24.3. 3. That a moderate Government is most agreeable to the Christian
Religion, and a despotic Government to the Mahometan.
The Christian
religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so
frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic
rage with which a prince punishes his subjects, and exercises himself in
cruelty.
As this religion forbids the plurality of wives, its princes are
less confined, less concealed from their subjects, and consequently have
more humanity: they are more disposed to be directed by laws, and more
capable of perceiving that they cannot do whatever they please.
While the Mahometan princes incessantly give or receive death, the
religion of the Christians renders their princes less timid, and
consequently less cruel. The prince confides in his subjects, and the
subjects in the prince. How admirable the religion which, while it only
seems to have in view the felicity of the other life, continues the
happiness of this!
It is the Christian religion that, in spite of the extent of the
empire and the influence of the climate, has hindered despotic power
from being established in Ethiopia, and has carried into the heart of
Africa the manners and laws of Europe.
The heir to the empire of Ethiopia
[2]
enjoys a principality and
gives to other subjects an example of love and obedience. Not far thence
may we see the Mahometan shutting up the children of the King of Sennar,
at whose death the council sends to murder them, in favour of the prince
who mounts the throne.
Let us set before our eyes, on the one hand, the continual massacres
of the kings and generals of the Greeks and Romans, and, on the other,
the destruction of people and cities by those famous conquerors Timur
Beg and Jenghiz Khan, who ravaged Asia, and we shall see that we owe to
Christianity, in government, a certain political law; and in war, a
certain law of nations — benefits which human nature can never
sufficiently acknowledge.
It is owing to this law of nations that among us victory leaves
these great advantages to the conquered, life, liberty, laws, wealth,
and always religion, when the conqueror is not blind to his own
interest.
We may truly say that the people of Europe are not at present more
disunited than the people and the armies, or even the armies among
themselves were, under the Roman empire when it had become a despotic
and military government. On the one hand, the armies engaged in war
against each other, and, on the other, they pillaged the cities, and
divided or confiscated the lands.
Footnotes
[2]
"Description of Ethiopia," by M. Ponce, Physician. "Edifying
Letters," coll. iv, p. 290.
