National Characters

¹ Shallow people often carry all national characters to extremes. They categorize everyone and think that any people are knavish, cowardly, or ignorant without exception.

Men of sense condemn these undistinguishing judgments. But at the same time, they say that each nation has:

• a peculiar set of manners, and
• some particular qualities are more frequently seen among one people than others.

The common people in Switzerland are probably more honest than those Ireland. From that circumstance alone, every prudent man will make a difference in the trust which he gives to a Swiss and an Irish man.

We expect greater wit and gaiety in a Frenchman than in a Spaniard even if Cervantes was a Spaniard.

An Englishman will naturally be supposed to have more knowledge than a Dane, even if Tycho Brahe was Danish.

² These national characters have moral and physical causes.

Moral causes:

• affect the mind as motives or reasons, and
• render certain manners habitual to us.

Under moral causes are:

• the nature of the government
• the revolutions of public affairs
• the wealth or poverty of the people
• the nation’s situation with regard to its neighbours,
• and other similar circumstances.

Physical causes are the qualities of the air and climate, which insensibly:

• affect the temper and
• alter the body’s tone and habit.

They give a particular complexion which reflection and reason may sometimes overcome. But it will still:

• prevail among the generality of mankind, and
• have an influence on their manners.

³ A nation’s character will much depend on moral causes, since a nation is just a collection of individuals. The manners of individuals are frequently determined by these causes.

Poverty and hard labour debase the minds of the common people. It renders them unfit for any science and ingenious profession.

The oppression of any government has a proportional effect on their peoples’ temper and genius. It banishes all the liberal arts from them.

⁴ Moral causes:

• fixes the character of the different professions
• even changes the disposition which nature gives.

A soldier and a priest are different characters, in all nations and ages. This difference is founded on circumstances which are eternal and unalterable.

⁵ The uncertainty of a soldier’s life makes the soldier lavish, generous, and brave. Their idleness in large societies, such as camps or garrisons, inclines them to pleasure and gallantry.

They acquire good breeding and an openness of behaviour by the frequent change of company. Being employed only against a public and an open enemy, they become candid, honest, and undesigning. They are commonly thoughtless and ignorant as they use more the labour of the body than that of the mind.

⁶ The priests of all religions are not the same. Yet, with most of them, their professional character always predominates over their personal character.

Chemists observe that when gases are raised to a certain height, become all the same, from whatever materials they be extracted.

Similarly, priests, being elevated above humanity, acquire a uniform character entirely their own. It is opposite to that of a soldier; as is the way of life, from which it is derived.

⁷ I doubt physical causes. I do not think that men owe anything of their temper or genius to the air, food, or climate.

A contrary opinion might be at first sight seem probable since we find, that:

• these circumstances influence every animal, and
• even those creatures fitted to live in all climates, such as dogs, horses, etc. do not attain the same perfection in all.
  • The courage of bull-dogs and game-cocks seems peculiar to England.
  • Flanders is remarkable for large and heavy horses.
  • Spain is remarkable for horses light, and of good mettle.

When transplanted from one country to another, these creatures will soon lose the qualities which they derived from their native climate. Why not the same with men?

^8-9 The human mind is of a very imitative nature. Men who converse often must acquire similar manners and share to each other their vices and virtues.

The propensity to company and society is strong in all rational creatures. This disposition, which gives us this propensity, also makes us enter deeply into each other’s feelings. It causes similar passions to run by contagion through the whole club of companions.

A people united into one political body would have frequent dealings for defence, commerce, and government.

With the same language, they together acquire a resemblance in their manners, and have:

• a common or national character,
• a unique personal character

Nature produces all kinds of temper and understanding. But it does not follow that:

• she always produces them in the same proportions, and
• the following ingredients will be mixed in the same way in every society:
  • industry and indolence
  • valour and cowardice
  • humanity and brutality
  • wisdom and folly

In the infancy of society, if any of these dispositions are more common, it will naturally:

• prevail in that society, and
• give a tincture to the national character.

It could be presumed that:

• no character predominates, even in small societies, and
• the same proportions will always be preserved in the mixture.

Yet surely the persons in credit and authority are still fewer. It cannot always be presumed that:

• they are of the same character; and
• their influence on the people’s manners is always very considerable.

If a Brutus were made leader of a new republic and was enthusiastic about its liberty and public good, as to overlook all the ties of nature and private interest, it would naturally:

• have an effect on the whole society.
• kindle the same passion in every bosom.

Whatever forms the manners of one generation, the next generation must imbibe a deeper tincture of the same dye. Men are more susceptible of all impressions during infancy. They retain these impressions for the rest of their life.

I assert that:

• all national characters, where they do not depend on fixed moral causes, proceed from such accidents as these, and
• physical causes have no discernible operation on the human mind.

Proofs of national characters coming from the metaphysical sympathy of manners instead of from physical causes

¹⁰ Everywhere, and throughout history, there are signs of a sympathy or contagion of manners everywhere, but none of the influence of air or climate.

¹¹ Where a large government has been established for many centuries, it spreads a national character over the whole empire, and communicates to every part a similarity of manners.

Thus, the Chinese have the greatest uniformity of character even if their air and climate are very varied.

¹² In small contiguous governments, the people have a different character. They are often as distinguishable in their manners as the most distant nations.

Athens and Thebes just a short day’s journey apart.

• The Athenians were remarkable for ingenuity, politeness, and gaiety
• The Thebans were as remarkable for dullness, rusticity, and a phlegmatic temper.

Plutarch talked about the effects of air on the minds of men. He observed that the inhabitants of the Piraeum had very different tempers from those of the higher town in Athens, which was four miles away. But no one attributes the difference of manners in Wapping and St. James’, to a difference of air or climate.

¹³ The same national character commonly follows the authority of government to a precise boundary.

Upon crossing a river or passing a mountain, one finds a new set of manners, with a new government.

• The Languedocians and Gascons are the gayest people in France
• But when you pass the Pyrenees, you are among Spaniards.

The changing air quality do not change exactly with the limits of an empire. Those limits depend so much on the accidents of battles, negotiations, and marriages.

¹⁴ Where any set of men, scattered over distant nations, maintain a close society or communication together, they acquire a similarity of manners and have little in common with the nations where they live in.

Thus, the European Jews and the Armenians in the east, have a peculiar character. The Jews are as much noted for fraud, as the Armenians for probity.

The Jesuits, in all Catholic countries, are also observed to have a character peculiar to themselves.

¹⁵ If 2 nations inhabiting the same country are prevented from mixing with each other, they will preserve for several centuries a distinct and even opposite set of manners.

This separation could be accidental, such as a difference in language or religion. The integrity, gravity, and bravery of the Turks, form an exact contrast to the deceit, levity, and cowardice of the modern Greeks.

¹⁶ The same set of manners will follow a nation, and adhere to them around the world, as well as the same laws and language. The Spanish, English, French and Dutch colonies are all distinguishable even between the tropics.

¹⁷ The manners of a people change very considerably from one age to another either by:

• great alterations in their government,
• mixtures of new people, or
• that inconstancy of human affairs

The ingenuity, industry, and activity of the ancient Greeks have nothing in common with the stupidity and indolence of the modern Greeks.

• Candour, bravery, and love of liberty formed the character of the ancient Romans.

• Subtilty, cowardice, and a slavishness forms the character of the modern Italians.

• The old Spaniards were restless, turbulent, and so addicted to war. Many of them killed themselves, when deprived of their arms by the Romans.

• One would find an equal difficulty at present to rouse up the modern Spaniards to arms.

• The Batavians (Germans) were all soldiers of fortune. They hired themselves into the Roman armies. Their descendants use foreigners for the same purpose that the Romans did their ancestors.

• A few strokes of the current French character is the same with the Gauls, as described by Caesar. Yet there is a big difference between the civility, humanity, and knowledge of modern France, and the ignorance, barbarity, and grossness of the ancient Gauls.

• There is a great difference between the modern British and those before the Roman conquest.

¹⁸ Where several neighbouring nations have a very close communication together, either by policy, commerce, or traveling, they acquire a similarity of manners, proportional to the communication.

Thus, all the Franks appear to have a uniform character to the eastern nations.

The differences among them are like the peculiar accents of different provinces. Those accents are distinguishable only to an ear accustomed to them, and not to foreigners

¹⁹ We often see a wonderful mixture of manners and characters in the same nation, speaking the same language, and subject to the same government. The English are the most remarkable people in this sense.

This is not due to the uncertainty of their climate, or to any other physical causes, since all these causes take place in neighbouring Scotland, without the same effect.

A republican government commonly gets a peculiar set of manners, different from a monarchical one.

The imitation of superiors spread the national manners faster among the people. If the leaders are:

• mostly merchants, as in Holland, their uniform way of life will fix their character.
• mostly nobles and landed gentry, like Germany, France, and Spain, the same effect follows.

The genius of a particular sect or religion also moulds the people’s manners.

The English government is a mixture of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. The people in authority are composed of gentry and merchants. All sects of religion are to be found among them.

The great liberty and independency, lets every man display his own peculiar manners. Hence, the English have the least of a national character.