Thoughts on Man
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But we not only owe something to the advantage and interest of
our neighbours, but something also to the sacred divinity of
Truth. I am not only to tell my neighbour whatever I know that
may be beneficial to him, respecting his position in society, his
faults, what other men appear to contemplate that may conduce to
his advantage or injury, and to advise him how the one may best
be forwarded, or the other defeated and brought to nothing: I am
bound also to consider in what way it may be in my power so to
act on his mind, as shall most enlarge his views, confirm and
animate his good resolutions, and meliorate his dispositions and
temper. We are all members of one great community: and we shall
never sufficiently discharge our duty in that respect, till, like
the ancient Spartans, the love of the whole becomes our
predominant passion, and we cease to imagine that we belong to
ourselves, so much as to the entire body of which we are a part.
There are certain views in morality, in politics, and various
other important subjects, the general prevalence of which will be
of the highest benefit to the society of which we are members;
and it becomes us in this respect, with proper temperance and
moderation, to conform ourselves to the zealous and fervent
precept of the apostle, to "promulgate the truth and be instant,
in season and out of season," that we may by all means leave some
monument of our good intentions behind us, and feel that we have
not lived in vain.
There is a maxim extremely in vogue in the ordinary intercourses
of society, which deserves to be noticed here, for the purpose of
exposing it to merited condemnation. It is very common between
friends, or persons calling themselves such, to say, "Do not ask
my advice in a certain crisis of your life; I will not give it;
hereafter, if the thing turns out wrong, you will reflect on me,
and say that it was at my suggestion that you were involved in
calamity." This is a dastardly excuse, and shews a pitiful
selfishness in the man that urges it.
It is true, that we ought ever to be on the alert, that we may
not induce our friend into evil. We should be upon our guard,
that we may not from overweening arrogance and self-conceit
dictate to another, overpower his more sober judgment, and assume
a rashness for him, in which perhaps we would not dare to indulge
for ourselves. We should be modest in our suggestions, and
rather supply him with materials for decision, than with a
decision absolutely made. There may however be cases where an
opposite proceeding is necessary. We must arrest our friend,
nay, even him who is merely our fellow-creature, with a strong
arm, when we see him hovering on the brink of a precipice, or the
danger is so obvious, that nothing but absolute blindness could
conceal it from an impartial bystander.
But in all cases our best judgment should always be at the
service of our brethren of mankind. "Give to him that asketh
thee; and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away."
This may not always be practicable or just, when applied to the
goods of fortune: but the case of advice, information, and laws
of conduct, comes within that of Ennius, to suffer our neighbour
to light his candle at our lamp. To do so will enrich him,
without making us a jot the poorer. We should indeed respect the
right of private judgment, and scarcely in any case allow our
will to supersede his will in his own proper province. But we
should on no account suffer any cowardly fears for ourselves, to
induce us to withhold from him any assistance that our wider
information or our sounder judgment might supply to him.
The next consideration by which we should be directed in the
exercise of the faculty of speech, is that we should employ it so
as should best conduce to the pleasure of our neighbour. Man is
a different creature in the savage and the civilised state. It
has been affirmed, and it may be true, that the savage man is a
stranger to that disagreeable frame of mind, known by the name of
ennui. He can pore upon the babbling stream, or stretch himself
upon a sunny bank, from the rising to the setting of the sun, and
be satisfied. He is scarcely roused from this torpid state but
by the cravings of nature. If they can be supplied without
effort, he immediately relapses into his former supineness; and,
if it requires search, industry and exertion to procure their
gratification, he still more eagerly embraces the repose, which
previous fatigue renders doubly welcome.
But, when the mind has once been wakened up from its original
lethargy, when we have overstepped the boundary which divides the
man from the beast, and are made desirous of improvement, while
at the same moment the tumultuous passions that draw us in
infinitely diversified directions are called into act, the case
becomes exceedingly different. It might be difficult at first to
rouse man from his original lethargy: it is next to impossible
that he should ever again be restored to it. The appetite of the
mind being once thoroughly awakened in society, the human species
are found to be perpetually craving after new intellectual food.
We read, we write, we discourse, we ford rivers, and scale
mountains, and engage in various pursuits, for the pure pleasure
that the activity and earnestness of the pursuit afford us. The
day of the savage and the civilised man are still called by the
same name. They may be measured by a pendulum, and will be found
to be of the same duration. But in all other points of view they
are inexpressibly different.
Hence therefore arises another duty that is incumbent upon us as
to the exercise of the faculty of speech. This duty will be more
or less urgent according to the situation in which we are placed.
If I sit down in a numerous assembly, if I become one of a
convivial party of ten or twelve persons, I may unblamed be for
the greater part, or entirely silent, if I please. I must appear
to enter into their sentiments and pleasures, or, if I do not, I
shall be an unwelcome guest; but it may scarcely be required for
me to clothe my feelings with articulate speech.
But, when my society shall be that of a few friends only, and
still more if the question is of spending hours or days in the
society of a single friend, my duty becomes altered, and a
greater degree of activity will be required from me. There are
cases, where the minor morals of the species will be of more
importance than those which in their own nature are cardinal.
Duties of the highest magnitude will perhaps only be brought into
requisition upon extraordinary occasions; but the opportunities
we have of lessening the inconveniences of our neighbour, or of
adding to his accommodations and the amount of his agreeable
feelings, are innumerable. An acceptable and welcome member of
society therefore will not talk, only when he has something
important to communicate. He will also study how he may amuse
his friend with agreeable narratives, lively remarks, sallies of
wit, or any of those thousand nothings, which' set off with a
wish to please and a benevolent temper, will often entertain more
and win the entire good will of the person to whom they are
addressed, than the wisest discourse, or the vein of conversation
which may exhibit the powers and genius of the speaker to the
greatest advantage.
Men of a dull and saturnine complexion will soon get to an end of
all they felt it incumbent on them to say to their comrades. But
the same thing will probably happen, though at a much later
period, between friends of an active mind, of the largest stores
of information, and whose powers have been exercised upon the
greatest variety of sentiments, principles, and original veins of
thinking. When two such men first fall into society, each will
feel as if he had found a treasure. Their communications are
without end; their garrulity is excited, and converts into a
perennial spring. The topics upon which they are prompted to
converse are so numerous, that one seems to jostle out the other.
It may proceed thus from day to day, from month to month, and
perhaps from year to year. But, according to the old proverb,
"It is a long lane that has no turning." The persons here
described will have a vast variety of topics upon which they are
incited to compare their opinions, and will lay down these topics
and take them up again times without number. Upon some, one of
the parties will feel himself entirely at home while the other is
comparatively a novice, and, in others, the advantage will be
with the other; so that the gain of both, in this free and
unrestrained opening of the soul, will be incalculable. But the
time will come, like as in perusing an author of the most
extraordinary genius and the most versatile powers, that the
reading of each other's minds will be exhausted. They know so
much of each other's tone of thinking, that all that can be said
will be anticipated. The living voice, the sparkling eye, and
the beaming countenance will do much to put off the evil day,
when we shall say, I have had enough. But the time will come in
which we shall feel that this after all is but little, and we
shall become sluggish, ourselves to communicate, or to excite the
dormant faculties of our friend, when the spring, the waters of
which so long afforded us the most exquisite delight, is at
length drawn dry.
I remember in my childish years being greatly struck with that
passage in the Bible, where it is written, "But I say unto you,
that, for every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give
an account in the day of judgment:" and, as I was very desirous
of conforming myself to the directions of the sacred volume, I
was upon the point of forming a sort of resolution, that I would
on no account open my mouth to speak, without having a weighty
reason for uttering the thing I felt myself prompted to say.
But practical directions of this sort are almost in all cases of
ambiguous interpretation. From the context of this passage it is
clear, that by "idle words" we are to understand vicious words,
words tending to instil into the mind unauthorised impulses, that
shew in the man who speaks "a will most rank, foul disproportion,
thoughts unnatural,' and are calculated to render him by whom
they are listened to, light and frivolous of temper, and unstrung
for the graver duties of human life.
But idle words, in the sense of innocent amusement, are not
vicious. "There is a time for all things." Amusement must not
encroach upon or thrust aside the real business, the important
engagements, and the animated pursuits of man. But it is
entitled to take its turn unreproved. Human life is so various,
and the disposition and temper of the mind of so different tones
and capacity, that a wise man will "frame his face to all
occasions." Playfulness, if not carried to too great an extreme,
is an additional perfection in human nature. We become relieved
from our more serious cares, and better fitted to enter on them
again after an interval. To fill up the days of our lives with
various engagements, to make one occupation succeed to another,
so as to liberate us from the pains of ennui, and the dangers of
what may in an emphatical sense be called idleness, is no small
desideratum. That king may in this sense be admitted to have
formed no superficial estimate of our common nature, who is said
to have proclaimed a reward to the individual that should invent
a new amusement.
And, to consider the question as it stands in relation to the
subject of the present Essay, a perpetual gravity and a vigilant
watch to be placed on the door of our lips, would be eminently
hostile to that frankness which is to be regarded as one of the
greatest ornaments of our nature. "It is meet, that we should
make merry and be glad." A formal countenance, a demure, careful
and unaltered cast of features, is one of the most
disadvantageous aspects under which human nature can exhibit
itself. The temper must be enterprising and fearless, the manner
firm and assured, and the correspondence between the heart and
the tongue prompt and instantaneous, if we desire to have that
view of man that shall do him the most credit, and induce us to
form the most honourable opinion respecting him. On our front
should sit fearless confidence and unsubdued hilarity. Our limbs
should be free and unfettered, a state of the animal which
imparts a grace infinitely more winning than that of the most
skilful dancer. The very sound of our voice should be full,
firm, mellow, and fraught with life and sensibility; of that
nature, at the hearing of which every bosom rises, and every eye
is lighted up. It is thus that men come to understand and
confide in each other. This is the only frame that can perfectly
conduce to our moral improvement, the awakening of our faculties,
the diffusion of science, and the establishment of the purest
notions and principles of civil and political liberty.
ESSAY XVII.
OF BALLOT.
The subject of the preceding Essay leads by an obvious transition
to the examination of a topic, which at present occupies to a
considerable extent the attention of those who are anxious for
the progress of public improvement, and the placing the liberties
of mankind on the securest basis: I mean, the topic of the vote
by ballot.
It is admitted that the most beneficial scheme for the government
of nations, is a government by representation: that is, that
there shall be in every nation, or large collection of men, a
paramount legislative assembly, composed of deputies chosen by
the people in their respective counties, cities, towns, or
departments. In what manner then shall these deputies be
elected?
The argument in favour of the election by ballot is obvious.
In nearly all civilised countries there exists more or less an
inequality of rank and property: we will confine our attention
principally to the latter.
Property necessarily involves influence. Mankind are but too
prone to pay a superior deference to those who wear better
clothes, live in larger houses, and command superior
accommodations to those which fall to the lot of the majority.
One of the main sources of wealth in civilised nations is the
possession of land. Those who have a considerable allotment of
land in property, for the most part let it out in farms on lease
or otherwise to persons of an inferior rank, by whom it is
cultivated. In this case a reciprocal relation is created
between the landlord and the tenant: and, if the landlord
conducts himself towards his tenant agreeably to the principles
of honour and liberality, it is impossible that the tenant should
not feel disposed to gratify his landlord, so far as shall be
compatible with his own notions of moral rectitude, or the
paramount interests of the society of which he is a member.
If the proprietor of any extensive allotment of land does not let
it out in farms, but retains it under his own direction, he must
employ a great number of husbandmen and labourers; and over them
he must be expected to exercise the same sort of influence, as
under the former statement we supposed him to exercise over his
tenants.
The same principle will still operate wherever any one man in
society is engaged in the expenditure of a considerable capital.
The manufacturer will possess the same influence over his
workmen, as the landed proprietor over his tenants or labourers.
Even the person who possesses considerable opulence, and has no
intention to engage in the pursuits of profit or accumulation,
will have an ample retinue, and will be enabled to use the same
species of influence over his retainers and trades-people, as the
landlord exercises over his tenants and labourers, and the
manufacturer over his workmen.
A certain degree of this species of influence in society, is
perhaps not to be excepted against. The possessor of opulence in
whatever form, may be expected to have received a superior
education, and, being placed at a certain distance from the
minuter details and the lesser wheels in the machine of society,
to have larger and more expansive views as to the interests of
the whole. It is good that men in different ranks of society
should be brought into intercourse with each other; it will
subtract something from the prejudices of both, and enable each
to obtain some of the advantages of the other. The division of
rank is too much calculated to split society into parties having
a certain hostility to each other. In a free state we are all
citizens: it is desirable that we should all be friends.
But this species of influence may be carried too far. To a
certain extent it is good. Inasmuch as it implies the
enlightening one human understanding by the sparks struck out
from another, or even the communication of feelings between man
and man, this is not to be deprecated. Some degree of courteous
compliance and deference of the ignorant to the better informed,
is inseparable from the existence of political society as we
behold it; such a deference as we may conceive the candid and
conscientious layman to pay to the suggestions of his honest and
disinterested pastor.
Every thing however that is more than this, is evil. There
should be no peremptory mandates, and no threat or apprehension
of retaliation and mischief to follow, if the man of inferior
station or opulence should finally differ in opinion from his
wealthier neighbour. We may admit of a moral influence; but
there must be nothing, that should in the smallest degree border
on compulsion.
But it is unfortunately in the very nature of weak, erring and
fallible mortals, to make an ill use of the powers that are
confided to their discretion. The rich man in the wantonness of
his authority will not stop at moral influence, but, if he is
disappointed of his expectation by what he will call my
wilfulness and obstinacy, will speedily find himself impelled to
vindicate his prerogative, and to punish my resistance. In every
such disappointment he will discern a dangerous precedent, and
will apprehend that, if I escape with impunity, the whole of that
ascendancy, which he has regarded as one of the valuable
privileges contingent to his station, will be undermined.
Opulence has two ways of this grosser sort, by which it may
enable its possessor to command the man below him,--punishment
and reward. As the holder, for example, of a large landed
estate, or the administrator of an ample income, may punish the
man who shews himself refractory to his will, so he may also
reward the individual who yields to his suggestions. This, in
whatever form it presents itself, may be classed under the
general head of bribery.
The remedy for all this therefore, real or potential, mischief,
is said to lie in the vote by ballot, a contrivance, by means of
which every man shall be enabled to give his vote in favour of or
against any candidate that shall be nominated, in absolute
secrecy, without it being possible for any one to discover on
which side the elector decided,--nay, a contrivance, by which the
elector is invited to practise mystery and concealment, inasmuch
as it would seem an impertinence in him to speak out, when the
law is expressly constructed to bid him act and be silent. If he
speaks, he is guilty of a sort of libel on his brother-electors,
who are hereby implicitly reproached by him for their
impenetrableness and cowardice.
We are told that the institution of the ballot is indispensible
to the existence of a free state, in a country where the goods of
fortune are unequally distributed. In England, as the right of
sending members to parliament is apportioned at the time I am
writing, the power of electing is bestowed with such glaring
inequality, and the number of electors in many cases is so
insignificant, as inevitably to give to the noble and the rich
the means of appointing almost any representatives they think
fit, so that the house of commons may more justly be styled the
nominees of the upper house, than the deputies of the nation.
And it is further said, Remedy this inequality as much as you
please, and reform the state of the representation to whatever
degree, still, so long as the votes at elections are required to
be given openly, the reform will be unavailing, and the essential
part of the mischief will remain. The right of giving our votes
in secrecy, is the only remedy that can cut off the ascendancy of
the more opulent members of the community over the rest, and give
us the substance of liberty, instead of cheating us with the
shadow.
On the other side I would beg the reader to consider, that the
vote by ballot, in its obvious construction, is not the symbol of
liberty, but of slavery. What is it, that presents to every eye
the image of liberty, and compels every heart to confess, This is
the temple where she resides? An open front, a steady and
assured look, an habitual and uninterrupted commerce between the
heart and the tongue. The free man communicates with his
neighbour, not in corners and concealed places, but in
market-places and scenes of public resort; and it is thus that
the sacred spark is caught from man to man, till all are inspired
with a common flame. Communication and publicity are of the
essence of liberty; it is the air they breathe; and without it
they die.
If on the contrary I would characterise a despotism, I should
say, It implied a certain circumference of soil, through whose
divisions and districts every man suspected his neighbour, where
every man was haunted with the terror that "walls have ears," and
only whispered his discontent, his hopes and his fears, to the
trees of the forest and the silent streams. If the dwellers on
this soil consulted together, it would be in secret cabals and
with closed doors; engaging in the sacred cause of public welfare
and happiness, as if it were a thing of guilt, which the
conspirator scarcely ventured to confess to his own heart.
A shrewd person of my acquaintance the other day, to whom I
unadvisedly proposed a question as to what he thought of some
public transaction, instantly replied with symptoms of alarm, "I
beg to say that I never disclose my opinions upon matters either
of religion or politics to any one." What did this answer imply
as to the political government of the country where it was given?
Is it characteristic of a free state or a tyranny?
One of the first and highest duties that falls to the lot of a
human creature, is that which he owes to the aggregate of
reasonable beings inhabiting what he calls his country. Our
duties are then most solemn and elevating, when they are
calculated to affect the well being of the greatest number of
men; and of consequence what a patriot owes to his native soil is
the noblest theatre for his moral faculties. And shall we teach
men to discharge this debt in the dark? Surely every man ought
to be able to "render a reason of the hope that is in him," and
give a modest, but an assured, account of his political conduct.
When he approaches the hustings at the period of a public
election, this is his altar, where he sacrifices in the face of
men to that deity, which is most worth his adoration of all the
powers whose single province is our sublunary state.
But the principle of the institution of ballot is to teach men to
perform their best actions under the cloke of concealment. When
I return from giving my vote in the choice of a legislative
representative, I ought, if my mode of proceeding were regulated
by the undebauched feelings of our nature, to feel somewhat proud
that I had discharged this duty, uninfluenced, uncorrupted, in
the sincere frame of a conscientious spirit. But the institution
of ballot instigates me carefully to conceal what I have done.
If I am questioned respecting it, the proper reply which is as it
were put into my mouth is, "You have no right to ask me; and I
shall not tell." But, as every man does not recollect the proper
reply at the moment it is wanted, and most men feel abashed, when
a direct question is put to them to which they know they are not
to return a direct answer, many will stammer and feel confused,
will perhaps insinuate a falshood, while at the same time their
manner to a discerning eye will, in spite of all their
precautions, disclose the very truth.
The institution of ballot not only teaches us that our best
actions are those which we ought most steadily to disavow, but
carries distrust and suspicion into all our most familiar
relations. The man I want to deceive, and throw out in the
keenness of his hunting, is my landlord. But how shall I most
effectually conceal the truth from him? May I be allowed to tell
it to my wife or my child? I had better not. It is a known
maxim of worldly prudence, that the truth which may be a source
of serious injury to me, is safest, when it is shut up in my own
bosom. If I once let it out, there is no saying where the
communication may stop. "Day unto day uttereth speech; and night
unto night sheweth forth knowledge."
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