No More Learning

Our modern
histories neglect this characteristic feature of ancient days; but the
rude chronicles of these ages inform us, that three or four times in
almost every reign was England thus visited. The failure of the crop was
then severely felt, and two bad harvests in succession were almost
insupportable. But commerce has now opened another scene, has armed
government with the happiest power that can be exerted by the rulers of
a nation--the power to prevent every extremity[29] which may possibly
arise from bad harvests; extremities, which, in former ages, were
esteemed more dreadful visitations of the wrath of Heaven than the
pestilence itself. Yet modern London is not so certainly defended
against the latter, its ancient visitor, than the commonwealth by the
means of commerce, under a just and humane government, is secured
against the ravages of the former. If, from these great outlines of the
happiness enjoyed by a commercial over an uncommercial nation, we turn
our eyes to the manners, the advantages will be found no less in favour
of the civilized.

Whoever is inclined to declaim at the vices of the present age, let him
read, and be convinced, that the Gothic ages were less virtuous. If the
spirit of chivalry prevented effeminacy, it was the foster-father of a
ferocity of manners now happily unknown. Rapacity, avarice, and
effeminacy are the vices ascribed to the increase of commerce; and in
some degree, it must be confessed, they follow her steps. Yet infinitely
more dreadful, as every palatinate in Europe often felt, were the
effects of the two first under the feudal lords than can possibly be
experienced under any system of trade. The virtues and vices of human
nature are the same in every age: they only receive different
modifications, and are dormant, or awakened into action, under different
circumstances. The feudal lord had it infinitely more in his power to be
rapacious than the merchant. And whatever avarice may attend the trader,
his intercourse with the rest of mankind lifts him greatly above that
brutish ferocity which actuates the savage, often the rustic, and in
general characterizes the ignorant part of mankind. The abolition of the
feudal system, a system of absolute slavery, and that equality of
mankind which affords the protection of property, and every other
incitement to industry, are the glorious gifts which the spirit of
commerce, awakened by Prince Henry of Portugal, has bestowed upon Europe
in general; and, as if directed by the manes of his mother, a daughter
of England, upon the British empire in particular. In the vice of
effeminacy alone, perhaps, do we exceed our ancestors; yet, even here we
have infinitely the advantage over them. The brutal ferocity of former
ages is now lost, and the general mind is humanized.
The savage breast
is the native soil of revenge; a vice, of all others, peculiarly stamped
with the character of hell. But the mention of this was reserved for the
character of the savages of Europe. The savage of every country is
implacable when injured; but among some, revenge has its measure. When
an American Indian is murdered his kindred pursue the murderer; and, as
soon as blood has atoned for blood, the wilds of America hear the
hostile parties join in their mutual lamentations over the dead, whom,
as an oblivion of malice, they bury together. But the measure of
revenge, never to be full, was left for the demi-savages of Europe. The
vassals of the feudal lord entered into his quarrels with the most
inexorable rage. Just or unjust was no consideration of theirs. It was a
family feud; no farther inquiry was made; and from age to age, the
parties, who never injured each other, breathed nothing but mutual
rancour and revenge. And actions, suitable to this horrid spirit,
everywhere confessed its virulent influence. Such were the late days of
Europe, admired by the ignorant for the innocence of manners. Resentment
of injury, indeed, is natural; and there is a degree which is honest,
and though warm, far from inhuman. But if it is the hard task of
humanized virtue to preserve the feeling of an injury unmixed with the
slightest criminal wish of revenge, how impossible is it for the savage
to attain the dignity of forgiveness, the greatest ornament of human
nature. As in individuals, a virtue will rise into a vice, generosity
into blind profusion, and even mercy into criminal lenity, so civilized
manners will lead the opulent into effeminacy. But let it be considered,
this consequence is by no means the certain result of civilization.
Civilization, on the contrary, provides the most effectual preventive of
this evil. Where classical literature prevails the manly spirit which it
breathes must be diffused; whenever frivolousness predominates, when
refinement degenerates into whatever enervates the mind, literary
ignorance is sure to complete the effeminate character.