the human species.[A]

Yet local prejudices every where abound: the most accomplished citizens, in nations and ages the most accomplished, have not been exempted from their sway. Plato returned thanks to the immortal Gods, that he was an Athenian, not a Theban, born; that he breathed on the southern, not on the northern side of the Asopus. But if Athens was eminent for refinement, there were other causes than the climate. And if the Boeotians were dull to a proverb, it was a temporary calamity, and Pindar, and Pelopidas, and Epaminondas shall vindicate that soil. Thus much we may with certainly affirm, that soil and climate, if not altogether foreign to the mind, are, like the mind, susceptible of improvement, and variable, in a high degree, with the progress of civil arts. Settlements abandoned by one colony, have been repeopled with success by another. Projects, thought desperate in days of ignorance, have been resumed and conducted to a prosperous issue in more enlightened times.

Individuals have often failed in their attempts for want of public encouragement. Public enterprizes have failed for want of concurrence among nations. Establish then concert and union among mankind; all regions become habitable, and the elements almost cease to rebel.

Nor is this command over the elements the only effect of progressive industry and labour. The changes introduced into clothing, subsistence, modes of life, present considerations of equal moment. In consequence of these changes, our animal situation is as fluctuating as our moral; and the same people, in the ages of rudeness and civility, will retain fewer marks of resemblance in their organical structure, than will be found among the most distant nations when contemplated in corresponding points of their progress. A people emerged above the wilder states, who subsist by the culture of the soil, not by its spontaneous provision; who farther superadd the use of foreign commodities to the domestic articles of consumption, have undergone transitions, gradual perhaps and insensible, but which have affected their whole animal oeconomy. Thus the commercial arts, by concentring in one corner of the world the divided treasures of the earth, confound the primeval distribution and arrangement of things, and diversify, in the same climate, the condition of tribes and nations. There seems to be a certain regimen of life suited to the local circumstances of mankind, which is suggested to them at first by instinct, or is the slow result of experience. A different regimen, recommended in a similar manner, is best adapted to their circumstances in another region; and sudden or injudicious alterations in the modes of life, are among the fatal consequences that attend the commerce of nations. The transference too of epidemical distemper from region to region is another consequence of that commerce no less destructive. Distempers, local in their origin, being thus diffused over the globe, become, when transplanted, more formidable than in their native seats. The plague, so desolating when it invades Europe, commits not equal havoc in the East. The malady imported by Columbus, was less virulent in the American climates. On the other hand, the small-pox, introduced into those climates by the Europeans, threatened the depopulation of the new hemisphere.

Time, however, which corrects the tendency of migrations, seems also to correct the virulence of transplanted distemper.

Either the human constitution opposes it with new vigour, or the art of medicine combats it with more success; or the poison, by being long blended with surrounding elements, ceases to be so destructive. It may also be observed, that some disorders leave impressions in the constitution which prevent, in future, the possibility of similar annoyance. Hence the expediency of inoculation, a practice first introduced into Europe from the East, which solicits disease through a safer channel, as a preservative against its eventual attack in all the circumstances of its natural malignity. But to return from this digression, let us survey the farther tendency of the commercial arts.

The natural productions of one corner, supply the demands of luxury in another; and the most distant tribes may approximate each other in their animal temperament by mutual traffic. Even the natives of the most penurious soil may exchange the rude simplicity of their ancestors for the extravagance of the most pampered nations. As national affluence, however, is not distributed equally among the several members of the community (for under an equal division of property no government can long subsist), we often observe at once, in the distinction of ranks, such effects of various temperament as arise in succession to the public from the general vicissitudes of society. Penury and wealth, simplicity and prodigality, indolence and toil, create constitutional distinctions among the different orders of citizens. For the impression of the commercial arts is often conspicuous in the upper departments of life, before it reaches those of inferior condition; but the circle gradually widens. The exclusive possession of opulence cannot be long maintained; and the fluctuation, so natural to commercial states, must disseminate the effects over the public at large.

In the last period of the Roman government, the different provinces of the empire became contaminated with the luxury of the East, whose influence on the bodily temperament may have contributed, along with moral and political distemper, to the success of the northern armies.

––– Saevior armis

Luxuria incubuit, victumque ulciscitur orbem.

But these symptoms of decay, which spread at last over the provinces, and tainted the mass of the people, had originated among the nobles, and in the seat of government. It was the legions, not the senate, the provincials, not the Romans, who acted, during the several generations, as the masters of mankind. Aurelian, and Probus, and Dioclesian, the restorers of the Roman world, were not of Roman blood. And Rome, more debauched than the distant provinces, had been some of them, ages before here fall, erected into distinct and independent states, no longer acknowledging here sovereign authority, or the laws of the empire.

Such consequences, however, imply no imputation on the arts of civil life. The food, the raiment, the occupations of the polished citizen may be as innocent as those of the savage. The latter is even guilty of excesses which disappear in the age of refinement.

The immoderate use of intoxicating liquors is generally most predominant in the ruder forms of society. It is relinquished in the progress of refinement, and seems to be scarce compatible with the elegant luxuries of a highly cultivated people.

A propensity indeed to vicious excess, may be accidentally combined in the same character with a high relish for the luxuries of life. But the passions themselves are totally distinct. A proneness to luxury, with an aversion to all riot or excess, is no uncommon character; and a proneness to excess, with an aversion to luxury, though more rare, is by no means without example.

A striking example occurs in the character of the famous Irish rebel, who, in the reign of Elizabeth, assumed the rank and appellation of King of Ulster. ţHe was a man, says the historian, equally noted for his pride, his violence, his debaucheries, and his hatred of the English nation. He is said to have put some of his followers to death, because they endeavoured to introduce the use of bread after the English fashion. Though so violent an enemy to luxury, he was extremely addicted to riot, and was accustomed, after his intemperance had thrown him into a fever, to plunge his body into mire, that he might allay the flame which he had raised by former excesses.ţ[History of England, vol. v. p. 399.]

Luxury, according to its species and direction, may be pronounced to be either salutary or destructive. By its connexion with industry and active exertion, it is productive of the noblest effects. It is the parent of ingenious arts, and conducts a people to honour and distinction. Yet objects which are not only innocent, but beneficial in the pursuit, may prove dangerous in the possession; and the acquisitions of natural virtue may become the occasion of its fall. Habits there surely are, incident to different periods of society, which tend to enervate the body, and to vitiate the blood. The mechanical springs of life rest not on the energy of one cause, but on the combination of many, possessing often opposite and qualifying powers. It were improper, therefore, to expatiate on the tendency of one principle, without attending to others which serve to heighten or to mitigate its force. One writer magnifies the power of climate; another, the effects of aliment; a third, the efficacy of labour or rest, and the peculiar influence of certain modes of life. But these circumstances are relative to each other, and it is the result of the combination with which we are alone concerned. It was well answered by the Spartan to the King of Syracuse, who found fault with the coarseness of the Spartan fare. ţIn order, says he, to make these victuals relish, it is necessary to bathe in the Eurotas.ţ

By the progress of agriculture and rural oeconomy in our climates, that mode of subsistence has become the most easy, which was formerly the most difficult. And it were well, perhaps, for mankind, in most countries of Europe at this day, if the great and opulent exchanged with those of inferior condition many of the daily articles of consumption. Vegetable aliment seems to be better adapted to the more indolent class of citizens. The labouring part of society require a larger proportion of animal food. But it is often difficult for the meaner sort to procure for themselves suitable subsistence, and more difficult for the superiors to abstain from improper gratifications.

If I were not Alexander, said the Prince of Macedon, I would chuse to be Diogenes. Yet the generality of people would rather imitate the conduct of Aristippus, who, for the pageantry of a court, and the pleasures of a luxurious table, could forego independence, and descent from the dignity of philosophy to the adulation of Kings.[B] The conduct however of mankind, in uncorrupted times, was more conformable to nature; and their reason taught them to form such habits and combinations as were most congruous with their external condition. Different systems of policy grow out of these combinations; and usages and laws relative to climate make a capital figure in antient legislation. Even superstition, on some occasions, has proved a guardian of public manners, and a useful auxiliary to legislative power. Abstinence from the flesh of animals, abstinence from wine, frequent purifications, and other external observances among the Indians, the Persians, the Arabians, how absurd soever if transferred to other countries, formed on the occasions, and in the countries where they were instituted, important branches of political oeconomy. The Egyptians prescribed by a law a regimen for their Kings. In some instances, certain rules of proportion were established; and suitable to the different classes of citizens, there was a special allotment of aliment prescribed by the religion of Brama. The Christian dispensation alone, divine in its origin, and designed to be universal, descends not to local institutions; but, leaving the details of policy to the rulers of nations, inculcates only those pure and essential doctrines which are adapted to all climates and governments. Yet the Vedam, the Shaster, the Koran, and other antient codes, which afford, in one view, so striking examples of credulity and fanaticism, may be regarded, in another, as monuments of human sagacity. Happy had it been for the world, if the founders of religion and government has separated, in such cases, the pure gold from the dross, and connived only at illusions connected with public felicity. It were often happy for rude tribes, if they were taught a local superstition, how absurd soever in its details, that tended to preserve the simplicity of their morals, and debarred them in many instances from adopting foreign customs and manners. How fortunate would it have been for the Indian tribes, throughout the continent of North America, if they had been debarred, by the solemn sanctions of a religion as absurd as that of Mahomet, from the use of intoxicating liquors! a practice derived to them from European commerce, and which contributes, in the new hemisphere, more, perhaps, than any other cause, to the destruction, and what is worse, to the debasement of the species.

Our voyages of discovery, which, in some respects, are so honourable, and calculated for noble ends, have never yet been happy for any of the tribes of mankind visited by us. The vices of Europe have already contaminated the Otaheitean blood. Whether the English or French navigators have been the first authors of the dreadful calamity which now afflicts that race, it is of little importance to decide. While so odious a charge is retorted on each other by those nations, the natives of the happy island, so cruelly abused, will have cause to lament for ages, that any European vessel ever touched their shores.

Felix, heu nimium felix! si littora tantum–

The introduction of certain vegetables and animals, however useful to human life, make a poor recompence to the natives for the communication of disease, and the corruption of manners.

Moral depravity is a fertile source of physical ills to individuals, to families, and to nations. Nor are the ills inherent only in the race which bred the disorder. They spread from race to race, and are often entailed, in all their malignity, on posterity.

Thus hereditary distemper has a foundation in the natural, as in the moral world. Nor does this reflect upon eternal justice, or breed confusion in the universe, or derogate from the sum of its perfections. If we are punished for the vices, we are rewarded too for the virtues, of our fathers. These opposite principles of exaltation and debasement tend to the equilibrium of the system.

They serve also to a farther end; they serve to draw closer the ties of humanity, to remind us of our duty, by reminding us of the relations of our being; and of those indissoluble connexions and dependencies which unite us with the past, and will unite us with all succeeding ages.

NOTES.

NOTE [A]

Of the efficacy of sound regimen in preserving health, under all the variety of climate to which mankind are apt to be exposed, there occurs a memorable example in the late voyage round the world by Capt. Cook, so justly represented to the Royal Society, by his elegant and learned encomiast. That navigator, whose melancholy fate is, at the moment I am writing, lamented by all Europe, ţwith a company of 118 men, performed a voyage of three years and eighteen days, throughout all the climates from 52 degrees north to 71 degrees south latitude, with the loss of a single man only by disease:ţ a proportion so moderate, that the bills of mortality, in no climate or condition of society, can furnish such another example.

It is well observed, by the Abbe Fontana, that nature is not so partial as we commonly believe; that, though it is of importance to ascertain the qualities of the atmospherical air, and the changes it undergoes, yet the air in general is good in all countries; and that the small differences, which in reality subsist, are by no means so formidable as some people are apt to suppose. These conclusion, founded on a series of well-digested observations, are communicated in a Letter to Dr Priestley, whose own experiments on this subject are equally splendid in science, and of importance to human life.

See Phil. Trans. for 1779.

NOTE [B]

Horace, indeed, in the spirit of the courtier, the poet, and the man of pleasure, approves the temporizing system of Aristippus, rather than the austere rigour of Diogenes. The pedantry of the latter was surely excessive. But is was the excess of that free, manly, and independent spirit, which is allied to true glory, and formed the heroism of antiquity.

Si pranderet olus patienter, regibus uti Nollet Artistippus;

was the judgment of the cynic; and the reply of Aristippus is rather smart than solid:

– Si sciret regibus uti,

Fastidiret olus, que me notat. –-

Hor. l. i. ep. 17.