Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke:
1730. Impossibility of Universal Empire. All the inhabitants of some other
planet may have been, perhaps, from their creation united in one great society, speaking
the same language, and living under the same government; or too perfect by their nature to
need the restraint of any. But mankind is constituted very differently and although the
natural law of our whole species be the same, yet we are by nature incapable, on many
accounts, of uniting under one form of government, or of submitting to one rule of
life....
1733. A Dissertation on Parties. If liberty be that delicious and wholesome
fruit, on which the British nation hath fed for so many ages, and to which we owe our
riches, our strength, and all the advantages we boast of; the British constitution is the
tree that bears this fruit, and will continue to bear it, as long as we are careful to
fence it in, and trench it round, against the beasts of the field, and the insects of the
earth. To speak without a figure, our constitution is a system of government suited to the
genius of our nation, and even to our situation. The experience of many hundred years hath
shown, that by preserving this constitution inviolate, or by drawing it back to the
principles on which it was originally founded, whenever it shall be made to swerve from
them, we may secure to ourselves, and to our latest posterity, the possession of that
liberty which we have long enjoyed. What would we more? What other liberty than this do we seek? And if we seek no other,
is not this marked out in such characters, as he that runs may read? As our constitution
therefore ought to be, what it seldom is, the rule of government, so let us make the
conformity, or repugnancy of things to this constitution, the rule by which we accept them
as favorable, or reject them as dangerous to liberty. They who talk of liberty in Britain
on any other principles than those of the British constitution, talk impertinently at
best, and much charity is requisite to believe no worse of them. But they who distinguish
between practicable and impracticable liberty, in order to insinuate what they mean, or
they mean nothing, that the liberty established by the true scheme of our constitution is
of the impracticable kind; and they who endeavor, both in speculation and practice, to
elude and pervert the forms, and to ridicule and explode the spirit of this constitution:
these men are enemies, open and avowed enemies to it, and by consequence to British
liberty, which cannot be supported on any other bottom....
1736. On The Spirit of Patriotism. The service of our country is no chimerical,
but a real duty. He who admits the proofs of any other moral duty, drawn from the
constitution of human nature, or from the moral fitness and unfitness of things, must
admit them in favor of this duty, or be reduced to the most absurd inconsistency. When he
has once admitted the duty on these proofs, it will be no difficult matter to demonstrate
to him, that his obligation to the performance of it is in proportion to the means and the
opportunities he has of performing it; and that nothing can discharge him from this
obligation as long as he has these means and these opportunities in his power, and as long
as his country continues in the same want of his services. These obligations, then, to the
public service may become obligations for life on certain persons. No doubt they may: and
shall this consideration become a reason for denying or evading them? On the contrary,
sure it should become a reason for acknowledging and fulfilling them, with the greatest
gratitude to the Supreme Being, who has made us capable of acting so excellent a part, and
with the utmost benevolence to mankind.Superior talents, and superior rank among our fellow-creatures, whether acquired by
birth, or by the course of accidents, and the success of our own industry, are noble
prerogatives. Shall he, who possesses them, repine at the obligation they lay him under of
passing his whole life in the noblest occupation of which human nature is capable? To what
higher station, to what greater glory can any mortal aspire, than to be, during the whole
course of his life, the support of good, the control of bad government, and the guardian
of public liberty? . . .
A life dedicated to the service of our country admits the full
use, and no life should admit the abuse of pleasures; the least are consistent with a
constant discharge of our public duty, the greatest arise from it. The common, the sensual pleasures to which nature prompts us, and which reason
therefore does not forbid, though she should always direct, are so far from being excluded
out of a life of business, that they are sometimes necessary in it, and are always
heightened by it; those, of the table, for instance, may be ordered so as to promote that
which the elder Cato calls vitae conjunctionem. In the midst of public duties,
private studies, and an extreme old age, he found time to frequent the sodalitates,
or clubs of friends, at Rome, and to sit up all night with his neighbors in the country of
the Sabines. Cato's virtue often glowed with wine; and the love of women did not hinder
Caesar from forming and executing the greatest projects that ambition ever suggested. But
if Caesar, while he labored to destroy the liberties of his country, enjoyed these
inferior pleasures of life, which a man who labors to save those liberties may enjoy as
well as he; there are superior pleasures in a busy life, that Caesar never knew; those, I
mean, that arise from a faithful discharge of our duty to the commonwealth. Neither
Montaigne in writing his essays, nor Des Cartes in building new worlds, nor Burnet in
framing an antediluvian earth, no, nor Newton in discovering and establishing the true
laws of nature on experiment and a sublimer geometry, felt more intellectual joys, than he
feels who is a real patriot, who bends all the force of his understanding, and directs all
his thoughts and actions to the good of his country. When such a man forms a political
scheme, and adjusts various and seemingly independent parts in it to one great and good
design, he is transported by imagination, or absorbed in meditation, as much and as
agreeably as they: and the satisfaction, that arises from the different importance of
these objects in every step of the work, is vastly in his favor....
1738. The Idea of a Patriot King. Now, we are subject by the constitution of
human nature, and therefore by the will of the Author of this and every other nature, to
two laws. One given immediately to all men by God, the same to all, and obligatory alike
on all. The other given to man by man; and therefore not the same to all, nor obligatory
alike on all: founded indeed on the same principles, but varied by different applications
of them to times, to characters, and to a number, which may be reckoned infinite, of other
circumstances. By the first, I mean the universal law of reason; and by the second, the
particular law or constitution of laws, by which every distinct community has chosen to be
governed....
The true image of a free people, governed by a Patriot King, is that of a patriarchal
family, where the head and all the members are united by one common interest, and animated
by one common spirit: and where, if any are perverse enough to have another, they will be
soon borne down by the superiority of those who have the same; and far from making a
division they will but confirm the union of the little state. That to approach as near as
possible to these ideas of perfect government, and social happiness under it, is desirable
in every state, no man will be absurd enough to deny. The sole question is, therefore, how
near to them it is possible to attain? For, if this attempt be not absolutely
unpracticable, all the views of a Patriot King will be directed to make it succeed.
Instead of abetting the divisions of his people, he will endeavor to unite them, and to be
himself the center of their union; instead of putting himself at the head of one party in
order to govern his people, he will put himself at the head of his people in order to
govern, or more properly to subdue, all parties.Now, to arrive at this desirable union, and to maintain it, will be found more
difficult in some cases than in others, but absolutely impossible in none, to a wise and
good prince. If his people are united in their submission to him, and in their attachment to the
established government, he must not only espouse but create a party, in order to govern by
one: and what should tempt him to pursue so wild a measure? A prince, who aims at more
power than the constitution gives him, may be so tempted; because he may hope to obtain in
the disorders of the state what cannot be obtained in quiet times; and because contending
parties will give what a nation will not. Parties, even before they degenerate into
absolute factions, are still numbers of men associated together for certain purposes, and
certain interests, which are not, or which are not allowed to be those of the community by
others. A more private or personal interest comes but too soon and too often, to be
superadded, and to grow predominant in them; and when it does so whatever occasions or
principles began to form them the same logic prevails in them that prevails in every
church. The interest of the state is supposed to be that of the party, as the interest of
religion is supposed to be that of the church and, with this pretense or prepossession,
the interest of the state becomes, like that of religion a remote consideration, is never
pursued for its own sake, and is often sacrificed to the other. A king, therefore, who has
ill designs to carry on must endeavor to divide a united people; and blending or seeming
to blend his interests with that of a party, he may succeed perhaps, and his party and he
may share the spoils of a ruined nation: but such a party is then become a faction, such a
king is a tyrant, and such a government is a conspiracy. A Patriot King must renounce his
character, to have such designs; or act against his own designs, to pursue such methods.
Both are too absurd to be supposed. It remains, therefore, that as all the good ends of
governments are most attainable in a united state, and as the divisions of a people can
serve to bad purpose alone, the king we suppose here will deem the union of his subjects
his greatest advantage, and will think himself happy to find that established which he
would have employed the whole labor of his life to bring about....
I am reasonable enough to suppose, that, without altering human nature, he may give a
check to this course of human affairs, in his own kingdom at least; that he may defeat the
designs and break the spirit of faction, instead of partaking in one, and assuming the
other and that, if he cannot render the union of his subjects universal, he may render it
so general, as to answer all the ends of good government, private security, public
tranquillity, wealth, power, and fame. If these ends were ever answered, they were so, surely, in this country in the days of
our Elizabeth. She found her kingdoms full of factions, and factions of another
consequence and danger than these of our days, whom she would have dispersed with a puff
of her breath. She could not reunite them it is true: the papist continued a papist, the
puritan a puritan; one furious, the other sullen. But she united the great body of the
people in her and their common interest, she inflamed them with one national spirit; and,
thus armed, she maintained tranquillity at home, and carried succor to her friends and
terror to her enemies abroad. There were cabals at her court, and intrigues among her
ministers. It is said too, that she did not dislike that there should be such. But these
were kept within her court. They could not creep abroad, to sow division among her people:
and her greatest favorite, the Earl of Essex, paid the price of attempting it with his
head. Let our great doctors in politics, who preach so learnedly on the trite text Divide
et impera, compare the conduct of Elizabeth in this respect with that of her
successor, who endeavored to govern his kingdom by the notions of a faction that he
raised, and to manage his parliament by undertakers; and they must be very obstinate
indeed, if they refuse to acknowledge that a wise and good prince can unite a divided
people, though a weak and wicked prince cannot; and that the consequences of national
union are glory and happiness to the prince and to the people; while those of disunion
bring shame and misery on both, and entail them too on posterity....
Now, though the true interest of several states may be the same in many respects yet is
there always some difference to be perceived, by a discerning eye, both in these interests
and in the manner of pursuing them; a difference that arises from the situation of
countries, from the character of people, from the nature of government, and even from that
of climate and soil; from circumstances that are, like these, permanent, and from others
that may be deemed more accidental. To illustrate all this by example would be easy, but
long I shall content myself therefore to mention, in some instances only, the difference
that arises, from the causes referred to, between the true interest of our country, and
that of some or all our neighbors on the Continent: and leave others to extend and apply
in their own thoughts the comparison I shall hint at rather than enlarge upon. The situation of Great Britain, the character of her people, and the nature of her
government, fit her for trade and commerce. Her climate and her soil make then necessary
to her well-being. By trade and commerce we gew a rich and powerful nation, and by their
decay we are growing poor and impotent. As trade and commerce enrich, so they fortify, our
country. The sea is our barrier, ships are our fortresses, and the mariners, that trade
and commerce alone can furnish, are the garrisons to defend them France lies under great
disadvantages in trade and commerce, by the nature of her government. Her advantages in
situation are as great at least as ours. Those that arise from the temper and character of
her people are a little different perhaps, and yet upon the equivalent. Those of her
climate and her soil are superior to ours and indeed to those of any European nation. The
United Provinces have the same advantages that we have in the nature of their government,
more perhaps in the temper and character of their people, less to be sure in their
situation, climate, and soil. But without descending into a longer detail of the
advantages and disadvantages attending each of these nations in trade and commerce, it is
sufficient for my present purpose to observe, that Great Britain stands in a certain
middle between the other two, with regard to wealth and power arising from these springs.
A less, and a less constant, application to the improvement of these may serve the ends of
France; a greater is necessary in its country and a greater still in Holland. The French
may improve their natural wealth and power by the improvement of trade and commerce. We
can have no wealth, nor power by consequence, as Europe is now constituted, without the
improvement of them, nor in any degree but proportionably to this improvement. The Dutch
cannot subsist without them. They bring wealth to other nations, and are necessary to the
well being of them; but they supply the Dutch with food and raiment, and are necessary
even to their being.The result of what has been said in in general, that the wealth and power of all
nations depending so much on their trade and commerce, and every nation being, like the
three I have mentioned, in such different circumstances of advantage or disadvantage in
the pursuit of this common interest; a good government, and therefore the government of a
Patriot King, will be directed constantly to make the most of every advantage that nature
has given, or art can procure, toward the improvement of trade and commerce. And this is
one of the principal criterions by which we are to judge, whether governors are in the
true interest of the people or not.It results, in particular, that Great Britain might improve her wealth and power in a
proportion superior to that of any nation who can be deemed her rival, if the advantages
she has were as wisely cultivated as they will be in the reign of a Patriot King.
To be
convinced more thoroughly of this truth, a very short process of reasoning will suffice.
Let any man, who has knowledge enough for it, first compare the natural state of Great
Britain, and of the United Provinces, and then their artificial state together; that is,
let him consider minutely the advantages we have by the situation, extent, and nature of
our island, over the inhabitants of a few salt marshes gained on the sea, and hardly
defended from it; and after that, let him consider how nearly those provinces have raised
themselves to an equality of wealth and power with the kingdom of Great Britain. From
whence arises this difference of improvement? It arises plainly from hence: the Dutch have
been, from the foundation of their commonwealth, a nation of patriots and merchants. The
spirit of that people has not been diverted from these two objects, the defense of their
liberty, and the improvement of their trade and commerce which have been carried on by
them with uninterrupted and unslackened application, industry, order, and economy. In
Great Britain the case has not been the same, in either respect; but here we confine
ourselves to speak of the last alone.Trade and commerce, such as they were in those days, had been sometimes and in some
instances, before the reign of Queen Elizabeth, encouraged and improved, but the great
encouragements were given, the great extensions and improvements were made, by that
glorious princess. To her we owe the spirit of domestic and foreign trade, which is not
quite extinguished. It was she who gave that rapid motion to our whole mercantile system,
which is not entirely ceased. They both flagged under her successor; were not revived
under his son; were checked, diverted, clogged, and interrupted during our civil wars and
began to exert new vigor after the Restoration, in a long course of peace; but met with
new difficulties, too, from the confirmed rivalry of the Dutch, and the growing rivalry of
the French. To one of these the pusillanimous character of James the First gave many
scandalous occasions; and the other was favored by the conduct of Charles the Second, who
never was in the true interest of the people he governed. From the revolution to the death
of Queen Anne, however trade and commerce might be aided and encouraged in other respects,
they were necessarily subjected to depredations abroad, and overloaded by taxes at home;
during the course of two great wars. From the accession of the late king to this hour, in
the midst of a full peace, the debts of the nation continue much the same, the taxes have
been increased, and for eighteen years of this time we have tamely suffered continual
depredations fmm the most contemptible maritime power in Europe, that of Spain. A Patriot King will neither neglect, nor sacrifice his country's interest . . .
No
other interest, neither a foreign nor a domestic, neither a public nor a private, will
influence his conduct in government....
To give ease and encouragement to manufactory at
home, to improve and keep in heart the national colonies, like so many farms of the mother
country, will be principal and constant parts of the attention of such a prince. The
wealth of the nation he will most justly esteem to be his wealth, the power his power, the
security and the honor, his security and honor....
1754. A National Religion.To make government effectual to all the good purposes
of it, there must be a religion; this religion must be national; and this national
religion must be maintained in reputation and reverence; all other religions or sects must
be kept too low to become the rivals of it. These are, in my apprehension, first
principles of good policy.
Source: Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton.
This text is part of the Internet
Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and
copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history.
