13. CHAPTER XIII
OF THE ARISTOCRATICAL CHARACTER
Aristocracy, in its proper signification, is neither less nor more than
a scheme for rendering more permanent and visible, by the interference of
political institution, the inequality of mankind. Aristocracy, like monarchy,
is founded in falsehood, the offspring of art foreign to the real nature
of things, and must therefore, like monarchy, be supported by artifice and
false pretences. Its empire however is founded in principles more gloomy
and unsocial than those of monarchy. The monarch often thinks it advisable
to employ blandishments and courtship with his barons and officers; but the
lord deems it sufficient to rule with a rod of iron.
Both depend for their perpetuity upon ignorance. Could they, like Omar,
destroy the productions of profane reasoning, and persuade mankind that the
Alcoran contained everything which it became them to study, they might then
renew their lease of empire. But here again aristocracy displays its superior
harshness. Monarchy admits of a certain degree of monkish learning among
its followers. But aristocracy holds a stricter hand. Should the lower ranks
of society once come to be generally able to write and read, its power would
be at an end. To make men serfs and villains, it is indispensibly necessary
to make them brutes. This is a question which has long been canvassed with
eagerness and avidity. The resolute advocates of the old system have, with
no contemptible foresight, opposed the communication of knowledge as a most
alarming innovation. In their well known observation 'that a servant who
has been taught to write and read ceases to be any longer the passive machine
they require', is contained the embryo from which it would be easy to explain
the whole philosophy of European society.
And who is there that can ponder with unruffled thoughts the injurious
contrivances of these self-centred usurpers, contrivances the purpose of
which is to retain the human species in a state of endless degradation? It
is in the subjects we are here examining that the celebrated maxim of 'many
made for one' is brought to the test. Those reasoners were, no doubt, 'wise
in their generation', who two centuries ago conceived alarm at the blasphemous
doctrine 'that government was instituted for the benefit of the governed,
and, if it proposed to itself any other object, was no better than an usurpation'.
It will perpetually be found that the men who, in every age, have been the
earliest to give the alarm of innovation, and have been ridiculed on that
account as bigoted and timid, were, in reality, persons of more than common
discernment, who saw, though but imperfectly, in the rude principle, the
inferences to which it inevitably led. It is time that men of reflection
should choose between the two sides of the alternative: either to go back,
fairly and without reserve, to the primitive principles of tyranny; or, adopting
any one of the maxims opposite to these, however neutral it may at first
appear, not feebly and ignorantly to shut their eyes upon the system of consequences
it draws along with it.
It is not necessary to enter into a methodical disquisition of the different
kinds of aristocracy, since, if the above reasonings have any force, they
are equally cogent against them all. Aristocracy may vest its prerogatives
principally in the individual, as in Poland; or restrict them to the nobles
in their corporate capacity, as in Venice. The former will be more tumultuous
and disorderly; the latter more jealous, intolerant and severe. The magistrates
may either recruit their body by election among themselves, as in Holland;
or by the choice of the people, as in ancient Rome.
The aristocracy of ancient Rome was incomparably the most venerable and
illustrious that ever existed. It may not therefore be improper to contemplate
in them the degree of excellence to which aristocracy may be raised. They
included in their institution some of the benefits of democracy, as, generally
speaking, no man became a member of the senate but in consequence of his
being elected by the people to the superior magistracies. It was reasonable
therefore to expect that the majority of the members would possess some degree
of capacity. They were not like modern aristocratical assemblies, in which,
as primogeniture, and not selection, decides upon their prerogatives, we
shall commonly seek in vain for capacity, except in a few of the lords of
recent creation. As the plebeians were long restrained from looking for candidates,
except among the patricians, that is, the posterity of senators, it was reasonable
to suppose that the most eminent talents would be confined to that order.
A circumstance which contributed to this was the monopoly of liberal education
and the cultivation of the mind, a monopoly which the invention of printing
has at length fully destroyed. Accordingly, all the great literary ornaments
of Rome were either patricians, or of the equestrian order, or their immediate
dependents. The plebeians, though, in their corporate capacity, they possessed,
for some centuries, the virtues of sincerity, intrepidity, love of justice
and of the public, could scarcely boast of any of those individual characters
in their part that reflect lustre on mankind, except the two Gracchi: while
the patricians told of Brutus, Valerius, Coriolanus, Cincinnatus, Camillus,
Fabricius, Regulus, the Fabii, the Decii, the Scipios, Lucullus, Marcellus,
Cato, Cicero and innumerable others. With this retrospect continually suggested
to their minds, it was almost venial for the stern heroes of Rome, and the
last illustrious martyrs of the republic, to entertain aristocratical sentiments.
Let us however consider impartially this aristocracy, so superior to any
other of ancient or modern times. Upon the first institution of the republic,
the people possessed scarcely any authority, except in the election of magistrates,
and even here their intrinsic importance was eluded by the mode of arranging
the assembly, so that the whole decision vested in the richer classes of
the community. No magistrates of any description were elected but from among
the patricians. All causes were judged by the patricians, and from their
judgement there was no appeal. The patricians intermarried among themselves,
and thus formed a republic of narrow extent, in the midst of the nominal
one, which was held by them in a state of abject servitude. The idea which
purified these usurpations in the minds of the usurpers was 'that the vulgar
are essentially coarse, grovelling and ignorant, and that there can be no
security for the empire of justice and consistency, but in the decided ascendancy
of the liberal'. Thus, even while they opposed the essential interests of
mankind, they were animated with public spirit and an unbounded enthusiasm
of virtue. But it is not less true that they did oppose the essential interests
of mankind. What can be more memorable in this respect than the declamations
of Appius Claudius, whether we consider the moral greatness of mind by which
they were dictated, or the cruel intolerance they were intended to enforce?
It is inexpressibly painful to see so much virtue, through successive ages,
employed in counteracting the justest requisitions. The result was that the
patricians, notwithstanding their immeasurable superiority in abilities,
were obliged to resign, one by one, the exclusions to which they clung. In
the interval they were led to have recourse to the most odious methods of
opposition; and every man among them contended who should be loudest in applause
of the nefarious murder of the Gracchi. If the Romans were distinguished
for so many virtues, constituted as they were, what might they not have been
but for the iniquity of aristocratical usurpation? The indelible blemish
of their history, the love of conquest, originated in the same cause. Their
wars, through every period of the republic, were nothing more than the contrivance
of the patricians, to divert their countrymen from attending to the sentiments
of political truth, by leading them to scenes of conquest and carnage. They
understood the art, common to all governments, of confounding the understandings
of the multitude, and persuading them that the most unprovoked hostilities
were merely the dictates of necessary defence.
Aristocracy, as we have already seen, is intimately connected with an
extreme inequality of possessions. No man can be a useful member of society
except so far as his talents are employed in a manner conducive to the general
advantage. In every society, the produce, the means of contributing to the
necessities and conveniences of its members, is of a certain amount. In every
society, the bulk at least of its members contribute by their personal exertions
to the creation of this produce. What can be more desirable and just than
that the produce itself should, with some degree of equality, be shared among
them? What more injurious than the accumulating upon a few every means of
superfluity and luxury, to the total destruction of the ease, and plain,
but plentiful subsistence of the many? It may be calculated that the king,
even of a limited monarchy, receives as the salary of his office, an income
equivalent to the labour of fifty thousand men.[1] Let us set out in our
estimate from this point, and figure to ourselves the shares of his counsellors,
his nobles, the wealthy commoners by whom the nobility will be emulated,
their kindred and dependents. Is it any wonder that, in such countries, the
lower orders of the community are exhausted by the hardships of penury and
immoderate fatigue? When we see the wealth of a province spread upon the
great man's table, can we be surprised that his neighbours have not bread
to satiate the cravings of hunger?
Is this a state of human beings that must be considered as the last improvement
of political wisdom? In such a state it is impossible that eminent virtue
should not be exceedingly rare. The higher and the lower classes will be
alike corrupted by their unnatural situation. But to pass over the higher
class for the present, what can be more evident than the tendency of want
to contract the intellectual powers? The situation which the wise man would
desire, for himself, and for those in whose welfare he was interested, would
be a situation of alternate labour and relaxation, labour that should not
exhaust the frame, and relaxation that was in no danger of degenerating into
indolence. Thus industry and activity would be cherished, the frame preserved
in a healthful tone, and the mind accustomed to meditation and improvement.
But this would be the situation of the whole human species if the supply
of our wants were fairly distributed. Can any system be more worthy of disapprobation
than that which converts nineteen-twentieths of them into beasts of burden,
annihilates so much thought, renders impossible so much virtue, and extirpates
so much happiness?
But it may be alleged 'that this argument is foreign to the subject of
aristocracy; the inequality of conditions being the inevitable consequence
of the institution of property'. It is true that many disadvantages have
hitherto flowed out of this institution, in the simplest form in which it
has yet existed; but these disadvantages, to whatever they may amount, are
greatly aggravated by the operations of aristocracy. Aristocracy turns the
stream of property out of its natural course, in following which it would
not fail to fructify and gladden, in turn at least, every division of the
community; and forwards, with assiduous care, its accumulation in the hands
of a very few persons.
At the same time that it has endeavoured to render the acquisition of
permanent property difficult, aristocracy has greatly increased the excitements
to that acquisition. All men are accustomed to conceive a thirst after distinction
and pre-eminence, but they do not all fix upon wealth as the object of this
passion, but variously upon skill in any particular art, grace, learning,
talents, wisdom and virtue. Nor does it appear that these latter objects
are pursued by their votaries with less assiduity than wealth pursued by
those who are anxious to acquire it. Wealth would be still less capable of
being mistaken for the universal passion, were it not rendered by political
institution, more than by its natural influence, the road to honour and respect.
There is no mistake more thoroughly to be deplored on this subject than
that of persons sitting at their ease and surrounded with all the conveniences
of life who are apt to exclaim, 'We find things very well as they are'; and
to inveigh bitterly against all projects of reform, as 'the romances of visionary
men, and the declamations of those who are never to be satisfied'. Is it
well that so large a part of the community should be kept in abject penury,
rendered stupid with ignorance, and disgustful with vice, perpetuated in
nakedness and hunger, goaded to the commission of crimes, and made victims
to the merciless laws which the rich have instituted to oppress them? Is
it sedition to enquire whether this state of things may not be exchanged
for a better? Or can there be anything more disgraceful to ourselves than
to exclaim that 'All is well', merely because we are at our ease, regardless
of the misery, degradation and vice that may be occasioned in others?
It is undoubtedly a pernicious mistake which has insinuated itself among
certain reformers that leads them the perpetual indulgence of acrimony and
resentment, and renders them too easily reconciled to projects of commotion
and violence. But, if we ought to be aware that mildness and an unbounded
philanthropy are the most effectual instruments of public welfare, it does
not follow that we are to shut our eyes upon the calamities that exist, or
to cease from the most ardent aspirations for their removal.
There is one argument to which the advocates of monarchy and aristocracy
always have recourse, when driven from every other pretence; the mischievous
nature of democracy. 'However imperfect the two former of these institutions
may be in themselves, they are found necessary,' we are told, 'as accommodations
to the imperfection of human nature.' It is for the reader who has considered
the arguments of the preceding chapters to decide how far it is probable
that circumstances can occur which should make it our duty to submit to these
complicated evils. Meanwhile let us proceed to examine that democracy of
which so alarming a picture has usually been exhibited.
[ [1]]
Taking the average price of labour at one shilling per diem.