|
|
|
|
@ -100,7 +100,6 @@ Such is the pure emotion of nature, prior to all kinds of reflection! Such is th
|
|
|
|
|
> *Mollissima corda*
|
|
|
|
|
> *Humano generi dare se natura fatetur,*
|
|
|
|
|
> *Quœ lacrimas dedit.*
|
|
|
|
|
>
|
|
|
|
|
> > Juvenal, *Satires*, xv. 151 [^3]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mandeville well knew that, in spite of all their morality, men would have never been better than monsters, had not nature bestowed on them a sense of compassion, to aid their reason: but he did not see that from this quality alone flow all those social virtues, of which he denied man the possession. But what is generosity, clemency or humanity but compassion applied to the weak, to the guilty, or to mankind in general? Even benevolence and friendship are, if we judge rightly, only the effects of compassion, constantly set upon a particular object: for how is it different to wish that another person may not suffer pain and uneasiness and to wish him happy? Were it even true that pity is no more than a feeling, which puts us in the place of the sufferer, a feeling, obscure yet lively in a savage, developed yet feeble in civilised man; this truth would have no other consequence than to confirm my argument. Compassion must, in fact, be the stronger, the more the animal beholding any kind of distress identifies himself with the animal that suffers. Now, it is plain that such identification must have been much more perfect in a state of nature than it is in a state of reason. It is reason that engenders self-respect, and reflection that confirms it: it is reason which turns man's mind back upon itself, and divides him from everything that could disturb or afflict him. It is philosophy that isolates him, and bids him say, at sight of the misfortunes of others: "Perish if you will, I am secure." Nothing but such general evils as threaten the whole community can disturb the tranquil sleep of the philosopher, or tear him from his bed. A murder may with impunity be committed under his window; he has only to put his hands to his ears and argue a little with himself, to prevent nature, which is shocked within him, from identifying itself with the unfortunate sufferer. Uncivilised man has not this admirable talent; and for want of reason and wisdom, is always foolishly ready to obey the first promptings of humanity. It is the populace that flocks together at riots and street-brawls, while the wise man prudently makes off. It is the mob and the market-women, who part the combatants, and hinder gentle-folks from cutting one another's throats.
|
|
|
|
|
@ -261,7 +260,6 @@ These details alone, however, would furnish matter for a considerable work, in w
|
|
|
|
|
> *Pectore si fratris gladium juguloque parentis
|
|
|
|
|
> Condere me jubeas, gravidœque in viscera partu
|
|
|
|
|
> Conjugis, invita peragam tamen omnia dextrâ.*
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
> Lucan, i. 376
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
From great inequality of fortunes and conditions, from the vast variety of passions and of talents, of useless and pernicious arts, of vain sciences, would arise a multitude of prejudices equally contrary to reason, happiness and virtue. We should see the magistrates fomenting everything that might weaken men united in society, by promoting dissension among them; everything that might sow in it the seeds of actual division, while it gave society the air of harmony; everything that might inspire the different ranks of people with mutual hatred and distrust, by setting the rights and interests of one against those of another, and so strengthen the power which comprehended them all.
|
|
|
|
|
@ -274,10 +272,10 @@ If the reader thus discovers and retraces the lost and forgotten road, by which
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I have endeavoured to trace the origin and progress of inequality, and the institution and abuse of political societies, as far as these are capable of being deduced from the nature of man merely by the light of reason, and independently of those sacred dogmas which give the sanction of divine right to sovereign authority. It follows from this survey that, as there is hardly any inequality in the state of nature, all the inequality which now prevails owes its strength and growth to the development of our faculties and the advance of the human mind, and becomes at last permanent and legitimate by the establishment of property and laws. Secondly, it follows that moral inequality, authorised by positive right alone, clashes with natural right, whenever it is not proportionate to physical inequality; a distinction which sufficiently determines what we ought to think of that species of inequality which prevails in all civilised, countries; since it is plainly contrary to the law of nature, however defined, that children should command old men, fools wise men, and that the privileged few should gorge themselves with superfluities, while the starving multitude are in want of the bare necessities of life.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[^1]: Justin, *Hist.* ii. 2. So much more does the ignorance of vice profit the one sort than the knowledge of virtue the other.
|
|
|
|
|
[^1]: Justin, *Hist.* ii. 2: '*So much more does the ignorance of vice profit the one sort than the knowledge of virtue the other.*'
|
|
|
|
|
[^2]: Egoism must not be confused with self-respect: for they differ both in themselves and in their effects. Self-respect is a natural feeling which leads every animal to look to its own preservation, and which, guided in man by reason and modified by compassion, creates humanity and virtue. Egoism is a purely relative and factitious feeling, which arises in the state of society, leads each individual to make more of himself than of any other, causes all the mutual damage men inflict one on another, and is the real source of the "sense of honour." This being understood, I maintain that, in our primitive condition, in the true state of nature, egoism did not exist; for as each man regarded himself as the only observer of his actions, the only being in the universe who took any interest in him, and the sole judge of his deserts, no feeling arising from comparisons he could not be led to make could take root in his soul; and for the same reason, he could know neither hatred nor the desire for revenge, since these passions can spring only from a sense of injury: and as it is the contempt or the intention to hurt, and not the harm done, which constitutes the injury, men who neither valued nor compared themselves could do one another much violence, when it suited them, without feeling any sense of injury. In a word, each man, regarding his fellows almost as he regarded animals of different species, might seize the prey of a weaker or yield up his own to a stronger, and yet consider these acts of violence as mere natural occurrences, without the slightest emotion of insolence or despite, or any other feeling than the joy or grief of success or failure.
|
|
|
|
|
[^3]: Nature avows she gave the human race the softest hearts, who gave them tears.
|
|
|
|
|
[^4]: Ovid, *Metamorphoses*, xi. 127. Both rich and poor, shocked at their new-found ills, Would fly from wealth, and lose what they had sought.
|
|
|
|
|
[^5]: Tacitus, *Hist.* iv. 17. The most wretched slavery they call peace.
|
|
|
|
|
[^4]: Ovid, *Metamorphoses*, xi. 127: *'Both rich and poor, shocked at their new-found ills, Would fly from wealth, and lose what they had sought'*.
|
|
|
|
|
[^5]: Tacitus, *Hist.* iv. 17: *'The most wretched slavery they call peace'*.
|
|
|
|
|
[^6]: Of the Rights of the Most Christian Queen over Various States of the Monarchy of Spain, 1667
|
|
|
|
|
[^7]: Distributive justice would oppose this rigorous equality of the state of nature, even were it practicable in civil society; as all the members of the State owe it their services in proportion to their talents and abilities, they ought, on their side, to be distinguished and favoured in proportion to the services they have actually rendered. It is in this sense we must understand that passage of Isocrates, in which he extols the primitive Athenians, for having determined which of the two kinds of equality was the most useful, viz., that which consists in dividing the same advantages indiscriminately among all the citizens, or that which consists in distributing them to each according to his deserts. These able politicians, adds the orator, banishing that unjust inequality which makes no distinction between good and bad men, adhered inviolably to that which rewards and punishes every man according to his deserts. But in the first place, there never existed a society, however corrupt some may have become, where no difference was made between the good and the bad; and with regard to morality, where no measures can be prescribed by law exact enough to serve as a practical rule for a magistrate, it is with great prudence that, in order not to leave the fortune or quality of the citizens to his discretion, it prohibits him from passing judgment on persons and confines his judgment to actions. Only morals such as those of the ancient Romans can bear censors, and such a tribunal among us would throw everything into confusion. The difference between good and bad men is determined by public esteem; the magistrate being strictly a judge of right alone; whereas the public is the truest judge of morals, and is of such integrity and penetration on this head, that although it may be sometimes deceived, it can never be corrupted. The rank of citizens ought, therefore, to be regulated, not according to their personal merit — for this would put it in the power of the magistrate to apply the law almost arbitrarily — but according to the actual services done to the State, which are capable of being more exactly estimated.
|
|
|
|
|
|
