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

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СКАЧАТЬ engulfing successively societies and states, was fatal to their peace and social existence.

      * It is remarkable that this has in all instances been the

       constant progress of societies; beginning with a state of

       anarchy or democracy, that is, with a great division of

       power they have passed to aristocracy, and from aristocracy

       to monarchy. Does it not hence follow that those who

       constitute states under the democratic form, destine them to

       undergo all the intervening troubles between that and

       monarchy; but it should at the same time be proved that

       social experience is already exhausted for the human race,

       and that this spontaneous movement is not solely the effect

       of ignorance.

      Thus, as in a state, a party absorbed the nation, a family the party, and an individual the family; so a movement of absorption took place between state and state, and exhibited on a larger scale in the political order, all the particular evils of the civil order. Thus a state having subdued a state, held it in subjection in the form of a province; and two provinces being joined together formed a kingdom; two kingdoms being united by conquest, gave birth to empires of gigantic size; and in this conglomeration, the internal strength of states, instead of increasing, diminished; and the condition of the people, instead of ameliorating, became daily more abject and wretched, for causes derived from the nature of things.

      Because, in proportion as states increased in extent, their administration becoming more difficult and complicated, greater energies of power were necessary to move such masses; and there was no longer any proportion between the duties of sovereigns and their ability to perform their duties:

      Because despots, feeling their weakness, feared whatever might develop the strength of nations, and studied only how to enfeeble them:

      Because nations, divided by the prejudices of ignorance and hatred, seconded the wickedness of their governments; and availing themselves reciprocally of subordinate agents, aggravated their mutual slavery:

      Because, the balance between states being destroyed, the strong more easily oppressed the weak.

      Finally, because in proportion as states were concentrated, the people, despoiled of their laws, of their usages, and of the government of their choice, lost that spirit of personal identification with their government, which had caused their energy.

      And despots, considering empires as their private domains and the people as their property, gave themselves up to depredations, and to all the licentiousness of the most arbitrary authority.

      And all the strength and wealth of nations were diverted to private expense and personal caprice; and kings, fatigued with gratification, abandoned themselves to all the extravagancies of factitious and depraved taste.* They must have gardens mounted on arcades, rivers raised over mountains, fertile fields converted into haunts for wild beasts; lakes scooped in dry lands, rocks erected in lakes, palaces built of marble and porphyry, furniture of gold and diamonds. Under the cloak of religion, their pride founded temples, endowed indolent priests, built, for vain skeletons, extravagant tombs, mausoleums and pyramids;** millions of hands were employed in sterile labors; and the luxury of princes, imitated by their parasites, and transmitted from grade to grade to the lowest ranks, became a general source of corruption and impoverishment.

      * It is equally worthy of remark, that the conduct and

       manners of princes and kings of every country and every age,

       are found to be precisely the same at similar periods,

       whether of the formation or dissolution of empires. History

       every where presents the same pictures of luxury and folly;

       of parks, gardens, lakes, rocks, palaces, furniture, excess

       of the table, wine, women, concluding with brutality.

       The absurd rock in the garden of Versailles has alone cost

       three millions. I have sometimes calculated what might have

       been done with the expense of the three pyramids of Gizah,

       and I have found that it would easily have constructed from

       the Red Sea to Alexandria, a canal one hundred and fifty

       feet wide and thirty deep, completely covered in with cut

       stones and a parapet, together with a fortified and

       commercial town, consisting of four hundred houses,

       furnished with cisterns. What a difference in point of

       utility between such a canal and these pyramids!

       ** The learned Dupuis could not be persuaded that the

       pyramids were tombs; but besides the positive testimony of

       historians, read what Diodorus says of the religious and

       superstitious importance every Egyptian attached to building

       his dwelling eternal, b. 1.

       During twenty years, says Herodotus, a hundred thousand men

       labored every day to build the pyramid of the Egyptian

       Cheops. Supposing only three hundred days a year, on

       account of the sabbath, there will be 30 millions of days'

       work in a year, and 600 millions in twenty years; at 15 sous

       a day, this makes 450 millions of francs lost, without any

       further benefit. With this sum, if the king had shut the

       isthmus of Suez by a strong wall, like that of China, the

       destinies of Egypt might have been entirely changed.

       Foreign invasions would have been prevented, and the Arabs

       of the desert would neither have conquered nor harassed that

       country. Sterile labors! how many millions lost in putting

       one stone upon another, under the forms of temples and

       churches! Alchymists convert stones into gold; but

       architects change gold into stone. Woe to the kings (as

       well as subjects) who trust their purse to these two classes

       of empirics!

      And in the insatiable thirst of enjoyment, the ordinary revenues no longer sufficing, they were augmented; the cultivator, seeing his labors increase without compensation, lost all courage; the merchant, despoiled, was disgusted with industry; the multitude, condemned to perpetual poverty, restrained their labor to simple necessaries; and all productive industry vanished.

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