WE look for elevation of fentiment, and libera lity of mind, among those orders of citizens, who, by their condition, and their fortunes, are relieved from fordid cares and attentions. This was the defcription of a free man at Sparta; and if the lot of a flave among the ancients was really more wretched than that of the indigent labourer and the mechanic among the moderns, it may be doubted whether the fuperior orders, who are in poffeffion of confideration and honours, do not proportionally fail in the dignity which befits their condition. If the pretenfions to equal juftice and freedom fhould terminate in rendering every class equally fervile and mercenary, we make a nation of helots, and have no free citizens.

IN every commercial ftate, notwithstanding any pretenfion to equal rights, the exaltation of a few muft deprefs the many. In this arrangement, wé think that the extreme meanness of some claffes must arife chiefly from the defect of knowledge, and of liberal education; and we refer to fuch claffes, as to an image of what our fpecies must have been in its rude and uncultivated state. But we forget how many circumftances, especially in populous cities, tend to corrupt the loweft orders of men. Ignorance is the least of their failings. An admiration of wealth unpoffeffed, becoming a principle of envy, or of fervility: a habit of acting perpetually with a view to profit, and under a fenfe of fubjection; the crimes to which they are allured, in

order

order to feed their debauch, or to gratify their avarice, are examples, not of ignorance, but of corruption and baseness. If the favage has not received our inftructions, he is likewife unacquainted with our vices. He knows no fuperior, and cannot be fervile; he knows no diftinctions of fortune, and cannot be envious; he acts from his talents in the highest station which human fociety can offer, that of the counsellor, and the foldier of his country. Toward forming his fentiments, he knows all that the heart requires to be known; he can distinguish the friend whom he loves, and the public intereft which awakens his zeal.

THE principal objections to democratical or po-pular government, are taken from the inequalities which arife among men in the refult of commercial arts. And it must be confeffed, that popular affemblies, when composed of men whofe difpofitions are fordid, and whose ordinary applications are illiberal, however they may be intrusted with the choice of their masters and leaders, are

certainly, in their
How can
How can he who
fubfiftence or pre-,

own perfons, unfit to command. has confined his views to his own fervation, be intrufted with the conduct of nations? Such men, when admitted to deliberate on matters of ftate, bring to its councils confufion and tumult, or fervility and corruption; and feldom fuffer it to repose from ruinous factions, or the effect of refo lutions ill formed or ill conducted,

THE

THE Athenians retained their popular govern

ment under all these defects. The mechanic was obliged, under a penalty, to appear in the public market-place, and to hear debates on the fubjects of war, and of peace. He was tempted by pecuniary rewards, to attend on the trial of civil and criminal causes. But notwithstanding an exercise tending fo much to cultivate their talents, the indigent came always with minds intent upon profit, or with the habits of an illiberal calling. Sunk under the fenfe of their personal disparity and weakness, they were ready to refign themselves entirely to the influence of fome popular leader, who flattered their paffions, and wrought on their fears; or, actuated by envy, they were ready to banish from the state whomfoever was refpectable and eminent in the fuperior order of citizens; and whether from their neglect of the public at one time, or their male-administration at another, the fovereignty was every moment ready to drop from their hands.

THE people, in this cafe, are, in fact, frequently governed by one, or a few, who know how to conduct them. Pericles poffeffed a species of princely authority at Athens; Craffus, Pompey and Cæfar, either jointly or fucceffively, poffeffed for a confiderable period the fovereign direction at Rome.

WHETHER in great or in fmall ftates, democracy is preferved with difficulty, under the difparities of condition, and the unequal cultivation of Sf

the

the mind, which attend the variety of purfuits, and applications, that feparate mankind in the advanced ftate of commercial arts. In this, however, we do but plead against the form of democracy, after the principle is removed; and fee the abfurdity of pretenfions to equal influence and confideration, after the characters of men have ceased to be fimi lar.

ANKIND, when in their rude ftate, have a great uniformity of manners; but when civilized, they are engaged in a variety of pursuits; they tread on a larger field, and feparate to a greater distance. If they be guided, however, by fimilar difpofitions, and by like fuggestions of nature, they will probably, in the end, as well as in the beginning of their progrefs, continue to agree in many particulars; and while communities admit, in their members, that diverfity of ranks and profeffions which we have already defcribed, as the confequence or the foundation of commerce, they will resemble each other in many effects of this distribution, and of other circumftances in which they nearly concur.

UNDER every form of government, statesmen endeavour to remove the dangers by which they are threatned from abroad, and the disturbances which moleft them at home. By this conduct, if fuccefsful, they in a few ages gain an afcendant for their country; establish a frontier at a distance from its capital; they find, in the mutual defires of tranquillity, which come to poffefs mankind, and in those public establishments which tend to keep the

peace