This evil exists everywhere; the four elements of nature conspire4 to form it. The barrenness of one-quarter part of the world, the numberless diseases to which we are subject, the multitude of strong and hostile animals by which we are surrounded, oblige us to be constantly on the alert in body and in mind, to guard against the various forms of evil.
No man, by his own individual care and exertion5, can secure himself from evil; he requires assistance. Society therefore is as ancient as the world. This society consists sometimes of too many, and sometimes of too few. The vicissitudes6 of the world have often destroyed whole races of men and other animals, in many countries, and have multiplied them in others.
To enable a species to multiply, a tolerable climate and soil are necessary; and even with these advantages, men may be under the necessity of going unclothed, of suffering hunger, of being destitute7 of everything, and of perishing in misery8.
Men are not like beavers9, or bees, or silk-worms; they have no sure and infallible instinct which procures10 for them necessaries. Among a hundred men, there is scarcely one that possesses genius; and among women, scarcely one among five hundred.
It is only by means of genius that those arts are invented, which eventually furnish something of that accommodation which is the great object of all policy.
To attempt these arts with success, the assistance of others is requisite11; hands to aid you, and minds sufficiently12 acute and unprejudiced to comprehend you, and sufficiently docile13 to obey you. Before, however, all this can be discovered and brought together, thousands of years roll on in ignorance and barbarism; thousands of efforts for improvement terminate only in abortion14. At length, the outlines of an art are formed, but thousands of ages are still requisite to carry it to perfection.
Foreign Policy.
When any one nation has become acquainted with metallurgy, it will certainly beat its neighbors and make slaves of them. You possess arrows and sabres, and were born in a climate that has rendered you robust15. We are weak, and have only clubs and stones. You kill us, or if you permit us to live, it is that we may till your fields and build your houses. We sing some rustic16 ditty to dissipate your spleen or animate17 your languor18, if we have any voice; or we blow on some pipes, in order to obtain from you clothing and bread. If our wives and daughters are handsome, you appropriate them without scruple19 to yourselves. The young gentleman, your son, not only takes advantage of the established policy, but adds new discoveries to this growing art. His servants proceed, by his orders, to emasculate my unfortunate boys, whom he then honors with the guardianship20 of his wives and mistresses. Such has been policy, the great art of making mankind contribute to individual advantage and enjoyment21; and such is still policy throughout the largest portion of Asia.
Some nations, or rather hordes22, having thus by superior strength and skill brought into subjection others, begin afterwards to fight with one another for the division of the spoil. Each petty nation maintains and pays soldiers. To encourage, and at the same time to control these soldiers, each possesses its gods, its oracles23, and prophecies; each maintains and pays its soothsayers and slaughtering24 priests. These soothsayers or augurs25 begin with prophesying26 in favor of the heads of the nation; they afterwards prophesy27 for themselves and obtain a share in the government. The most powerful and shrewd prevail at last over the others, after ages of carnage which excite our horror, and of impostures which excite our laughter. Such is the regular course and completion of policy.
While these scenes of ravage28 and fraud are carried on in one portion of the globe, other nations, or rather clans29, retire to mountain caverns30, or districts surrounded by inaccessible31 swamps, marshes32, or some verdant33 and solitary34 spot in the midst of vast deserts of burning sand, or some peninsular and consequently easily protected territory, to secure themselves against the tyrants35 of the continent. At length all become armed with nearly the same description of weapons; and blood flows from one extremity36 of the world to the other.
Men, however, cannot forever go on killing37 one another; and peace is consequently made, till either party thinks itself sufficiently strong to recommence the war. Those who can write draw up these treaties of peace; and the chiefs of every nation, with a view more successfully to impose upon their enemies, invoke38 the gods to attest39 with what sincerity40 they bind41 themselves to the observance of these compacts. Oaths of the most solemn character are invented and employed, and one party engages in the name of the great Somonocodom, and the other in that of Jupiter the Avenger42, to live forever in peace and amity43; while in the same names of Somonocodom and Jupiter, they take the first opportunity of cutting one another’s throats.
In times of the greatest civilization and refinement44, the lion of ?sop45 made a treaty with three animals, who were his neighbors. The object was to divide the common spoil into four equal parts. The lion, for certain incontestable and satisfactory reasons which he did not then deem it necessary to detail, but which he would be always ready to give in due time and place, first takes three parts out of the four for himself, and then threatens instant strangulation to whoever shall dare to touch the fourth. This is the true sublime46 of policy.
Internal Policy.
The object here is to accumulate for our own country the greatest quantity of power, honor, and enjoyment possible. To attain these in any extraordinary degree, much money is indispensable. In a democracy it is very difficult to accomplish this object. Every citizen is your rival; a democracy can never subsist3 but in a small territory. You may have wealth almost equal to your wishes through your own mercantile dealings, or transmitted in patrimony47 from your industrious48 and opulent grandfather; your fortune will excite jealousy49 and envy, but will purchase little real co-operation and service. If an affluent50 family ever bears sway in a democracy, it is not for a long time.
In an aristocracy, honors, pleasures, power, and money, are more easily obtainable. Great discretion51, however, is necessary. If abuse is flagrant, revolution will be the consequence. Thus in a democracy all the citizens are equal. This species of government is at present rare, and appears to but little advantage, although it is in itself natural and wise. In aristocracy, inequality or superiority makes itself sensibly felt; but the less arrogant52 its demeanor53, the more secure and successful will be its course.
Monarchy54 remains55 to be mentioned. In this, all mankind are made for one individual: he accumulates all honors with which he chooses to decorate himself, tastes all pleasures to which he feels an inclination56, and exercises a power absolutely without control; provided, let it be remembered, that he has plenty of money. If he is deficient57 in that, he will be unsuccessful at home as well as abroad, and will soon be left destitute of power, pleasures, honors, and perhaps even of life.
While this personage has money, not only is he successful and happy himself, but his relations and principal servants are flourishing in full enjoyment also; and an immense multitude of hirelings labor58 for them the whole year round, in the vain hope that they shall themselves, some time or other, enjoy in their cottages the leisure and comfort which their sultans and pashas enjoy in their harems. Observe, however, what will probably happen.
A jolly, full-fed farmer was formerly59 in possession of a vast estate, consisting of fields, meadows, vineyards, orchards60, and forests. A hundred laborers61 worked for him, while he dined with his family, drank his wine, and went to sleep. His principal domestics, who plundered62 him, dined next, and ate up nearly everything. Then came the laborers, for whom there was left only a very meagre and insufficient63 meal. They at first murmured, then openly complained, speedily lost all patience, and at last ate up the dinner prepared for their master, and turned him out of his house. The master said they were a set of scoundrels, a pack of undutiful and rebellious64 children who assaulted and abused their own father. The laborers replied that they had only obeyed the sacred law of nature, which he had violated. The dispute was finally referred to a soothsayer in the neighborhood, who was thought to be actually inspired. The holy man takes the farm into his own hands, and nearly famishes both the laborers and the master; till at length their feelings counteract65 their superstition66, and the saint is in the end expelled in his turn. This is domestic policy.
There have been more examples than one of this description; and some consequences of this species of policy still subsist in all their strength. We may hope that in the course of ten or twelve thousand ages, when mankind become more enlightened, the great proprietors67 of estates, grown also more wise, will on the one hand treat their laborers rather better, and on the other take care not to be duped by soothsayers.
点击收听单词发音
1 attain | |
vt.达到,获得,完成 | |
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2 procure | |
vt.获得,取得,促成;vi.拉皮条 | |
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3 subsist | |
vi.生存,存在,供养 | |
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4 conspire | |
v.密谋,(事件等)巧合,共同导致 | |
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5 exertion | |
n.尽力,努力 | |
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6 vicissitudes | |
n.变迁,世事变化;变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 );盛衰兴废 | |
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7 destitute | |
adj.缺乏的;穷困的 | |
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8 misery | |
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦 | |
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9 beavers | |
海狸( beaver的名词复数 ); 海狸皮毛; 棕灰色; 拼命工作的人 | |
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10 procures | |
v.(努力)取得, (设法)获得( procure的第三人称单数 );拉皮条 | |
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11 requisite | |
adj.需要的,必不可少的;n.必需品 | |
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12 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
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13 docile | |
adj.驯服的,易控制的,容易教的 | |
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14 abortion | |
n.流产,堕胎 | |
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15 robust | |
adj.强壮的,强健的,粗野的,需要体力的,浓的 | |
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16 rustic | |
adj.乡村的,有乡村特色的;n.乡下人,乡巴佬 | |
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17 animate | |
v.赋于生命,鼓励;adj.有生命的,有生气的 | |
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18 languor | |
n.无精力,倦怠 | |
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19 scruple | |
n./v.顾忌,迟疑 | |
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20 guardianship | |
n. 监护, 保护, 守护 | |
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21 enjoyment | |
n.乐趣;享有;享用 | |
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22 hordes | |
n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 );部落 | |
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23 oracles | |
神示所( oracle的名词复数 ); 神谕; 圣贤; 哲人 | |
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24 slaughtering | |
v.屠杀,杀戮,屠宰( slaughter的现在分词 ) | |
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25 augurs | |
n.(古罗马的)占兆官( augur的名词复数 );占卜师,预言者v.预示,预兆,预言( augur的第三人称单数 );成为预兆;占卜 | |
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26 prophesying | |
v.预告,预言( prophesy的现在分词 ) | |
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27 prophesy | |
v.预言;预示 | |
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28 ravage | |
vt.使...荒废,破坏...;n.破坏,掠夺,荒废 | |
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29 clans | |
宗族( clan的名词复数 ); 氏族; 庞大的家族; 宗派 | |
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30 caverns | |
大山洞,大洞穴( cavern的名词复数 ) | |
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31 inaccessible | |
adj.达不到的,难接近的 | |
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32 marshes | |
n.沼泽,湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
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33 verdant | |
adj.翠绿的,青翠的,生疏的,不老练的 | |
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34 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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35 tyrants | |
专制统治者( tyrant的名词复数 ); 暴君似的人; (古希腊的)僭主; 严酷的事物 | |
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36 extremity | |
n.末端,尽头;尽力;终极;极度 | |
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37 killing | |
n.巨额利润;突然赚大钱,发大财 | |
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38 invoke | |
v.求助于(神、法律);恳求,乞求 | |
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39 attest | |
vt.证明,证实;表明 | |
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40 sincerity | |
n.真诚,诚意;真实 | |
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41 bind | |
vt.捆,包扎;装订;约束;使凝固;vi.变硬 | |
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42 avenger | |
n. 复仇者 | |
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43 amity | |
n.友好关系 | |
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44 refinement | |
n.文雅;高尚;精美;精制;精炼 | |
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45 sop | |
n.湿透的东西,懦夫;v.浸,泡,浸湿 | |
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46 sublime | |
adj.崇高的,伟大的;极度的,不顾后果的 | |
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47 patrimony | |
n.世袭财产,继承物 | |
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48 industrious | |
adj.勤劳的,刻苦的,奋发的 | |
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49 jealousy | |
n.妒忌,嫉妒,猜忌 | |
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50 affluent | |
adj.富裕的,富有的,丰富的,富饶的 | |
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51 discretion | |
n.谨慎;随意处理 | |
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52 arrogant | |
adj.傲慢的,自大的 | |
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53 demeanor | |
n.行为;风度 | |
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54 monarchy | |
n.君主,最高统治者;君主政体,君主国 | |
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55 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
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56 inclination | |
n.倾斜;点头;弯腰;斜坡;倾度;倾向;爱好 | |
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57 deficient | |
adj.不足的,不充份的,有缺陷的 | |
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58 labor | |
n.劳动,努力,工作,劳工;分娩;vi.劳动,努力,苦干;vt.详细分析;麻烦 | |
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59 formerly | |
adv.从前,以前 | |
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60 orchards | |
(通常指围起来的)果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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61 laborers | |
n.体力劳动者,工人( laborer的名词复数 );(熟练工人的)辅助工 | |
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62 plundered | |
掠夺,抢劫( plunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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63 insufficient | |
adj.(for,of)不足的,不够的 | |
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64 rebellious | |
adj.造反的,反抗的,难控制的 | |
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65 counteract | |
vt.对…起反作用,对抗,抵消 | |
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66 superstition | |
n.迷信,迷信行为 | |
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67 proprietors | |
n.所有人,业主( proprietor的名词复数 ) | |
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