the individual is every thing, and the public nothing. The state is merely a combination of departments, in which confideration, wealth, eminence, or power, are offered as the reward of fervice. It was the nature of modern government, even in its firft inftitution, to beftow on every individual a fixed ftation and dignity, which he was to maintain for himself. Our ancestors, in rude ages, during the recefs of wars from abroad, fought for their perfonal claims at home, and by their competitions, and the balance of their powers, maintained a kind of political freedom in the ftate, while private parties were fubject to continual wrongs and oppreffions, Their pofterity, in times more polifhed, have repreffed the civil diforders in which the activity of earlier ages chiefly confifted; but they employ the calm they have gained, not in fostering a zeal for thofe laws, and that conftitution of government to which they owe their protection, but in practising apart, and each for himself, the feveral arts of perfonal advancement, or profit, which their political establishments may enable them to pursue with fuccefs. Commerce, which may be fuppofed to comprehend every lucrative art, is accordingly confidered as the great object of nations, and the principal study of mankind.

So much are we accustomed to confider perfonal fortune as the fole object of care, that even under popular establishments, and in ftates where different orders of men are fummoned to partake in the government of their country, and where the

liberties they enjoy cannot be long preferved, without vigilance and activity on the part of the fubject; ftill they, who, in the vulgar phrafe, have not their fortunes to make, are supposed to be at a lofs for occupation, and betake themselves to folitary pastimes, or cultivate what they are pleased to call a taste for gardening, building, drawing, or mufick. With this aid, they endeavour to fill up the blanks of a liftlefs life, and avoid the neceffity of curing their languors by any positive service to their country, or to mankind.

THE weak or the malicious are well employed in any thing that is innocent, and are fortunate in finding any occupation which prevents the effects of a temper that would prey upon themselves, or upon their fellow-creatures. But they who are bleffed with a happy difpofition, with capacity and vigour, incur a real debauchery, by having any amufement that occupies an improper fhare of their time; and are really cheated of their happiness, in being made to believe, that any occupation or paftime is better fitted to amuse themselves, than that which at the fame time produces fome real good to their fellow - creatures.

THIS fort of entertainment indeed, cannot be the choice of the mercenary, the envious, or the malicious. Its value is known only to perfons of an oppofite temper; and to their experience alone we appeal. Guided by mere difpofition, and without the aid of reflection, in business, in friendship, and in public life, they often acquit themfelves well s

and borne with fatisfaction on the tide of their emotions and fentiments, enjoy the prefent hour, without recollection of the past, or hopes of the future. It is in fpeculation, not in practice, they are made to discover, that virtue is a task of severity and felf-denial.

SECT. X.

Of National Felicity.

MAN is, by nature, the member of a community; and when confidered in this capacity, the individual appears to be no longer made for himself. He muft forego his happiness and his freedom, where thefe interfere with the good of fociety. He is only part of a whole; and the praise we think due to his virtue, is but a branch of that more general commendation we bestow on the member of a body, on the part of a fabric or engine, for being well fitted to occupy its place, and to produce its effect.

IF this follow from the relation of a part to its whole, and if the public good be the principal object with individuals, it is likewife true, that the happiness of individuals is the great end of civil fociety for, in what fense can a public enjoy any good, if its members, confidered apart, be unhappy?

THE interefts of fociety, however, and of its

members, are eafily reconciled. If the individual owe every degree of confideration to the public, he receives, in paying that very confideration, the greatest happinefs of which his nature is capable; and the greatest bleffing the public can bestow on its members, is to keep them attached to itself, That is the most happy ftate, which is moft beloved by its fubjects; and they are the most happy men, whose hearts are engaged to a community, in which they find every object of generofity and zeal, and a scope to the exercise of every talent, and of every virtuous difpofition.

AFTER we have thus found general maxims, the greater part of our trouble remains, their just application to particular cafes. Nations are different in refpect to their extent, numbers of people, and wealth; in refpect to the arts they practife, and the accommodation they have procured. These circumstances may not only affect the manners of men; they even, in our esteem, come into competition with the article of manners itfelf; are fuppofed to constitute a national felicity; independent of. virtue; and give a title, upon which we indulge our own vanity, and that of other nations, as we do that of private, men, on the score of their fortunes and honours.

BUT if this way of measuring happiness, when applied to private men, be ruinous and falfe, it is fo no less when applied to nations. Wealth, commerce, extent of territory, and the knowledge of arts, are, when properly employed, the means of prefervation, and the foundations of power. If they

fail in part, the nation is weakened; if they were entirely with-held, the race would perifh: their tendency is to maintain numbers of men, but not to constitute happiness. They will accordingly maintain the wretched, as well as the happy. They anfwer one purpose, but are not therefore fufficient for all; and are of little fignificance, when only employed to maintain a timid, dejected, and fervile people.

GREAT and powerful ftates are able to overcome and fubdue the weak; polifhed and commercial nations have more wealth, and practise a greater variety of arts, than the rude: but the happiness of men, in all cafes alike, confifts in the bleffings of a candid, an active, and strenuous mind. And if we confider the state of fociety merely as that into which mankind are led by their propenfities, as a state to be valued from its effect in preferving the fpecies, in ripening their talents, and exciting their virtues, we need not enlarge our communities, in order to enjoy thefe advantages. We frequently obtain them in the most remarkable degree, where nations remain independent, and are of a small extent.

To increase the numbers of mankind, may be admitted, as a great and important object: but to extend the limits of any particular state, is not, perhaps, the way to obtain it; while we defire that our fellow-creatures fhould multiply, it does not follow, that the whole fhould, if poffibie, be united under one head. We are apt to admire the empire of the Romans, as a