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its comforts, and that freedom of action, which even a favage must prize-and we cannot be insensible of the fuperior advantages which some states of fociety offer in these respects, over others. It it impoffible for any one serioufly to suppose, that the American or English farmer, furround ed with plenty, which no one can hinder him from enjoying, and refting in full peace and tranquillity under the protection of ftrong ong and equal laws, is not an happier being than the cultivator of the Turkish dominions, who is forced to hide the little wealth he poffeffes, left it should be forcibly taken from him; and fears a brutal and infolent foe in the perfon of every one stronger or better armed than himself. The difference here is nothing less than fanciful-it bears upon the folid comfort of every day, and comes home to the feelings of every human creature.

The happiness of man, as far as it ap. plies to the whole species, will probably never admit of a high or complex estimate. Sensual gratifications, and the ordinary pleasures of focial and domestic life, may be reckoned to compose almost the whole of it. As already obferved, the wants of mankind are too many to allow to the majority leifure enough for intellectual purfuits; nor are the enjoyments arifing from that fource, so strong and conftant in their attraction, as those from the two former. I have, therefore, no idea of a higher degree of happiness, attainable by a community, than that proceeding from abundance of the neceffaries and most obvious conveniences of life, fairly shared, and temperately used; front peace, security, freedom of action, and mutual kindness and good offices. To these may be added, immu. nity from those superftitious terrors, and felf-tormenting practices, which have attended fo many forms of falfe religion. Now let us enquire how far the increase of knowledge accruing from experience, is likely to further these defirable objects among the great family of mankind.

Not much need be faid concerning the improvements in the common arts of life in this view. Being almost all of them the offspring of neceffity, they can scarcely do more than keep pace with the demands of that neceffity. Such is the natural increase of the human species when not checked by unfavourable circumstances, that there will be perpetual occafion for the full employment of the human abilities to prevent the share of good things already poffeffed by each individual from being diminished. The utmost improvement of agriculture can only give wholefome and palatable food

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to greater numbers than are now fed from the fame extent of land: the like may be faid of all other branches of economics and manufactures, at least in every country where already enough has been discovered to make life comfortable. Most countries in Europe might probably maintain much larger population than they poffefs; but what has the fum of population to do with the happiness of the individuals which compose it? This has long ago in China and Japan reached its maximum, and in consequences has pushed the more effential arts of life to a degree of perfection much beyond what we fee among ourselves; but it seems to have been very far from meliorating the condition of the species.

A much more promifing confequence of increased knowledge, is the improvement to be expected from it in government, legiflation, and all the contrivances by which a community are fecured in the enjoyment of those advantages which nature and industry bestow. Here seems, indeed, to be a wide and almost boundless field for melioration; for old as the world is, how very few examples has it yet seen of civil institutions, purely and fairly framed with a view to the production of the greatest poffible good! How difficult it would be to name a fingle one in which partial interefts have not, in many important points, taken the lead of general interests! But, in order to know what improvements may be expected in this matter, it will be neceffary to confider what errors have been owing to ignorance, and what to ill intention. The former may perhaps admit a cure; the latter hardly can, unless the majority become so enlightened concerning their interests, and fo wife, steady, and unanimous in the purfuit of them, as to overcome all that refiftance which the poffeffors of undue advantages will always make to a change unfavourable to themselves.

That ignorance on the part of rulers, in the true principles of legiflation, police, and the other branches of government, has been, and is, the cause of much evil to nations, cannot be doubted. And as it must be, upon the whole, the interest of rulers to fee their fubjects flourishing and happy enough to be kept in good humour, there feems no reafon to doubt, that in proportion as prejudices and false conceptions give way to the gradual progress of truth, many improvements will be made in these particulars which will materially better the state of mankind. I make no question but much has been done during the course of the prefent century, to amend

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the distribution of private justice, to check the oppreffion of the great, and to secure life and property to all the members of a state, in almost every country in Europe. Industry has been more encouraged, trade freed from many impolitic shackles, punishments rendered less cruel, and, in general, a more just and liberal spirit of in ternal government has been introduced. The rule of a Frederick and a Catherine, despotic as the principles of both have been, cannot be denied to be much more lenient and better calculated to promote the public welfare, than that of their predeceffors.

All this is very well as far as it goes. But fince arbitrary rulers must ever have an interest nearer and dearer to them than the happiness of their fubjects, viz. that of their power, they will never willingly acquiefce in promoting the public improvement with respect to those points on which this power is founded. And as great part of the worst abufes in corrupt governments are intimately connected with the maintenance of the fovereign authority, it is vain to expect that they will ever be reformed till the people themselves come to underftand and purfue their own interests. But here is the great difficulty. How is it possible that the mass of a nation should ever, in the hands of their old matters, become enlightened enough to comprehend their evils, and the remedies of them should be able peaceably to deliberate about them, and take proper steps for their relief-should avoid the snares of crafty demagogues, and pursue steadily the right objects by the wisest means; and, finally, amidst the unjust oppofition they would be fure to meet with, should preferve their minds from that irritation which will in the end break out in acts of the most dreadful violence? Alas! have we not too well learned what a nation will do that rifes to revenge those injuries which either wisdom cannot, or selfishness will not, redress in a proper time and manner? But they should have first been enlightened, fay the friends of knowledge and liberty. How? when their meetings for instruction are prevented by the bayonet; when the press is shackled by penal restrictions; and when hired teachers tell the people that they have nothing to do with the laws but ohey them? The melioration of mankind by means of political revolutions, is, in deed, a noble subject of speculation; and I am far from asserting, that the hopes of patriots on this head are futile and visionary; but, for my own part, I have only the wish left the confidence is gone,

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But are there not modes in which increased knowledge, may more quietly and and gradually meliorate the condition of mankind? May we not expect much from improved systems of morality?-for, morals being in fact nothing else than such a rule of life as will promote the greatest degree of happiness; and the art of living happily being as much an experimental art as any other, will it not be making a continual progress in human focieties, who can have no interest so dear to them as carrying it to perfection? on? This, doubtedly, seems a plausible deduction; but, I fear, an impartial furvey of hiftory will not permit us to be very fanguine in our expectations. Has it, in reality, appeared that either individuals or bodies of men, in proportion as they have advanced in those branches of knowledge which adorn and elevate the species, have been more just, more temperate, more beneficent?

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What are the great moral evils under which mankind labour? Are they not, with respect to ourselves, the indulgence of our appetites and paffions, and false estimates of happiness, proceeding from vicious associations with refpect to others, the preference we give to our own interests above that of the community?-And are not these propensities interwoven into our very nature, and only to be controuled by a long course of difcipline? Is the man of knowledge, to whom fo many new fources of enjoyment are opened, less likely to grasp with eagerness at the means of attaining those enjoyments, than the illiterate and easily fatisfied peasant? Can luxury ever be feparated from refinement, avarice from commerce, or rapacity from power? It is granted, that a strong and enlightened system of government may check many of the public mischiefs which would flow from these sources; but how, without intolerable restraints upon freedom of action, shall it prevent the private ones ? Look at our manufacturing towns, and try to separate, even in idea, the vices and miferies that overrun them, from the circumstance of a vast population compofed of artificers, who, it their wages are low, muft employ their whole time in providing the neceffaries of life, if high, will lie under temptations to excess, which they have no principles that can enable them to refift. The almost infuperable difficulties experienced in every plan for amending the state of the yearly increasing poor in great towns, fufficiently evinces the intimate connexion between private calamity, and what has always appeared to conffitute public profperity.

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The new order of things which seemed opening upon Europe, afforded no profpect more flattering to the lovers of mankind, than that of a probable extinction of the wars which from the earliest records have never ceased to ravage the world. It was very plaufibly argued, that fince nothing was more demonftrable than the preponderance of evil which a war brought even upon the fuccefsful party, as foon as nations should become capable of purfuing, as well as discovering their true interests, the sword would no longer be reforted to for the decifion of their differences. But the first consequence of the French Revolution has been a very extensive and most bloody war, entered into with as much eagerness and animofity by the several parties as any former one; and, in the mean time, three potentates have joined unmolefted in a scheme of sharing between them one of the principal portions of Europe, and abolishing a rifing liberty which had every plea of juftice in its favour. Nor does it appear, that a temporary peace can be restored without leaving abundant feeds of future difcord; or that even the greatest fufferers by the war, are likely to be cured of the fatal propenfity to rush again into quarrels on the flighteft occafions of ambition or contention. War is in fo many ways the author of misery, and the obstacle of melioration, that unless fomewhat decifive shall be effected for abolishing it from the ordinary course of human affairs, it may be affirmed, that nothing comparatively is done towards a better state of things. The propenfity to national hoftility has already withstood all the efforts of a religion apparently promulgated for the express purpose of reftoring peace on earth. It did not, even when its influence was strongest, bestow the shortest breathing-time on mankind; and its minifters have long been, and are at the present day, fome of the most active promoters of the horrid fpirit of mutual enmity. The banner is confecrated at the altar before it is dipped in blood; and prayers are folemnly offered up in every church in Chriftendom for fuccess in every act of public violence that the fovereign of each country shall please to engage in.

The fpirit of commerce too, which so much diftinguishes the prefent age, instead of binding the nations in a golden chain of mutual peace and friendship, feems only to have given additional motives for war. Each frate aims at a monopoly, only to be established by an armed force; and the improvements of navigation have contracted the dimenfions of the world fo as not to

allow space enough for the schemes of a merchant's counting-house. Further, the present system of trade can only be maintained by the flavery or fubjugation of great numbers of mankind; and while the East and West Indies compose links in the chain of European commerce, cruelty and injustice must be the means by which they are made to hold together.

From thefe confiderations, I fear, we have very infufficient grounds to fuppofe, that the defired melioration of the world upon public principles is as yet commenced. All that a comparison of this century with the last will allow us with certainty to infer, is greater lenity arld regularity in the administration of government in fome countries; more encouragement to the exertions of industry; and a defire in governors to participate in the improvements made by art and science, which has the good effect of inciting them to encourage the means of advancing useful knowledge, though often from narrow and felfish motives. If, in oppofition to these advantages, be set the prodigious increase of standing armies; the vast accumulation of national debts and burthens; and the extinction of a spirit of independence in numbers of the middle and fuperior ranks of society, while the lowest are doomed to ceaseless toil in order to gain a mere fubfiftence, I question if the most sanguine friend of mankind can strike a fair balance which will give him much fatisfaction.

But not to dwell entirely upon the dark fide of the profpect, I shall state a few circumstances of private improvement, on which I think we may fafely place fome reliance.

It is impossible to doubt that, in all the more civilized parts of the world, fuperstition and bigotry, those bitter foes of human happiness, have loft much of their power; and that this has been owing to that progress of good sense and knowledge which may be expected to go on still further diminishing their influence. It is true, the connexion between old systems of belief and old claims of authority, may for a while maintain the ftruggle of falfhood and violence, against truth and equity; but I would fain hope that imposture and perfecution have received their death wound in Europe, and will never again be able to produce the follies and miferies under which men so many ages groaned. Religious systems are still, indeed, full of error, and are little, if at all, mended in their principles; but the spirit of the times has been too potent for them, and doubt or indifference have effected what mere argument

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Enquirer, No. XVI.

ment could not have done. Emancipation from the fervile dread of fupernatural evils, and from the burthensome and degrading practices by which they were to be averted, is a gain in point of happiness which cannot be too highly prized. It enters deep into the comfort of private life, and makes all the difference between a freeman and a flave. And that increased lenity in governments and liberality in individuals, which renders the profeffion of a different religious faith from the esta blified one, no longer dangerous or degrading, is a most important advantage to all diffidents.

The great diffusion of knowledge, though perhaps of a fuperficial kind, among ranks of people who formerly poffefsed scarcely the smallest portion of it, has certainly added much to the pleasure and variety of, life; and if it has tended to soften and humanize the manners, and introduced a greater love for sedentary amusements, and the pursuits of cultivated leifure, I own I am one of those who think this a good exchange against the rough vigour and rude fimplicity of former ages. Nor can it escape any observer, that even the amufive writings of the present day are almoft invariably friendly to decency, humanity, generofity, and all the finer and nobler feelings of the heart. And as a consequence of the propagation of fuch sentiments, the virtues of charity, benefificence, and affability, were certainly never more confpicuous. From these confiderations I am not willing to accept the con. ceffion of a very zealous believer in the progreffion of the human race, the late Condorcet, who afferts, "that though much has been done for the glory of mankind, scarcely any thing has yet been done for its happiness." It is true, that the continuance of destructive wars, and of the immense inequality of conditions, perpetuates a vast mass of evils in society; yet these evils, which at no period did not exift, are undoubtedly softened by modern manners; and private life has in various refpects been made happier to all ranks of people.

But I own that the very circumstance of Some improvement in these points, leads me to defpair of those radical and effectual meliorations which many expect from vigorous schemes of reform, conducted upon principles of general interest and public virtue. Our fituation has too many ad vantages to be readily hazarded; and the exertions requifite to maintain those advan tages too much occupy our minds to allow of the application of much time and atten

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tion to matters remotely concerning ourselves. Our tempers, too, with the sternness, have loft the force, of the heroic ages; nor do I conceive that any confiderable number of us would be capable of going. through the rough work of a reformation when brought from theory to practice. If the instance of a neighbouring nation be brought to refute the notion of a neceffary connexion between advancement in civilization and effeminacy of character; it may be urged, on the other hand, that the shocking calamities which have attended its revolutionary exertions will with certainty for a long time render its hiftory more a warning than an example to other nations. Melioration, according to its warmeft advocates, cannot be effected without overthrowing all ufurpations in governments, all impofitions in religion, rooting up all prejudices, levelling all artificial diftinctions, and equalifing mankind so far as can be done confiftently with the fundamental principles of focial union. But where are the engines by which these mighty operations are to be brought about? The pulpit, the bar, the sword, are already engaged in support of exifting institutions; and the press, on which the chief reliance of reformers is placed, is at least half bought by the fame powerful bidders. Not a fingle axiom on which the rights of man are founded, has been able to fix itself beyond the reach of affault. All is disputed; and where argument fails, authority is called in to give fuccour; while wit and eloquence fight indifcriminately on either side.

I shall conclude with one more reflexion which forcibly presses upon me. All the proofs that have been adduced of the amended state of mankind, and all that I have admitted as real or probable, relates only to Europe and her immediate connexions, and not even to the whole of that. But what a small portion of the human race does this comprehend! The last accounts of China state the population of that empire alone at upwards of 300 millions, of which fum all Europe can only show a trifling fraction. Who can with the least probability suggest improvement in that ancient, vain and prejudiced people, who only know enough of us and our institutions to fufpect and despise us? Who pretends to fee lefs ferocity in the African, less pride in the Turk, less rapine in the Arab, lefs perfidy in the Indian, less cruelty in the Perfian? Alas! while we are overwhelmed at home with bufiness enough to occupy reformation for centuries, all these vast regions have not as yet heard the

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word found in their ears, and would probably shudder at the proposal of any innovation as the direft of crimes ! The imagination can scarcely conceive that change which should render our books, our knowledge, our opinions, familiar to these people. Nothing but entire conqueft would feem anywife adequate to this effect; and what a Pandora's box does that word conquest comprise! Better, furely, that the world should remain in its present mixed and imperfect state, than that an uniformity of good should be aimed at by means which are themselves the greatest of evils!

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

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RESPECTED FRIEND,

N appretiating the general character of any body of men, it is equally abfurd and unjust to defcribe it by traits which do not exclusively apply, or which may be equally pertinent to any other branch of the community and no less so to impute to it practices with which individuals only are chargeable.

A writer in the Magazine, under the fignature of G. W. has not, I think, been fufficiently guarded in these respects in his remarks on the fociety called Quakers: for altho' he says those remarks, "must not be accepted as individually applicable," he offers them as "the refult of long, attentive, and commodious infpection," and that " in various parts of this kingdom, and among very numerous societies of the Friends," thence inferring their appropriate justice and accuracy.

The limits usually allowed to an Essay of this kind do not admit of a discussion of all the subjects involved in those remarks. I therefore mean to confine myself to such as ftruck me most forcibly on the perufal. He says, "I shall attempt to estimate the public character of these people under the threefold divifion of peculiarities praifeworthy, dubious, and reprehenfible."

As to the two first classes, it may be worthy of G. W's confideration, whether, if his opinion of them under the first head, is "the refult of long, attentive, and commodious inspection," he should have hefitated in admitting their fingularity of dress to be more than a prudent " external diftinction," and "a prominent exhibition of principles and character to the ocular obfervations of their countrymen." After a more than forty years intimate acquaintance with their principles and practices, I never knew that "the colour of cloth and the disposal of buttons" were matters of peculiar fcruple or ferious regulation among them, excepting only such advices

as have been from time to time issued against the use of mourning habits, and following vain and expenfive fashions-as to black, it is almost exclufively the livery of the clergy, and the glaring colours, as red, &c. that of the military orders: on which account the society may have declined the use of them in favour of other colours. The avoidance of parade, expensiveness and finery, at once vain and vicious, is the fole object to which its recommendations on this head have reference and of course fuch parts of apparel as are more adapted to ornament than use, and to gratify that difpofition which induces the gay and inconfiderate to fubmit to the capricious empire of fashion, must experience its disapprobation. As to the dresses in which the generality of this people now appear, it is thought they are nearly the fame which were commonly worn by others, at their first appearance, excepting fuch particulars wherein an improvement in real convenience was their inducement to alteration. If this be true, the peculiarity of their garb may be rather attributable to the versatility of their countrymen than to them.*

That they have paid more " attention to certain forms of language in personal address, dates, and superscriptions," is admitted. But I cannot as readily concede that the period is arrived when the plain rules of grammar and language are no longer facrificed to " fuperftitious reverence," and the most fulfome and unmeaning adulation. I can hardly think that G. W. on more ferious confideration, will think that the substitution of the fingular for the plural number in addressing a single person, or of the numerical names of the days and months in lieu of those derived from the heathen mythology, really merit the cenfure he has expreffed on that account. Or what proof is it of their difloyalty and want of good fenfe, that in their addresses to the king, whom they honour, they refrain from the common epithets of most sacred-moft excellentmost high-most mighty, &c. yet here G. W.'s censure would apply with equal reason,

* The late Dr. Franklin, on being told by a person with whom in earlier life he had been in the habits of intimacy, that his old

acquaintance were forry to observe how often changed his political principles, replied, "Be affured, my dear Sir, they are mistaken; I have kept on in the fame straight road; and when they, in crossing it, have met me, they have supposed it to be me and not themselves, that was going zig-zag.

I now

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