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in the same point of time, Vienna and Madrid would have given the law to the western world.

As the Austrian scale sunk, that of Bourbon rose. The true date of the rise of that power, which has made the kings of France so considerable in Europe, goes up as high as Charles VII. and Lewis XI. The weakness of our Henry VI., the loose conduct of Edward IV., and perhaps the oversights of Henry VII., helped very much to knit that monarchy together, as well as to enlarge it. Advantage might have been taken of the divisions which religion occasioned; and supporting the protestant party in France would have kept that crown under restraints, and under inabilities, in some measure equal to those which were occasioned anciently by the vast alienations of its demesnes, and by the exorbitant power of its vassals. But James I. was incapable of thinking with sense or acting with spirit. Charles I. had an imperfect glimpse of his true interest, but his uxorious temper, and the extravagancy of that madman Buckingham, gave Richelieu time to finish a great part of his project; and the miseries that followed in England gave Cardinal Mazarin time and opportunity to complete the system. The last great act of this cardinal's administration was the Pyrenean treaty.

Here I would begin, by representing the face of Europe such as it was at that epocha, the interests and the conduct of England, France, Spain, Holland, and the empire. A summary recapitulation should follow of all the steps taken by France, during more than twenty years, to arrive at the great object she had proposed to herself in making this treaty; the most solemn article of which, the minister who negotiated it designed should be violated; as appears by his letters, written from the Island of Pheasants, if I mistake not. After this, another draught of Europe should have its place, according to the relations which the several powers stood in one towards another, in 1688, and the alterations which the revolution in England made in the politics of Europe. A summary account should follow of the events of the war that ended in 1697, with the different views of King William III., and Lewis XIV., in making the peace of Ryswick; which matter has been much canvassed, and is little understood. Then the dispositions made by the partition-treaties, and the influences and consequences of these treaties; and a third draught of the state of Europe at the death of Charles II. of Spain. All this would make the subject of one or two books, and would be the most proper introduction imaginable to a history of that war with which our century began, and of the peace which followed.

This war, foreseen for above half a century, had been, during all that time, the great and constant object of the councils of Europe. The prize to be contended for was the richest that ever had been staked, since those of the Persian and Roman empires. The union of

(40 CRITICISM ON VALUE OF ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY.

two powers, which separately, and in opposition, had aimed at universal monarchy, was apprehended. The confederates therefore engaged in it, to maintain a balance between the two houses of Austria and Bourbon, in order to preserve their security, and to assert their independence. But with the success of the war they changed their views; and, if ambition began it on the side of France, ambition continued it on the other. The battles, the sieges, the surprising revolutions, which happened in the course of this war, are not to be paralleled in any period of the same compass. The motives and the measures by which it was protracted, the true reasons why it ended in a war, which appeared not proportionable to its success; and the new political state into which Europe was thrown by the treaties of Utrecht and Baden, are subjects on which few persons have the necessary informations, and yet every one speaks with assurance, and even with passion. I think I could speak on them with some knowledge, and with as much indifference as Polybius does of the negotiations of his father Lycortas, even in those points where I was myself an actor.

I will even confess to you, that I should not despair of performing this part better than the former. There is nothing, in my opinion, so hard to execute, as those political maps, if you will allow me such an expression, and those systems of hints, rather than relations of events, which are necessary to connect and explain them; and which must be so concise, and yet so full; so complicate, and yet so clear. I know nothing of this sort well done by the ancients. Salust's introduction, as well as that of Thucydides, might serve almost for any other piece of the Roman or Greek story, as well as for those which these two great authors chose. Polybius does not come up, in his introduction, to this idea neither. Among the moderns, the first book of Machiavel's 'History of Florence' is a noble original of this kind: and perhaps father Paul's 'History of Benefices' is, in the same kind of composition, inimitable.

These are a few of those thoughts which come into my mind when I consider how incumbent it is on every man, that he should be able to give an account even of his leisure; and, in the midst of solitude, be of some use to society.

I know not whether I shall have courage enough to undertake the task I have chalked out. I distrust my abilities with reason, and I shall want several informations, not easy, I doubt, for me to obtain. But, in all events, it will not be possible for me to go about it in this year; the reasons of which would be long enough to fill another letter, and I doubt that you will think this grown too bulky already. Adieu.

141

LETTER II.

BOLINGBROKE ON THE TRUE USE

OF RETIREMENT AND STUDY.

To the Right Honourable LORD Bathurst.

SINCE my last to your lordship, this is the first favourable opportunity I have had of keeping the promise I made you. I will avoid prolixity, as much as I can, in a first draught of my thoughts, but I must give you them as they rise in my mind, without staying to marshal them in close order.

As proud as we are of human reason, nothing can be more absurd than the general system of human life and human knowledge. This faculty of distinguishing true from false, right from wrong, and what is agreeable, from what is repugnant to nature, either by one act, or by a longer process of intuition, has not been given with so sparing a hand, as many appearances would make us apt to believe. If it was cultivated, therefore, as early, and as carefully as it might be, and if the exercise of it was left generally as free as it ought to be, our common notions and opinions would be more consonant to truth than they are; and truth being but one, they would be more uniform likewise.

But this rightful mistress of human life and knowledge, whose proper office it is to preside over both, and to direct us in the conduct of one and the pursuit of the other, becomes degraded in the intellectual economy. She is reduced to a mean and servile state, to the vile drudgery of conniving at principles, defending opinions, and confirming habits that are none of hers. They who do her most honour, who consult her oftenest, and obey her too very often, are still guilty of limiting her authority according to maxims, and rules, and schemes, that chance, or ignorance, or interest, first devised, and that custom sanctifies custom, that result of the passions and prejudices of many, and of the designs of a few: that ape of reason, who usurps her seat, exercises her power, and is obeyed by mankind in her stead. Men find it easy, and government makes it profitable, to concur in established systems of speculation and practice; and the whole turn of education prepares them to live upon credit all their lives. Much pains are taken, and time bestowed, to teach us what to think, but little or none of either, to instruct us how to think. The magazine of the memory is stored and stuffed betimes; but the conduct of the

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MONTAIGNE I OFTEN QUOTE, AS I DO SENECA.

understanding is all along neglected, and the free exercise of it is, in effect, forbid in all places, and in terms in some.

There is a strange distrust of human reason in every human institution this distrust is so apparent, that an habitual submission to some authority or other is forming in us from our cradles; that principles of reasoning and matters of fact are inculcated in our tender minds, before we are able to exercise that reason; and that, when we are able to exercise it, we are either forbid, or frightened from doing so, even on things that are themselves the proper objects of reason, or that are delivered to us upon an authority whose sufficiency or insufficiency is so most evidently.

On many subjects, such as the general laws of natural religion, and the general rules of society and good policy, men of all countries and languages, who cultivate their reason, judge alike. The same premises have led them to the same conclusions, and so, following the same guide, they have trod in the same path; at least, the differences are small, easily reconciled, and such as could not, of themselves, contradistinguish nation from nation, religion from religion, and sect from sect. How comes it then that there are other points, on which the most opposite opinions are entertained, and some of these with so much heat and fury, that the men on one side of the hedge will die for the affirmative, and the men on the other for the negative? 'Toute 'opinion est assez forte pour se faire épouser au prix de la vie,' says Montaigne, whom I often quote, as I do Seneca, rather for the smartness of expression, than the weight of matter. Look narrowly into it, and you will find that the points agreed on, and the points disputed, are not proportionable to the common sense and general reason of mankind. Nature and truth are the same everywhere, and reason shows them everywhere alike. But the accidental and other causes, which give rise and growth to opinions, both in speculation and practice, are of infinite variety; and wherever these opinions are once confirmed by custom and propagated by education, various, inconsistent, contradictory as they are, they all pretend (and all their pretences are backed by pride, by passion, and by interest) to have reason, or revelation, or both, on their side: though neither reason nor revelation can be possibly on the side of more than one, and may be possibly on the side of none.

Thus it happens that the people of Tibet are Tartars and idolaters, that they are Turks and Mahometans at Constantinople, Italians and papists at Rome; and how much soever education may be less confined, and the means of knowledge more attainable, in France and our own country, yet thus it happens in great measure that Frenchmen and Roman Catholics are bred at Paris, and Englishmen and Protestants at London. For men, indeed, properly speaking, are bred nowhere; every one thinks the system, as he speaks the language, of his

country; at least, there are few that think, and none that act, in any country, according to the dictates of pure unbiassed reason; unless they may be said to do so, when reason directs them to speak and act according to the system of their country, or sect, at the same time as she leads them to think according to that of nature and truth.

Thus the far greatest part of mankind appears reduced to a lower state than other animals, in that very respect on account of which we claim so great superiority over them; because instinct, that has its due effect, is preferable to reason that has not. I suppose in this place, with philosophers, and the vulgar, that which I am in no wise ready to affirm, that other animals have no share of human reason; for let me say by the way, it is much more likely other animals should share the human, which is denied, than that man should share the Divine reason, which is affirmed. But, supposing our monopoly of reason, would not your lordship choose to walk upon four legs, to wear a long tail, and to be called a beast, with the advantage of being determined by irresistible and unerring instinct to those truths that are necessary to your well-being; rather than to walk on two legs, to wear no tail, and to be honoured with the title of man, at the expense of deviating from them perpetually? Instinct acts spontaneously whenever its action is necessary, and directs the animal according to the purpose for which it was implanted in him. Reason is a nobler and more extensive faculty; for it extends to the unnecessary as well as necessary, and to satisfy our curiosity as well as our wants; but reason must be excited, or she will remain inactive; she must be left free, or she will conduct us wrong, and carry us farther astray from her own precincts than we should go without her help; in the first case, we have no sufficient guide; and in the second, the more we employ our reason, the more unreasonable we are.

Now if all this be so, if reason has so little, and ignorance, passion, interest, and custom so much to do, in forming our opinions and our habits, and in directing the whole conduct of human life; is it not a thing desirable by every thinking man, to have the opportunity, indulged to so few by the course of accidents, the opportunity 'secum esse, et secum 'vivere,' of living some years at least to ourselves, and for ourselves, in a state of freedom, under the laws of reason, instead of passing our whole time in a state of vassalage under those of authority and custom? Is it not worth our while to contemplate ourselves, and others, and all the things of this world, once before we leave them, through the medium of pure, and, if I may say so, of undefiled reason? Is it not worth our while to approve or condemn, on our own authority, what we receive in the beginning of life on the authority of other men, who were not then better able to judge for us, than we are now to judge for ourselves?

That this may be done, and has been done to some degree, by men who remained much more mingled than I design to be for the future,

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