fhores of the Cafpian and the Euxine, there is scarcely a people in the vaft continent of Afia, who deferves the name of a nation. The unbounded plain is traversed at large by hordes, who are in perpetual motion, or who are difplaced and haraffed by their mutual hoftilities. Although they are never perhaps actually blended together in the course of hunting, or in the search of pasture, they cannot bear one great diftinction of nations, which is taken from the territory, and which is deeply impreffed by an affection to the native feat. They move in troops, without the arrangement or the concert of nations; they become eafy acceffions to every new empire among themfelves, or to the Chinese and the Mufcovite, with whom they hold a traffic for the means of fubfiftence, and the materials of pleasure.

WHERE a happy system of nations is formed, they do not rely for the continuance of their feparate names, and for that of their political independence, on the barriers erected by nature. Mutual jealoufies lead to the maintenance of a balance of power; and this principle, more than the Rhine and the Ocean, than the Alps and the Pyrenees in modern Europe; more than the traits of Thermopyla, the mountains of Thrace, or the bays of Salamine and Corinth in ancient Greece; tended to prolong the feparation, to which the inhabitants of these happy climates have owed their felicity as nations, the luftre of their fame, and their civil accomplishments.

IF

If we mean to pursue the hiftory of civil fociety, our attention must be chiefly directed to fuch examples, and we must here bid farewel to thofe regions of the earth, on which our species, by the effects of fituation or climate, appear to be restrained in their national pursuits, or inferior in the powers of the mind.

W

SECT. II.

The Hiftory of Subordination.

E have hitherto obferved mankind, either united

together on terms of equality, or difpofed to admit of a fubordination founded merely on the voluntary respect and attachment which they paid to their leaders; but, in both cafes, without any concerted plan of government, or fyftem of laws.

THE favage, whofe fortune is comprised in his cabin, his fur, and his arms, is fatisfied with that provision, and with that degree of fecurity, he himself can procure. He perceives, in treating with his equal, no fubject of difcuffion that fhould be referred to the decision of a judge; nor does he find in any hand the badges of magistracy, or the ensigns of a perpetual command.

THE barbarian, though induced by his admiration of perfonal qualities, the luftre of a heroic race, or a fupe

riority of fortune, to follow the banners of a leader, and to act a fubordinate part in his tribe, knows not, that what he performs from choice, is to be made a fubject of obligation. He acts from affections unacquainted with forms; and when provoked, or when engaged in disputes, he recurs to the fword, as the ultimate means of decifion, in all questions of right.

HUMAN affairs, in the mean time, continue their progrefs. What was in one generation a propensity to herd with the fpecies, becomes, in the ages which follow, a principle of national union. What was originally an alliance for common defence, becomes a concerted plan of political force; the care of subsistence becomes an anxiety for accumulating wealth, and the foundation of commercial arts.

MANKIND, in following the prefent fenfe of their minds, in ftriving to remove inconveniencies, or to gain apparent and contiguous advantages, arrive at ends which even their imagination could not anticipate, and pafs on, like other animals, in the track of their nature, without perceiving its end. He who first faid, "I will appro

priate this field; I will leave it to my heirs ;" did not perceive, that he was laying the foundation of civil laws and political establishments. He who first ranged himfelf under a leader, did not perceive, that he was fetting the example of a permanent fubordination, under the pretence of which, the rapacious were to feize his poffeffions, and the arrogant to lay claim to his fervice.

MEN, in general, are fufficiently difpofed to occupy themselves in forming projects and fchemes: but he who would scheme and project for others, will find an opponent in every person who is difpofed to fcheme for himself. Like the winds, that come we know not whence, and blow whitherfoever they lift, the forms of fociety are derived from an obfcure and diftant origin; they arife, long before the date of philofophy, from the instincts, not from the fpeculations, of men. The croud of mankind, are directed in their establishments and measures, by the circumstances in which they are placed; and feldom are turned from their way, to follow the plan of any fingle projector.

EVERY ftep and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations ftumble upon establishments, which are indeed the refult of human action, but not the execution of any human design *. If Cromwell faid, That a man never mounts higher, than when he knows not whither he is going; it may with more reason be affirmed of communities, that they admit of the greatest revolutions where no change is intended, and that the most refined politicians do not always know whither they are leading the ftate by their projects.

If we liften to the teftimony of modern hiftory, and to that of the most authentic parts of the ancient; if we attend to the practice of nations in every quarter of the world, and in every condition, whether that of the bar

De Retz Memoirs.

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barian

barian or the polifhed, we fhall find very little reason to retract this affertion. No conftitution is formed by concert, no government is copied from a plan. The members of a small state contend for equality; the members of a greater, find themselves claffed in a certain manner that lays a foundation for monarchy. They proceed from one form of government to another, by eafy transitions, and frequently under old names adopt a new conftitution. The feeds of every form are lodged in human nature; they spring up and ripen with the season. The prevalence of a particular species is often derived from an imperceptible ingredient mingled in the foil.

We are therefore to receive, with caution, the traditionary histories of ancient legislators, and founders of states. Their names have long been celebrated; their supposed plans have been admired; and what were probably the confequences of an early fituation, is, in every instance, confidered as an effect of defign. An author and a work, like cause and effect, are perpetually coupled together. This is the fimplest form under which we can confider the establishment of nations: and we ascribe to a previous defign, what came to be known only by experience, what no human wisdom could foresee, and what, without the concurring humour and difpofition of his age, no authority could enable an individual to execute.

If men, during ages of extensive reflection, and employed in the search of improvement, are wedded to their institutions; and, labouring under many acknowledged incon

veniencies,