sation produced. No institutions in modern times can remain stationary, excepting under governments such as the Eastern dynasties, which, by preventing the accumulation of wealth, exclude the possibility of individual elevation in the middle classes: if the lower orders are permitted to better their condition, their expansive force must, in the end, affect the government. CHAP. II. 16. vented this in ancient times, from below in modern. The universality of slavery prevented this progress from appearing in ancient times. The civilisation of Slavery preantiquity was nothing but the aggregate of municipal appearing institutions; its freedom, the exclusive privilege of the ind inhabitants of towns. Hence, with the progress of pressure opulence, and the corruption of manners in the higher brings it out classes, the struggles of liberty gradually declined, and at last terminated with the supremacy of a single despot. The freest ages of these times were the earliest, their most enslaved the latest, of their history. No pressure from below was felt upon the exclusive privileges of the higher orders, because the bodies from which it should have originated were fettered in the bonds of servitude, and incapable of making their influence felt on the other classes in the state. Careless of the future, destitute of property, incapable of rising in society, provided for by others, the great body of the labouring classes remained in a state of pacific servitude, neither disquieting their superiors by their ambition, nor supporting them by their exertions. modern times, on the other hand, the emancipation of the industrious ranks, through the influence of religion and the extension of information, has, by means of the press, opened the path of elevation to the great body of the people. Individual ambition, the desire of bettering their condition, have thus been let in to affect the progress of freedom. The ebullition of popular discontent becomes strongest in the later periods of society, because it is then that the accumulated wealth of ages has rendered the middle orders most powerful, and the In II. CHAP. simultaneous multiplication of the lower made them most formidable. The progress of opulence, and the increase of industry, thus become favourable to the cause of liberty, because they augment the influence of those classes by whose exertions it must be maintained. The strife of faction is felt with most severity in those periods when the increasing pressure from below strains the bands by which it has been compressed, and danger or example has not taught the great the necessity of gradual relaxation. If these bands are slowly and cautiously unbent, it is Reformation; if suddenly removed, Mod. 31,54. either by the fervour of innovation or the fury of revolt, it is Revolution.1 1 Guiz. Hist. 17. General operation of these princi ples in mo The operation of these causes may be distinctly perceived in the frame of society in every free country in modern times. Universally the chief spring of prosdern times. perity is to be found in the lower classes; it is the active exertion, spirit, and increasing energy of the poor, when kept within due bounds by the authority of government and the influence of the aristocracy, which both lay the foundation of national wealth, and secure the progress of national glory. Ask the professional man what occasions the difficulty so generally experienced in struggling through the world, or even in maintaining his ground against his numerous competitors; he will immediately answer, that it is the pressure from below which occasions all his difficulty: his equals he can withstand, his superiors overcome ; it is the efforts of his inferiors which are chiefly formidable. Those, in general, who rise to eminence in every profession where a free competition is permitted, are the sons of the middle or lower orders; men whom poverty has inured to hardship, or necessity compelled to exertion, and who have acquired, in the school of early difficulty, habits more valuable than all the gifts which fortune has bestowed upon their superiors. The history and present state of England exhibit numerous and splendid examples of the great acquirements and deeds of persons connected by birth with the aristocratic classes; but this rather confirms than negatives these principles. But for the competition they had to maintain with the middle and lower classes, there is no reason to suppose that they would have been superior to similar ranks in France or the Continental states. It is the combined efforts of all the orders, each in their appropriate walk of life, occasioned by this incessant competition and necessity for exertion, which draws forth the varied talents of all, and occasions at once the wonders and deformities, the greatness and weakness, the growth and dangers of modern society. CHAP. II. tant effects So universal is the influence of this principle, so impor- 18. tant are its effects upon the progress and prospects of Its imporsociety, that it may be considered as the grand distinction in modern between ancient and modern times. All others sink into times. insignificance in comparison. The balance of power in a free country is totally altered in consequence of the prodigious addition thus made to the power and importance of the lower orders: a spring of activity and vigour is provided in the humble stations of life, which proves a rapid remedy for almost every national disaster, except those arising from the licentiousness of these orders themselves; a power is developed in the democratic party in the commonwealth, which renders new bulwarks necessary to maintain the equilibrium of society against its excesses. Without some advantages to counteract the superior energy and more industrious habits of their inferiors, the higher ranks, in a prosperous, opulent, and advancing state, must in general fall a prey to their ambition. The indolence of wealth, the selfishness of luxury, the pride of birth, will prove but feeble antagonists to the pressure of poverty, the self-denial of necessity, the ambition of talent. The successive elevation of the more fortunate or able of the lower orders to the II. CHAP. higher ranks of society is no sufficient antidote to the danger, for it is rare that this energy survives the necessity which gave it birth; and nowhere does the enervating influence of wealth appear more strongly than in the immediate descendants of those who have raised themselves by their own exertions. The incessant development of vigour in the working classes, indeed, if kept within due bounds, and directed in its objects by the influence of religion and the habits of virtue, will generally bring a sufficient portion of talent and industry to uphold the fortunes of the state, but not to maintain the ascendency of one class within its bosom; and in the strife of domestic ambition, the aristocracy will find but a feeble support in the descendants of those whom new-born wealth has enriched, or recent services ennobled. 19. of public The enervating effect of wealth upon national character, Extinction and its tendency to extinguish the love of freedom, so justly and so feelingly complained of by the writers of lence is long antiquity, has not hitherto been so strongly experienced averted by in modern times from the influence of the same cause. spirit by these causes. Corruption uniformly follows in the train of opulence; if those who have raised themselves by their exertions withstand the contagion, it rarely fails to affect their descendants. But the continual rise of citizens from the inferior ranks of society, for a time strongly counteracts the influence of this principle. How feeble or inefficient soever the higher ranks may become, a sufficient infusion of energy is long provided in the successive elevation of classes whom necessity has compelled to exertion. It is by precluding their elevation, or in consequence of corruption extending to their ranks, that an age of opulence sinks irrecoverably into one of degeneracy. The period when the public spirit, and with it the general liberty of Great Britain, will become extinct, may be predicted with unerring certainty. It will be when the people have become weary of asserting or maintaining their privileges, from a sense of the evils with which, from being pushed II. too far, they have been attended, or their incompatibility CHAP. with the indulgence of private rest and material gratification. And that was what Montesquieu meant when he said, that the British constitution would perish when the legislature became more corrupt than the executive. 20. progressive ders. But immortality or perfection is not the destiny of nations in this world, any more than of individuals. The Perils of this elevation and instruction of the people has opened foun- rise of the tains, from which the vigour of youth is long communicated lower or to the social body; but it has neither purified their vices nor eradicated their weakness. The tree of knowledge has brought forth its accustomed fruits of good and evil; the communication of intelligence to the mass of mankind has opened the door as wide to the corruptions as to the virtues of our nature. The progress of wickedness is as certain, and often more rapid, in the most educated, as in the most ignorant states. "And next to life, Our death, the tree of knowledge, grew fast by- The anxious desire for elevation and distinction which * Paradise Lost, iv. 220. + "He scrupled not to eat Against his better knowledge; not deceived, As with new wine intoxicated both, They swim in mirth, and fancy that they feel Divinity within them, breeding wings Wherewith to scorn the earth: but that false fruit Far other operation first display'd, Carnal desire inflaming."-Paradise Lost, ix. 997. |