The Order of How Societies are recommended to our Beneficence

²⁶ The principles that direct the order of how individuals are recommended to our beneficence, also direct the order of how societies are recommended to our beneficence. The most important societies are the first and principal ones recommended to our beneficence.

²⁷ Ordinarily, our conduct influences the mood of the society in which we live and have been born and educated. Our society is accordingly, most strongly recommended to us by nature.

We and our children, parents, relations, friends, benefactors are commonly comprehended within our society. Their prosperity and safety depend on the prosperity and safety of our society. Therefore, it is naturally endeared to us by all our selfish benevolent affections.

Because of our connection with our own society, the prosperity and glory of our society reflects some honour on ourselves. When we compare it with other societies, we are=

• proud of its superiority, and
• mortified if it appears inferior.

We have the most biased admiration for all our society’s historical illustrious characters, such as its warriors, statesmen, poets, philosophers, and men of letters. We rank them above those of all other nations, sometimes most unjustly. Envy might prejudice us a little when we compare those of our own times.

The patriot who lays down his life for the safety of this society acts most properly. He views himself in the light in which the impartial spectator naturally and necessarily views him. In the eye of that equitable judge, he is=

• but one of the multitude,
• of no more consequence than any other in it, and
• always bound to devote himself to the safety, service, and even to the glory of the majority

But though this sacrifice is perfectly just and proper, we know=

• how difficult it is, and
• how few can do it.

The patriot’s conduct, therefore, excites our entire approbation and highest admiration. It seems to merit all the applause which can be due to the most heroic virtue. On the contrary, the traitor is the most detestable of all villains.

• He promotes his own little interest by betraying the interest of his native country to the enemy.
• He prefers himself so shamefully and basely, to all those he is connected with, regardless of the judgment of the man within the breast.

Nationalism

²⁸ The love of our own nation makes us jealous of the prosperity of neighbouring nations. Independent and neighbouring nations, which have no common superior to decide their disputes, all live in continual dread of one each other. Each sovereign, expecting little justice from his neighbours, is disposed to treat them with as little justice as he expects from them.

The regard for the laws of nations is often little more than mere pretence and profession. Independent states profess or pretend to observe those rules in their dealings with one another. We see those rules everyday evaded or directly violated without shame or remorse=

• from the smallest interest, and
• on the slightest provocation.

Each nation foresees, or imagines it foresees, its own subjugation in the increasing power and aggrandisement of any of its neighbours. The mean principle of national prejudice is often founded on the noble one of the love of our own country.

The elder Cato concluded his every senate speech with=

It was the natural expression of the savage patriotism of a strong but coarse mind. His mind was enraged almost to madness against a nation which his own nation had suffered so much from. Scipio Nasica concluded all his speeches with this more humane sentence=

It was the liberal expression of a more enlarged and enlightened mind. It felt no aversion to the prosperity even of an old enemy, when reduced to a state which could no longer be formidable to Rome.

France and England may have reasons to dread the other’s naval and military power. But it is surely beneath the dignity of two such great nations for them to envy:

• the other’s internal happiness and prosperity,
• the cultivation of its lands,
• the advancement of its manufactures,
• the increase of its commerce,
• the security and number of its ports, and
• its proficiency in all the liberal arts and sciences.

These are all real improvements of our world. Mankind are benefited, human nature is ennobled by them. In such improvements, each nation should excel and promote, instead of obstructing the excellence of its neighbours, from the love of mankind. These are all proper objects of national emulation, not of national prejudice or envy.

²⁹ The love of our own country is not derived from the love of mankind and is totally different from it.

France has nearly three times Great Britain’s population. Therefore, in the great society of mankind, France’s prosperity should be much more important than Great Britain’s prosperity. However, the British who prefers France’s prosperity to Great Britain’s, on that account, would not be thought as a good British citizen.

We do not love our country merely as a part of the great society of mankind. We love it for its own sake.

That wisdom which contrived the system of human affections and that of every other part of nature, has judged that the interest of the great society of mankind would be best promoted by directing each individual’s attention to that part which was most within the sphere of his abilities and understanding.

³⁰ National prejudices and hatreds seldom extend beyond neighbouring nations.

• We weakly and foolishly call the French our natural enemies.
• They weakly and foolishly consider us their natural enemies.

Neither of us are jealous at the prosperity of China or Japan.

³¹ The statesman’s extensive public benevolence is commonly exerted with a considerable effect.

The balance of power is the general peace of the states within the circle of their negotiations. He forms alliances with nearby nations to preserve this balance. However, the statesmen who plan and execute such treaties, frequently only have the interest of their respective countries.

Sometimes, their views are more extensive. The Count d’Avaux was the plenipotentiary of France at the treaty of Munster. Cardinal de Retz was a man not over-credulous other people’s virtue. According to the Cardinal, the Count was willing to sacrifice his life to restore Europe’s peace by that treaty. The liberty and independence of Europe was in danger because of France. King William of England had a real zeal for such liberty due to his aversion to France. The same spirit seems to have affected Queen Anne’s first ministry.

The State and its Constitution

³² Every independent state is divided into many different orders and societies, each of which has its own particular powers, privileges, and immunities. Every individual is naturally more attached to his own order or society.

His order is connected to the interest and vanity of himself and his friends. He is ambitious to extend its privileges and immunities. He is zealous to defend them against the encroachments of other orders or societies.

³³ The ‘constitution’ of that state depends on:

• how any state is divided into the different orders and societies, and
• the distribution of their respective powers, privileges, and immunities.

³⁴ The stability of that constitution depends on the ability of each order to maintain its own powers, privileges, and immunities, against the encroachments of others. That constitution is necessarily altered whenever any of its subordinate parts is raised or lowered in its rank and condition.

³⁵ All those different orders and societies depend on the state to which they owe their security and protection. Their most partial member acknowledges that they are:

• all subordinate to that state, and
• established only for the state’s prosperity and preservation.

However, it may often be hard to convince him that the state’s prosperity and preservation requires a reduction of the powers, privileges, and immunities of his own order or society. This partiality may sometimes be unjust. It is not useless, on that account.

It checks the spirit of innovation. It preserves whatever is the established balance among the different orders and societies into which the state is divided

It sometimes appears to obstruct some alterations of government which may be fashionable and popular at the time. In reality, it contributes to the whole system’s stability and permanency.

³⁶ Ordinarily, the love of our country involves in it two principles:

1. A certain respect and reverence for that constitution or form of government actually established
2. An earnest desire to render the condition of our fellow-citizens as safe, respectable, and happy as we can.

A person who:

• does not respect the laws nor obey the civil magistrate is not a citizen
• does not wish to promote the welfare of his whole society is certainly not a good citizen

³⁷ In peacetime, those two principles generally coincide and lead to the same conduct. The support of the government is the best way to maintain the safe and happy situation of our fellow-citizens when we see that this government actually maintains them.

But in times of public discontent, faction, and disorder, those two principles may draw different ways.

Even a wise man thinks some change is needed in that constitution or form of government which is unable to maintain the peace. However in such cases, the highest effort of political wisdom is often required to determine when a real patriot should:

• support or re-establish the old system’s authority, or
• give way to the more daring, but often dangerous, spirit of innovation.

³⁸ The 2 situations which afford the most splendid opportunities to display public spirit are:

• Foreign war
• Civil war

The hero who serves his country successfully in a foreign war gratifies his whole nation’s wishes. He becomes the object of universal gratitude and admiration.

In a civil war, the leaders of the contending parties might be admired by half of their fellow-citizens. But they are commonly execrated by the other. Their characters and the merit of their respective services become more doubtful.

Thus, the glory acquired by foreign war is almost always purer and more splendid than the glory acquired in a civil war.

³⁹ The leader of the successful party might render a service to his country if he has enough authority over his own friends to act properly (which he frequently has not). This service is much more essential and important than:

• the greatest victories and
• the most extensive conquests.

He may re-establish and improve the constitution. The reformer and legislator of a great state is the greatest and noblest of all characters. He may assume this character, from the very doubtful and ambiguous character of the leader of a party. By the wisdom of his institutions, he may secure the internal tranquillity and happiness of his fellow-citizens for many generations.

⁴⁰ Amidst the turbulence and disorder of faction, a certain spirit of system often mixes itself with that public spirit founded on the love of humanity. This love is a real fellow-feeling with our fellow-citizens. It is a more gentle public spirit.

This spirit of system:

• commonly takes the direction of that love,
• always animates that love, and
• often inflames that love even to the madness of fanaticism.

The leaders of the discontented party often hold out some plausible reform plan which they pretend will=

• remove the inconveniencies and relieve the distresses immediately complained of, and
• prevent any future return of the like inconveniencies and distresses.

They often propose to:

• re-model the constitution, and
• alter, in its most essential parts, the system of government that has given peace, security, and glory for several centuries to its citizens.

The party is commonly intoxicated with the imaginary beauty of this ideal system which they have no experience of. Their eloquent leaders paint this system in the most dazzling colours.

Those leaders might have meant only their own aggrandisement. In time, many of them become the dupes of their own sophistry. They are as eager for this great reformation as the weakest and most foolish of their followers. The leaders commonly preserve their own heads, free from this fanaticism. Yet they dare not always disappoint their followers’ expectations.

The followers are often obliged to act as if they were under the common delusion, contrary to their conscience. The party’s violence frequently obtains nothing by=

• refusing all palliatives, temperaments, reasonable accommodations, and
• requiring too much.

Those inconveniencies and distresses which might have been removed and relieved through a little moderation, are left without the hope of a remedy.

⁴¹ The man, whose public spirit is prompted by humanity and benevolence, will:

• respect the established powers and privileges even of individuals
• respect more those of the great orders and societies of the state
• consider some of them as abusive
• be content with moderating those that he cannot annihilate without great violence.

According to Cicero, the ‘divine maxim of Plato’ is to never use violence to his country no more than to his parents.

When the public-spirited man cannot conquer the people’s rooted prejudices by reason and persuasion, he will=

• religiously observe that maxim
• not attempt to subdue their prejudices by force
• accommodate his public arrangements to the people’s confirmed habits and prejudices
• remedy the inconveniencies which may flow from the lack of those regulations which the people are averse to submit to.

When he cannot establish the right, he will not disdain to ameliorate the wrong. But like Solon, when he cannot establish the best system of laws, he will try to establish the best that the people can bear.

⁴² On the contrary, the man of system tensd to be very wise in his own conceit. He is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot deviate from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely without any regard to:

• the great interests or
• the strong prejudices opposing it.

He imagines that he can arrange the members of a society as easily as the hand arranges the pieces on a chess-board. He thinks that those pieces move because they are moved by the hand. But in reality, every piece in the great chessboard of human society has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from what the legislature might choose to give it.

If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously. It will likely be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably. The society will then be in the highest degree of disorder.

⁴³ Some general, and even systematical, idea of the perfection of policy and law, might be needed to direct the statesman’s views. But it is most arrogant to insist on establishing all at once, and in spite of all opposition, this idea from the man of system. It is to erect his own judgment into the supreme standard of right and wrong.

It is to fancy:

• that he himself the only wise and worthy man in the commonwealth, and
• that his fellow-citizens should accommodate themselves to him and not he to them.

It is on this account, that of all political speculators, sovereign princes are by far the most dangerous. This arrogance is perfectly familiar to them.

They entertain of the immense superiority of their own judgment. When such imperial and royal reformers condescend to contemplate their country’s constitution, they often see the obstructions which might oppose the execution of their own will, as something wrong. They condemn Plato’s divine maxim. They consider the state as made for themselves, not themselves for the state.

The great object of their reformation is:

• to remove those obstructions, and
• to reduce the nobility’s authority.
• to take away the privileges of cities and provinces, and
• to render the greatest individuals and orders of the state incapable of opposing them.