 | Essays moral, political, and literary |  |
Mons. Melon, in his political essay on commerce, asserts, that even at present, if you divide France into 20 parts, 16 are labourers or peasants; two only are artisans; one belonging to the law, church, and military; and one merchant, financiers, and bourgeois. This calculation is certainly very erroneous. In FRANCE, ENGLAND, and indeed most parts of EUROPE, half of the inhabitants live in cities; and even of those who live in the country, a great number are artizans, perhaps above a third.
Diod. Sic.iib.ii.5. This account, I own, is somewhat suspicious, not to say worse; chiefly because this army was not composed of citizens, but of mercenary forces.
Titi Livii, lib. vii. cap 25. 'Adeo in quae laboramus,' says he, 'sola crovimus, divitias luxuriemque.'
The more antient Romans lived in perpetual war with all their neighbours: and in old Latin, the term, hostis, expressed both a stranger and an enemy. This is remarked by Cicero; but by him is ascribed to the humanity of his ancestors, who softened, as much as possible, the denomination of an enemy, by calling him by the same appellation which signified a stranger. De Off. lib. i.12.'Tis however much more probable, from the manners of the times, that the ferocity of those people was so great as to make them regard all strangers as enemies, and call them by the same name. It is not, besides, consistent with the most common maxims of policy or of nature, that any state should regard its public enemies with a friendly eye, or preserve any such sentiments for them as the Roman orator would ascribe to his ancestors. Not to mention, that the early Romans really exercised piracy, as we learn from their first treaties with Carthage, preserved by Polybius, lib. 3, and consequently like the Saller and Algerine rovers, were actually at war with most nations, and a stranger and an enemy were with them almost synonymous.
| Essays moral, political, and literary | |