The Ruins; Or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires and the Law of Nature. C.-F. Volney

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СКАЧАТЬ principle are derived all the political disorders and public national crimes that at present exist.

      Because the head of a family could be absolute in his house, he made his own affections and desires the rule of his conduct; he gave or resumed his goods without equality, without justice; and paternal despotism laid the foundation of despotism in government.*

      * Upon this single expression it would be easy to write a

       long and important chapter. We might prove in it, beyond

       contradiction, that all the abuses of national governments,

       have sprung from those of domestic government, from that

       government called patriarchal, which superficial minds have

       extolled without having analyzed it. Numberless facts

       demonstrate, that with every infant people, in every savage

       and barbarous state, the father, the chief of the family, is

       a despot, and a cruel and insolent despot. The wife is his

       slave, the children his servants. This king sleeps or

       smokes his pipe, while his wife and daughters perform all

       the drudgery of the house, and even that of tillage and

       cultivation, as far as occupations of this nature are

       practised in such societies; and no sooner have the boys

       acquired strength then they are allowed to beat the females

       and make them serve and wait upon them as they do upon their

       fathers. Similar to this is the state of our own

       uncivilized peasants. In proportion as civilization

       spreads, the manners become milder, and the condition of the

       women improves, till, by a contrary excess, they arrive at

       dominion, and then a nation becomes effeminate and corrupt.

       It is remarkable that parental authority is great in

       proportion as the government is despotic. China, India, and

       Turkey are striking examples of this. One would suppose that

       tyrants gave themselves accomplices and interested subaltern

       despots to maintain their authority. In opposition to this

       the Romans will be cited, but it remains to be proved that

       the Romans were men truly free and their quick passage from

       their republican despotism to their abject servility under

       the emperors, gives room at least for considerable doubt as

       to that freedom.

      In societies formed on such foundations, when time and labor had developed riches, cupidity restrained by the laws, became more artful, but not less active. Under the mask of union and civil peace, it fomented in the bosom of every state an intestine war, in which the citizens, divided into contending corps of orders, classes, families, unremittingly struggled to appropriate to themselves, under the name of supreme power, the ability to plunder every thing, and render every thing subservient to the dictates of their passions; and this spirit of encroachment, disguised under all possible forms, but always the same in its object and motives, has never ceased to torment the nations.

      Sometimes, opposing itself to all social compact, or breaking that which already existed, it committed the inhabitants of a country to the tumultuous shock of all their discords; and states thus dissolved, and reduced to the condition of anarchy, were tormented by the passions of all their members.

      Sometimes a nation, jealous of its liberty, having appointed agents to administer its government, these agents appropriated the powers of which they had only the guardianship: they employed the public treasures in corrupting elections, gaining partisans, in dividing the people among themselves. By these means, from being temporary they became perpetual; from elective, hereditary; and the state, agitated by the intrigues of the ambitious, by largesses from the rich and factious, by the venality of the poor and idle, by the influence of orators, by the boldness of the wicked, and the weakness of the virtuous, was convulsed with all the inconveniences of democracy.

      The chiefs of some countries, equal in strength and mutually fearing each other, formed impious pacts, nefarious associations; and, apportioning among themselves all power, rank, and honor, unjustly arrogated privileges and immunities; erected themselves into separate orders and distinct classes; reduced the people to their control; and, under the name of aristocracy, the state was tormented by the passions of the wealthy and the great.

      Sacred impostors, in other countries, tending by other means to the same object, abused the credulity of the ignorant. In the gloom of their temples, behind the curtain of the altar, they made their gods act and speak; gave forth oracles, worked miracles, ordered sacrifices, levied offerings, prescribed endowments; and, under the names of theocracy and of religion, the state became tormented by the passions of the priests.

      Sometimes a nation, weary of its dissensions or of its tyrants, to lessen the sources of evil, submitted to a single master; but if it limited his powers, his sole aim was to enlarge them; if it left them indefinite, he abused the trust confided to him; and, under the name of monarchy, the state was tormented by the passions of kings and princes.

      Then the factions, availing themselves of the general discontent, flattered the people with the hope of a better master; dealt out gifts and promises, deposed the despot to take his place; and their contests for the succession, or its partition, tormented the state with the disorders and devastations of civil war.

      In fine, among these rivals, one more adroit, or more fortunate, gained the ascendency, and concentrated all power within himself. By a strange phenomenon, a single individual mastered millions of his equals, against their will and without their consent; and the art of tyranny sprung also from cupidity.

      In fact, observing the spirit of egotism which incessantly divides mankind, the ambitious man fomented it with dexterity, flattered the vanity of one, excited the jealousy of another, favored the avarice of this, inflamed the resentment of that, and irritated the passions of all; then, placing in opposition their interests and prejudices, he sowed divisions and hatreds, promised to the poor the spoils of the rich, to the rich the subjection of the poor; threatened one man by another, this class by that; and insulating all by distrust, created his strength out of their weakness, and imposed the yoke of opinion, which they mutually riveted on each other. With the army he levied contributions, and with contributions he disposed of the army: dealing out wealth and office on these principles, he enchained a whole people in indissoluble bonds, and they languished under the slow consumption of despotism.

      Thus the same principle, varying its action under every possible form, was forever attenuating the consistence of states, and an eternal circle of vicissitudes flowed from an eternal circle of passions.

      And this spirit of egotism and usurpation produced two effects equally operative and fatal: the one a division and subdivision of societies into their smallest fractions, inducing a debility which facilitated their dissolution; the other, a preserving tendency to concentrate power in a single hand,* which, СКАЧАТЬ