and exiled, from this world of reafon, and order, and. peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madnefs, difcord, vice, confufion, and unavailing forrow.-Reflections on the Revolution in France. SOCIETY. Origin of Laws in civil Society, and Difficulties WE found, or we thought we found, an inconve, nience in having every man the judge of his own caufe. Therefore judges were fet up, at firft with difcretionary powers. But it was foon found a mi ferable flavery to have our lives and properties precarious, and hanging upon the arbitrary determination of any one man, or fet of men. We flew to, laws as a remedy for this evil. By thefe we perfuaded ourselves we might know with fome certainty upon what ground we ftood. But lo! differences arofe upon the fenfe and interpretation of these laws. Thus we were brought back to our old incertitude. New laws were made to expound the old; and new difficulties arofe upon the new laws; as words mul tiplied, opportunities of cavilling upon them multiplied alfo. Then recourfe was had to notes, comments, gloffes, reports, refponfa prudentum, learned readings: eagle flood againft eagle; authority was fet up against authority. Some were allured by the modern, others reverenced the ancient. The new were more enlightened, the old were more venerable.' Some adopted the comments, others ftuck to the text. The confufion encreased, the mift thickened, until it could be discovered no longer what was allowed or forbidden, what things were in property, and what common. In this uncertainty, (uncertain even to the profeffors, an Egyptian darknefs to the reft of mankind) the contending parties felt themfelves more effectually ruined by the delay than they could have been by the injuftice of any decifion. Our inheritances are become a prize for disputation; and difputes and litigations are become an inheritance. Vindication of Natural Society. SOCIETY. Artificial Divifion of Mankind into feparate Societies a perpetual Source of Hatred. It is no less worth obferving, that this artificial divifion of mankind, into feparate focieties, is a perpetual fource in itself of hatred and diffention among them. The names which distinguish them are enough to blow up hatred and rage. Examine hiftory; confult prefent experience; and you will find, that far the greater part of the quarrels between feveral nations were different combinations of people, and called by different names;-to an Englishman the name of a Frenchman, a Spaniard, an Italian, much more a Turk, or a Tartar, raife of courfe ideas of hatred, and contempt. If you would infpire this compatriot of ours with pity or regard, for one of thefe, would you not hide that diftinction? You would not pray him to compaffionate the poor Frenchman, or the unhappy German. Far from it; you would fpeak of him as a foreigner, an accident to which all are liable. You would reprefent him as a man; one partaking with us of the fame common nature, and fubject to the fame law. There is fomething fo averfe from our nature in these artificial political diftinctions, that we need no other trumpet to kindle us to war and deftruction. But there is fomething fo benign and healing in the general voice of humanity, that maugre all our regulations to prevent it, the fimple name of man applied properly, never fails to work a falutary effe&t.—Ibid. BB SOCIETY. The most obvious Divifion of Society into rich and poor. State of the latter defcribed. (See RICH.) THE most obvious divifion of fociety is into rich and poor; and it is no less obvious, that the number of the former bear a great difproportion to thofe of the latter. The whole bufinefs of the poor is to adminilter to the idlenefs, folly, and luxury of the rich; and that of the rich, in return, is to find the best methods of confirming the flavery and increafing the burthens of the poor. In a ftate of nature, it is an invariable law, that a man's acquifitions are in proportion to his labours. In a ftate of artificial fociety, it is a law as conftant and as invariable, that those who labour moft, enjoy the fewest things; and that thofe who labour not at all, have the greatest number of enjoyments. A conftitution of things this, ftrange and ridiculous beyond expreffion. We fcarce believe a thing when we are told it, which we actually fee before our eyes every day without being in the leaft furprized. I fuppofe that there are in GreatBritain upwards of an hundred thousand people employed in lead, tin, iron, copper, and coal mines; thefe unhappy wretches fcarce ever fee the light of the fun; they are buried in the bowels of the earth; there they work at a fevere and difmal tafk, without the leaft profpect of being delivered from it; they fubfift upon the coarfeft and worft fort of fare; they have their health miferably impaired, and their lives cut fhort, by being perpetually confined in the clofe vapour of these malignant minerals. An hundred thousand more at least are tortured without remiffion by the fuffocating fmoak, intenfe fires, and conftant drudgery neceffary in refining and managing the products of thofe mines. If any man informed us that two hundred thousand innocent perfons were condemned to fo intolerable flavery, how fhould we pity the unhappy fufferers, and how great would be our juft indignation against thofe who inflicted fo cruel and ignominious a punifhment? This is an inftance, I could not wifh a ftronger, of the numberlefs things which we pafs by in their common dress, yet which fhock us when they are nakedly repre fented. But this number, confiderable as it is, and the flavery, with all its baseness and horror, which we have at home, is nothing to what the reft of the world affords of the fame nature. Millions daily bathed in the poisonous damps and deftructive effluvia of lead, filver, copper, and arfenic. To fay nothing of those other employments, thofe ftations of wretchednefs and contempt in which civil fociety has placed the numerous enfans perdus of her army. -Ibid. SOCIETY. Natural and Artificial Society defined. In the ftate of nature, without queftion, mankind was fubjected to many and great inconveniencies. Want of union, want of mutual affiftance, want of a common arbitrator to refort to in their differences. Thefe were evils which they could not but have felt pretty feverely on many occafions. The original children of the earth lived with their brethren of the other kinds in much equality. Their diet muft have been confined almoft wholly to the vegetable kind; and the fame tree, which in its flouriflring ftate produced them berries, in its decay gave them an habitation. The mutual defires of the fexes uniting their bodies and affections, and the children, which were the results of thefe intercourfes, introduced first the notion of fociety, and taught its conveniencies. This fociety, founded in natural appetites and inftincts, and not in any pofitive inftitution, I fhall call natural fociety. Thus far nature went and fucceeded; but man would go farther. The great error of our nature is, not to know where to stop, not to be fatisfied with any reasonable acquirement} not to compound with our condition; but to lofe all we have gained by an infatiable pursuit after more. Man found a confiderable advantage by this union of many perfons to form one family; he therefore judged that he would find his account proportionably in an union of many families into one body politic. And as nature has formed no bond of union to hold them together, he fupplied this defect by laws. This is political fociety. And hence the fources of what are ufually called ftates, civil focieties, or governments; into fome form of which, more extended or restrained, all mankind have gradually fallen.-Ibid. SOCIETY. Requires that the Paffions fhould be fubjected. SOCIETY requires not only that the paffions of individuals fhould be fubjected, but that even in the mals and body as well as in the individuals, the inclinations of men fhould frequently be thwarted, their will controlled, and their paffions brought into fubjection. This can only be done by a power out of themfelves; and not, in the exercife of its function, fubject to that will and to those paffions which it is its office to bridle and fubdue. In this fenfe the restraints on men, as well as their liberties, are to be reckoned among their rights. But as the liberties and the restrictions vary with times and circumftances, and admit of infinite modifications, they cannot be fettled upon any abstract rule; and nothing is fo foolish as to difcufs them upon that principle.Reflections on the Revolution in France. SOCIETY, (POLITICAL.) سکے گی Juftly chargeable with much the greatest part of the Deftruction of the Species. To give the fairest play to every fide of the quef tion, I will own that there is a haughtiness, and fierce |