made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the intereft of the fociety, and afford means to the multiplication of the fpecies. When providence divided the earth among a few lordly masters, it neither forgot nor abandoned those who seemed to have been left out in the partition. These last too enjoy their share of all that it produces. In what conftitutes the real happiness of human life, they are in no respect inferior to those who would feem fo much above them. In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who funs himself by the fide of the highway, poffeffes that fecurity which kings are fighting

for.

4

The fame principle, the fame love of fyftem, the fame regard to the beauty of order, of art and contrivance, frequently serves to recommend those institutions, which tend to promote the public welfare. When a patriot exerts himself for the improvement of any part of the public police, his conduct does not always arife from pure fympathy with the happiness of those, who are to reap the benefit of it. It is not commonly from a fellowfeeling with carriers and waggoners that a public-fpirited man encourages the mending of high roads. When the legiflature establishes præmiums and other encouragements to advance the linen or woollen manufac

tures,

tures, its conduct feldom proceeds from pure fympathy with the wearer of cheap or fine cloth, and much less from that with the manufacturer, or merchant. The perfection of police, the extenfion of trade and manufactures, are noble and magnificent objects. The contemplation of them pleases us, and we are interested in whatever can tend to advance them. They make part of the great fyftem of government, and the wheels of the political machine seem to move with more harmony and ease by means of them. We take pleasure in beholding the perfection of fo beautiful and grand a fyftem, and we are uneafy till we remove any obftruction that can in the leaft disturb or incumber the regularity of its motions. All conftitutions of government; however, are valued only in proportion, as they tend to promote the happiness of those who live under them. This is their fole use and end. From a certain fpirit of fyftem, however, from a certain love of art and contrivance, we fometimes feem to value the means more than the end, and to be eager to promote the happiness of our fellow-creatures, rather from a view to perfect and improve a certain beautiful and orderly system, than from any immediate fenfe or feeling of what they either fuffer or enjoy. There have been men of the greatest public fpirit, who have shown themselves in other refpects not very fenfible to the feelings of humanity. And on the contrary, there have been men of the greatest humanity, who seem to have been

T 2

Part IV. been entirely devoid of public fpirit. Every man may find in the circle of his acquaintance inftances both of the one kind and the other. Who had ever lefs humanity, or more public fpirit, than the celebrated legislator of Muscovy? The focial and well natured James the firft of Great-Britain feems, on the contrary, to have had scarce any paffion, either for the glory, or the intereft of his country. Would you awaken the induftry of the man, who feems almoft dead to ambition, it will often be to no purpose to describe to him the happinefs of the rich and the great; to tell him that they are generally sheltered from the fun and the rain, that they are feldom hungry, that they are seldom cold, and that they are rarely exposed to weariness, or to want of any kind. The most eloquent exhortation of this kind will have little effect upon him. If you would hope to fucceed, you must describe to him the conveniency and arrangement of the different apartments in their palaces; you muft explain to him the propriety of their equipages, and point out to him the number, the order, and the different offices of all their attendants. If any thing is capable of making impreffion upon him, this will. Yet all these things tend only to keep off the fun and the rain, to fave them from hunger and cold, from want and wearinefs. In the fame man

ner, if you would implant public virtue in

the breaft of him, who feems heedlefs of the intereft of his country, it will often be to no purpose to tell him, what fuperior advan

tages

tages the fubjects of a well-governed state enjoy; that they are better lodged, that they are better cloathed, that they are better fed. These confiderations will commonly make no great impreffion. You will be more likely to perfuade, if you describe the great system of public police which procures these advantages, if you explain the connections and dependencies of its feveral parts, their mutual fubordination to one another, and their general subserviency to the happiness of the society; if you show how this fyftem might be introduced into his own country, what it is that hinders it from taking place there at prefent, how thofe obftructions might be removed, and all the feveral wheels of the.machine of government be made to move with more harmony and smoothness, without grating upon one another, or mutually retarding one another's motions. It is fcarce poffible that a man should listen to a difcourfe of this kind, and not feel himself animated to fome degree of public fpirit. He will, at least for the moment, feel fome defire to remove those obftructions, and to put into motion fo beautiful and fo orderly a machine. Nothing tends so much to promote public spirit as the study of politics, of the feveral fystems of civil government, their advantages and disadvantages, of the conftitution of our own country, its fituation, and intereft with regard to foreign nations, its commerce, its defence, the disadvantages it labours under, the dangers to which it may be expofed, how to remove T 3

the

Part IV. the one, and how to guard against the other. Upon this account political difquifitions, if juft, and reasonable, and practicable, are of all the works of fpeculation the most useful. Even the weakest and the worst of them are not altogether without their utility. They serve at least to animate the public paffions of men, and rouze them to feek out the means of moting the happiness of the fociety.

CHA P. II.

pro

Of the beauty which the appearance of utility beflows upon the characters and actions of men; and how far the perception of this beauty may be regarded as one of the original principles of approbation.

T

HE characters of men, as well as the contrivances of art, or the inftitutions of civil government, may be fitted either to promote or to disturb the happiness both of the individual and of the fociety. The prudent, the equitable, the active, refolute and fober character promises profperity and fatisfaction, both to the person himself and to every one connected with him. The rafh, the infolent, the flothful, effeminate and voluptuous, on the contrary, forbodes ruin to the individual, and misfortune to all who have any thing to do with him. The firft turn of mind has at least all the beauty which can belong to the most perfect machine that was ever invented

for