The Rise And Progress Of The Sciences

In human affairs, the discernment of what comes from chance and what comes from causes requires the most refinement. An author will likely deceive himself by false subtilties and refinements in this.

Any enquiry about an event is cut when we declare it to be derived from chance. It leaves the writer in the same state of ignorance with the rest of mankind. But when the event comes from certain and stable causes, he may then display his ingenuity in assigning these causes. A man of subtilty can swell his volumes and discover his profound knowledge in observing what escapes the ignorant.

The distinguishing between chance and causes depends on every man’s sagacity in considering every incident. But, if I were to assign any general rule to help us in applying this distinction, it would be the following, What depends upon a few persons is, in a great measure, to be ascribed to chance, or secret and unknown causes: What arises from a great number, may often be accounted for by determinate and known causes.

Two natural reasons may be assigned for this rule.

1. If a die has bias, however small to a side, this bias might not appear in a few throws. But it will prevail in many throws and will skew the outcomes to that side. Similarly, when causes come from a particular inclination or passion, some persons might escape the contagion and be ruled by different passions. Yet most will be governed by the common affection in all their actions.

2. Those principles or causes, which operate on a multitude are always of a grosser and more stubborn nature. They are less subject to accidents, and less influenced by whim and private fancy, than those which operate on a few only.

The latter are commonly so delicate and refined, that the smallest incident in the health, education, or fortune of a particular person, is sufficient to divert their course. They cannot be reduced to any general maxims or observations. Their influence at one time will never assure us concerning their influence at another; even though all the general circumstances should be the same in both cases.

This rule makes the domestic and the gradual revolutions of a state come from general passions and interests. It is not caused by the foreign and violent revolutions produced by single persons who act on whim, folly, or caprice. General principles account for the depression of the lords and rise of the commons in England caused by the statutes of alienation and the increase of trade and industry.

For the same reason, it is more easy to account for the rise and progress of commerce in any kingdom, than for that of learning. A state, which should apply itself to the encouragement of the one, would be more assured of success, than one which should cultivate the other. Avarice is a universal passion which operates at all times, in all places, and on all persons.

But curiosity, or the love of knowledge, has a very limited influence, and requires youth, leisure, education, genius, and example to make it govern any person. You will never want booksellers, while there are buyers of books. But there may frequently be readers where there are no authors. Multitudes of people, necessity and liberty, have begotten commerce in Holland. But study and application have scarcely produced any eminent writers.

When must be most cautious when we trace the history of the arts and sciences because we might assign them to causes which never existed. This would turn chance into a universal principle. Those who cultivate the sciences in any state, are always few. The passion, which governs them, is limited.

Their taste and judgment is delicate and easily perverted. Their application is disturbed with the smallest accident. Chance, therefore, or secret and unknown causes, has a great influence on the rise and progress of all the refined arts.

But chance is not the sole cause for the rise of the arts. The judgment of those eminent writers must have been cultivated from childhood by a spirit and genius that is already diffused throughout the people who lead to such arts. The mass of people cannot be altogether insipid, from which such refined spirits are extracted. Ovid says that there is a God within us who breathes that divine fire which animates us. Poets claim to be inspired by it even if it is not supernatural. Their fire is not kindled from heaven. It only runs along the earth and is caught from one breast to another. It burns brightest, where the materials are best prepared, and most happily disposed.

The rise and progress of the arts and sciences, therefore is not a question on the taste, genius, and spirit of a few, but on those of a whole people.

These may, therefore, be accounted for, in some measure, by general causes and principles.

If we ask why Homer existed in ancient Greece, we would encounter many false subtilties and refinements. We might pretend to give a reason why the generals Fabius and Scipio lived in Rome and why Fabius came before Scipio.

The only reason is that of Horace: Scit genius, natale comes, qui temperat astrum, Naturæ Deus humanæ, mortalis in unum— —Quodque caput, vultu mutabilis, albus & ater.

Why is such a nation more polite and learned, at a particular time, than its neighbours?

1. It is impossible for the arts and sciences to arise, at first, among any people unless that people enjoy the blessing of a free government.

In the first ages, men were barbarous and ignorant. They only sought security against mutual violence and injustice by choosing the proper rulers. Such a ruler will eventually delegate his authority to inferior magistrates, who preserve peace and order in their respective districts.

All general laws are attended with inconveniencies, when applied to particular cases. It requires great penetration and experience, both to perceive that these inconveniencies are fewer than what result from full discretionary powers in every magistrate; and also to discern what general laws are, upon the whole, attended with fewest inconveniencies.

This is so difficult, that men may have made some advances, even in the sublime arts of poetry and eloquence, where a rapidity of genius and imagination assists their progress, before they have arrived at any great refinement in their municipal laws, where frequent trials and diligent observation can alone direct their improvements.

Thus, a barbarous monarch, unrestrained and uninstructed, will never become a legislator, or think of restraining his Bashaws in every province, or even his Cadis in every village. We are told, that the late Czar,7 though actuated with a noble genius, and smit with the love and admiration of European arts; yet professed an esteem for the Turkish policy in this particular, and approved of such summary decisions of causes, as are practised in that barbarous monarchy, where the judges are not restrained by any methods, forms, or laws. He did not perceive, how contrary such a practice would have been to all his other endeavours for refining his people.

Arbitrary power, in all cases, is somewhat oppressive and debasing. But it is altogether ruinous and intolerable, when contracted into a small compass. It becomes still worse, when the person, who possesses it, knows that the time of his authority is limited and uncertain.

Habet subjectos tanquam suos; viles, ut alienos. He governs the subjects with full authority, as if they were his own; and with negligence or tyranny, as belonging to another.

A people, governed in such a way are slaves. It is impossible they can ever aspire to any refinements of taste or reason. They dare not pretend to enjoy the necessaries of life in plenty or security. To expect, therefore, that the arts and sciences should take their first rise in a monarchy, is to expect a contradiction.

Before these refinements have taken place, the monarch is ignorant and uninstructed.

and not having knowledge sufficient to make him sensible of the necessity of balancing his government upon general laws, he delegates his full power to all inferior magistrates.

This barbarous policy debases the people and forever prevents all improvements. Were it possible, that, before science were known in the world, a monarch could possess so much wisdom as to become a legislator, and govern his people by law, not by the arbitrary will of their fellow-subjects, it might be possible for that species of government to be the first nursery of arts and sciences. But that supposition seems scarcely to be consistent or rational.

An infant republic might be supported by as few laws as a barbarous monarchy.

• It might entrust unlimited authority to its magistrates or judges.
• But the frequent elections by the people are a considerable check on authority.

It is impossible, but, in time, the necessity of restraining the magistrates, in order to preserve liberty, must at last appear, and give rise to general laws and statutes.

For some time, the Roman Consuls decided all causes without being confined by any positive statutes. ul li This happened until the people, bearing this yoke with impatience, created the decemvirs who promulgated the twelve tables. li It was a body of laws which were less than one English act of parliament. li But it was almost the only written rules, which regulated property and punishment for some ages in the Roman republic. li | However, they were sufficient, together with the forms of a free government: ul li to secure the lives and properties of the citizens, li to exempt one man from the dominion of another; and li to protect every one against the violence or tyranny of his fellow-citizens. ul li In such a situation, the sciences may flourish. li But the sciences can never flourish amidst oppression and slavery such as those from barbarous monarchies where the people are restrained by the authority of the magistrates alone and the magistrates are not restrained by any law. li An unlimited despotism of this nature stops all improvements and keeps men from attaining the knowledge needed to instruct them in the advantages of a better police, and more moderate authority. p | Here then are the advantages of free states.

A barbarous republic infallibly gives rise to Law. From law arises security. From security arises curiosity. From curiosity arises knowledge. The latter steps of this progress may be more accidental, but the former are altogether necessary.

A republic without laws can never persist. On the contrary, in a monarchical government, law arises not necessarily from the forms of government. Monarchy, when absolute, is even repugnant to law. Great wisdom and reflexion can alone reconcile them. But such a degree of wisdom can never be expected, before the greater refinements and improvements of human reason.

These refinements require curiosity, security, and law. The first growth, therefore, of the arts and sciences can never be expected in despotic governments. There are other causes, which discourage the rise of the refined arts in despotic governments; though I take the want of laws, and the delegation of full powers to every petty magistrate, to be the principal. Eloquence certainly springs up more naturally in popular governments: Emulation too in every accomplishment must there be more animated and enlivened: And genius and capacity have a fuller scope and career. All these causes render free governments the only proper nursery for the arts and sciences.

2. The rise of politeness and learning is best created by a number of neighbouring and independent states connected together by commerce and policy.

The emulation, which naturally arises among those neighbouring states, is an obvious source of improvement. But what I would chiefly insist on is the stop, which such limited territories give both to power and to authority. Extended governments, where a single person has great influence, soon become absolute; but small ones change naturally into commonwealths.

A large government is accustomed by degrees to tyranny because each act of violence is at first performed upon a part, which, being distant from the majority, is not taken notice of, nor excites any violent ferment. Besides, a large government, though the whole be discontented, may, by a little art, be kept in obedience; while each part, ignorant of the resolutions of the rest, is afraid to begin any commotion or insurrection.

Not to mention, that there is a superstitious reverence for princes, which mankind naturally contract when they do not often see the sovereign, and when many of them become not acquainted with him so as to perceive his weaknesses. And as large states can afford a great expence, in order to support the pomp of majesty; this is a kind of fascination on men, and naturally contributes to the enslaving of them. In a small government, any act of oppression is immediately known throughout the whole: The murmurs and discontents, proceeding from it, are easily communicated: And the indignation arises the higher, because the subjects are not apt to apprehend in such states, that the distance is very wide between themselves and their sovereign. “No man,” said the prince of Conde, “is a hero to his Valet de Chambre.”

Admiration and acquaintance are altogether incompatible towards any mortal creature. Sleep and love convinced even Alexander himself that he was not a God.

The divisions into small states are favourable to learning, by stopping the progress of authority. Reputation is often as great a fascination upon men as sovereignty, and is equally destructive to the freedom of thought and examination.

But where a number of neighbouring states have a great intercourse of arts and commerce, their mutual jealousy keeps them from receiving too lightly the law from each other, in matters of taste and of reasoning, and makes them examine every work of art with the greatest care and accuracy. The contagion of popular opinion spreads not so easily from one place to another.

It readily receives a check in some state or other, where it concurs not with the prevailing prejudices. And nothing but nature and reason, or, at least, what bears them a strong resemblance,d can force its way through all obstacles, and unite the most rival nations into an esteem and admiration of it. Greece was a cluster of little principalities, which soon became republics; and being united both by their near neighbourhood, and by the ties of the same language and interest, they entered into the closest intercourse of commerce and learning.

There concurred a happy climate, a soil not unfertile, and a most harmonious and comprehensive language; so that every circumstance among that people seemed to favour the rise of the arts and sciences.

Each city produced its several artists and philosophers, who refused to yield the preference to those of the neighbouring republics: Their contention and debates sharpened the wits of men: A variety of objects was presented to the judgment, while each challenged the preference to the rest: and the sciences, not being dwarfed by the restraint of authority, were enabled to make such considerable shoots, as are, even at this time, the objects of our admiration. After the Roman christian, or catholic church had spread itself over the civilized world, and had engrossed all the learning of the times; being really one large state within itself, and united under one head; this variety of sects immediately disappeared, and the Peripatetic philosophy was alone admitted into all the schools,10 to the utter depravation of every kind of learning. But mankind, having at length thrown off this yoke, affairs are now returned nearly to the same situation as before, and Europe is at present a copy at large, of what Greece was formerly a pattern in miniature. We have seen the advantage of this situation in several instances. What checked the progress of the Cartesian philosophy, to which the French nation shewed such a strong propensity towards the end of the last century, but the opposition made to it by the other nations of Europe, who soon discovered the weak sides of that philosophy? The severest scrutiny, which Newton’s theory has undergone, proceeded not from his own countrymen, but from foreigners; and if it can overcome the obstacles, which it meets with at present in all parts of Europe, it will probably go down triumphant to the latest posterity. The English are become sensible of the scandalous licentiousness of their stage, from the example of the French decency and morals. The French are convinced, that their theatre has become somewhat effeminate, by too much love and gallantry; and begin to approve of the more masculine taste of some neighbouring nations.

China has a big stock of politeness and science. After so many centuries, it might naturally become more perfect. But China is one vast empire, speaking one language, governed by one law, and sympathizing in the same manners. The authority of any teacher, such as Confucius, was propagated easily from one corner of the empire to the other. None had courage to resist the torrent of popular opinion. Posterity was not bold enough to dispute what had been universally received by their ancestors. This is one natural reason, why the sciences have made so slow a progress in China.

Europe, of all the four parts of the world, is the most broken by seas, rivers, and mountains. Greece is, of all countries of Europe. Hence these regions were naturally divided into several distinct governments which led to the sciences in Greece.

The interruptions in the periods of learning, were they not attended with such a destruction of ancient books, and the records of history, would be rather favourable to the arts and sciences, by breaking the progress of authority, and dethroning the tyrannical usurpers over human reason.

In this particular, they have the same influence, as interruptions in political governments and societies.

Consider the blind submission of the ancient philosophers to the several masters in each school, and you will be convinced, that little good could be expected from a hundred centuries of such a servile philosophy. Even the Eclectics, who arose about the age of Augustus, notwithstanding their professing to chuse freely what pleased them from every different sect, were yet, in the main, as slavish and dependent as any of their brethren; since they sought for truth not in nature, but in the several schools; where they supposed she must necessarily be found, though not united in a body, yet dispersed in parts. Upon the revival of learning, those sects of Stoics and Epicureans, Platonists and Pythagoricians,15 could never regain any credit or authority; and, at the same time, by the example of their fall, kept men from submitting, with such blind deference, to those new sects, which have attempted to gain an ascendant over them.

3. A free state is the only proper nursery of these noble plants of the arts and sciences. But they can be transplanted into any government. A republic is most favourable to the growth of the sciences, just as a civilized monarchy is best for the polite arts.

It is so difficult to balance a large state or society on general laws, whether monarchical or republican. No human genius is able, by the mere dint of reason and reflection, to effect it.

The judgments of many must unite to balance a large society.

• Experience must guide their labour
• Time must bring it to perfection
• The feeling of inconveniencies must correct the mistakes

It is impossibile for these to be done in any monarchy since a monarchy entrusts unlimited powers to every governor or magistrate, and subdivides the people into classes of slavery which extinguishes the sciences, liberal arts, laws, and the manual arts and manufactures. The same barbarism and ignorance is then propagated to all posterity.

Laws are preserved more easily than they were established. Once law has taken root, it becomes a hardy plant. The arts of luxury, and much more the liberal arts, which depend on a refined taste or sentiment, are easily lost because they are always relished by a few only, whose leisure, fortune, and genius fit them for such amusements. But what is profitable to every mortal, and in common life, when once discovered, can scarcely fall into oblivion, but by the total subversion of society, and by such furious inundations of barbarous invaders, as obliterate all memory of former arts and civility.

Imitation also tends to transport these coarser and more useful arts from one climate to another and make them lead to the refined arts. From these causes proceed civilized monarchies; where the arts of government, first invented in free states, are preserved to the mutual advantage and security of sovereign and subject.

However perfect, therefore, the monarchical form may appear to some politicians, it owes all its perfection to the republican; nor is it possible, that a pure despotism, established among a barbarous people, can ever, by its native force and energy, refine and polish itself. It must borrow its laws, and methods, and institutions, and consequently its stability and order, from free governments.

These advantages are the sole growth of republics. The extensive despotism of a barbarous monarchy, by entering into the detail of the government, as well as into the principal points of administration, for ever prevents all such improvements. In a civilized monarchy, the prince alone is unrestrained in the exercise of his authority, and possesses alone a power, which is not bounded by any thing but custom, example, and the sense of his own interest. Every minister or magistrate, however eminent, must submit to the general laws, which govern the whole society, and must exert the authority delegated to him after the manner, which is prescribed. The people depend on none but their sovereign, for the security of their property.

He is so far removed from them, and is so much exempt from private jealousies or interests, that this dependence is scarcely felt. And thus a species of government arises, to which, in a high political rant, we may give the name of Tyranny, but which, by a just and prudent administration, may afford tolerable security to the people, and may answer most of the ends of political society.

In a civilized monarchy and in a republic, the people have security of property. But the supreme authority also have many honours and advantages, which excite the ambition and avarice of mankind.

The only difference is that, in a republic, the candidates for office must look downwards to gain the people’s votes. In a monarchy, they must turn their attention upwards, to court the good graces and favour of the great. To be successful in the former way, it is necessary for a man to make himself useful, by his industry, capacity, or knowledge: To be prosperous in the latter way, it is requisite for him to render himself agreeable, by his wit, complaisance, or civility.