Part 17

XXXVII. It may be also necessary to apprize the complaining gentlemen, that the rich, merely as rich people, are in some degree intitled to the respect that is shewn them. The blessing of the Lord, says Solomon in the Proverbs, makes men rich, so that riches is a gift from heaven, and such a gift, as according to the common estimation and opinion of the world, constitutes those who possess it worthy to be honoured and respected. St. Thomas affirms this to be the case in the following sentence: _Secundum vulgarem opinionem, excellentia divitiarum facit hominem dignum honore._ (22. quæst. 45. art. 1.) The common estimation in this particular, founds a right: and although that judgment should be erroneous, it would be prudent for us to wait till the world is undeceived, before we exempt ourselves from conforming to the usages of it. But this happy time will hardly ever arrive, till God, with his powerful hand, shall bend and incline the hearts of men to esteem virtue, and that only; though if this happy day should arrive, the nobility may probably find a falling-off in the estimation they are at present held in; for every one then, would be respected according to his own deeds, and not according to those of his ancestors. This mode of rating things, would be exceedingly beneficial to the state; for how well would it be served, and what good citizens would it consist of, if there was no other road but that of virtue, whereby to arrive at the public esteem! but as the case stands at present, the merit, or even the fortune of an individual, makes all his descendants glorious and honourable, and when those who succeed in that line, find that by virtue of their birth the public veneration is attached to their family, great numbers of them will consider themselves as excused from negotiating it by some honourable application.

XXXVIII. From hence I infer, that what is speciously urged in favour of the nobility, to wit, that it is just and right to reward in the descendants the virtue of their ancestors, although it may sound well in theory, will have but a bad effect in practice. If only personal virtue was to be rewarded, in the course of twenty descendants, there might probably be ten or a dozen of them, who would labour to acquire glory. But if the first of the twenty gains it for all the rest, he only would be useful to the state. He would serve the public, and the public would become the servants of all the rest.

SECT. IX.

XXXIX. What we have just said, was not intended as an objection against giving the preference to the nobility in appointments to places of dignity and honour, but was only meant, as an argument against their being conferred on them, as a reward for the merits of their ancestors. I do not oppose the thing, but the motive for doing it; for I am rather of opinion, the public utility, the advancement of which, and not rewarding the services of others, should be the leading consideration to direct in making those appointments, would be better answered, by prefering the nobleman to the person of inferior rank, not only in cases of equality of virtue between the parties, but also where their difference in birth is great, and the disproportion in point of virtue but small; and this, for four weighty and important reasons.

XL. The first is, you would avoid by this means, multiplying the number of priviledged persons within a state. If it was frequent and common, to fill posts of consequence with people of humble birth, because they were virtuous and able; as from the elevation of these, would result that of their posterity; in the course of a century and a half, you would create a great multitude of fresh nobility, which is extremely prejudicial to a community; because in proportion as you lessen the number of those, who should apply themselves to business, and the improvement and cultivation of land; you would lessen the assistance of useful people; or what is worse, you would over-load with the burden of the others, such as were dedicated to these employments.

XLI. The second is, because in posts of dignity, a nobleman is obeyed with more resignation, readiness, and good-will, than a person of humble extraction; which is a matter of great importance in every kind of government. What disturbances have been occasioned, by the repugnance men find in obeying the commands of him, who they saw yesterday wear a plain coarse coat, and they see to-day cloath’d with purple; their obedience is sometimes slow, at others ill exerted, and at others not performed at all. The love, or at least the interior condescension with which those who serve, obey him who commands, is extremely useful and necessary in every kind of business. Many fine projects have vanished in smoke, because the instruments appointed to apply the means of executing them, have, stimulated by an occult envy of their superior, wished they should not succeed.

The want of sufferance and condescension in the inferiors, is succeeded by abhorrence and hatred in him who commands, with respect to them; and when he and they, reciprocally come to regard each other as enemies, there is no sort of confusion and danger, that may not be considered as near at hand.

XLII. The third is, because it is much more to be apprehended, that the virtue of an humble person is feigned, than that of a nobleman. The vice of hypocrisy may be said to be allied, or in a manner annexed to narrow fortune; for poor people are under a necessity of concealing their defects; and are obliged, in order to better their lot, to have recourse to the trivial expedient, of putting on the semblance of virtue. On the contrary, opulence and illustrious birth, naturally give relief and enlargement to the mind. People that are ennobled, are generally what they appear to be, because neither necessity nor fear, obliges them to make ostentation of virtues they do not possess.

XLIII. The fourth and last is, that admitting there should not be the least doubt of the truth and reality of an humble man’s virtue, there is always great danger of his losing it by his exaltation. Great leaps of fortune are exceedingly perilous. Those from lofty stations downwards are very hazardous, because in consequence of them, the honour and properties of men may be dashed to pieces; but those from below upwards are more to be dreaded, for they are commonly attended with the destruction and loss of the soul. Every virtuous man, before he is raised from the dust to dignities, should find sureties for his continuing to act uprightly; for the soul by such a transition, is translated to a very different climate; and a very unwholesome one for customs and manners. Many have the seeds of various vices so deeply buried in their temperaments, as even to be concealed from their own eyes, till opportunities and occasions cause them to grow and sprout out. It is rare to find a man of low extraction, who is cruel and proud; and very rare to meet with one who is covetous; for he is so far from being excited by vices which he has no materials to supply the cravings of, that he scarce ever thinks of them; and how should he fix his attention on the superfluous, who is in want of what is precisely necessary for him? To find out whether such a person is tainted with the two first vices, you should place him in authority; and to discover whether he is infected with the third, you should give him a portion of riches. In fact, these three vices have been most frequently remarked in those, who were raised from humble to exalted fortune, although before their elevation, they did not shew the least signs of being tainted with them, or any others.

XLIV. For these reasons, I am of opinion, that a person of humble extraction, should never be preferred to a nobleman or man of family, to fill posts of dignity and honour, except, where the excess of virtue in the first shall be found to be very great. But in the military line, we should make an exception to this rule, for valour, and skill in the art of war, are requisites of great importance in executing and conducting military business; nor can they be lost by a man’s advancement, or counterfeited by hypocrisy. On the other hand, these endowments, for the purpose of exciting respect and obedience in those who are to be commanded, sufficiently supply the want of splendid origin in him who commands; and finally, a great warrior makes double amends to a state for the injury that is sustained by it, by planting therein a new stock of nobility. So that by adverting to these precautions, the four inconveniences we have pointed out would be avoided.

THE SEMBLANCE OF VIRTUE; OR, VIRTUE IN APPEARANCE.

SECT. I.

I. Virtue and Wickedness fly with nearly the same velocity from the human eye, and are both almost equally concealed from the discernment and penetration of mankind. The first lies hid under the veil of modesty, the second behind the parapet of hypocrisy. The vicious disguises himself with the colouring of virtue, the virtuous disdains and effaces all false tints or glosses.

II. The number of hypocrites in the world is much greater than is generally imagined. There is no vice so transcendant, for all bad people are hypocrites. This may seem a paradox, and you may say to me, are there no men who make parade and ostentation of vice? I answer yes, but not of all their vices. They endeavour by their boasting to hide their confusion, and discover that part of their soul which they are unable to conceal. They place a crown on the image of vice, in order to give dignity to the figure; and although arrogant wickedness is worse than timid, the last is despised, and the first feared. An unruly passion breaks down all the fences of reserve, and the delinquent, not being able to conceal his shame and disgrace by dissimulation, endeavours by his pride and arrogance to make himself dreaded. This is practising a new hypocrisy, with which he belies and endeavours to put a trick on his own conscience. The crime appears odious in his eyes, therefore by putting on a false semblance and air of gallantry, he attempts to dazzle the eyes of other people. To protect from public insult, him, who is a notorious bad man, no other method is so effectual, as that of openly exposing his faults to the world with daring impudence.

III. But observe attentively these very people, and you will find, that although they behave with this audacity, they at the very time they are doing it, endeavour to conceal other vices they are infected with, and also to make ostentation of virtues which they do not possess. They will own they are incontinent, prodigals, ambitious, and audacious; but they blazon their gratitude to their benefactors, their steadiness in their friendships, and their fidelity to their promises. It is certain, that the vice of ingratitude is one of the most common and most vulgarised in all the world; but with all this, you will not find any man who does not take pains to justify himself on this head; and I say the same of lying, of perfidy, and of other vices. It follows then, that upon a critical enquiry, you will not find a vicious man who is not a hypocrite. We should not suppose that open and avowed profligates, or debauchees, have no other blemishes, than such as shew themselves outwardly. There is no virtue such a man would not trample upon, if it was an impediment to his pursuits, nor an opposite vice to that virtue, which he would not employ as an instrument, to gratify his ruling passion. Do you think a very lewd man, for all the boastings of his innocence in matters of justice, and in points of _meum_ and _tuum_ honesty, would not, if he found himself without money of his own, make use of that of another person which was confided to his keeping, to purchase the enjoyment of his favourite object? or that the ardently ambitious man, for all the vociferations of his gratitude, would not turn his back on his benefactor, whenever this baseness would be a means of recommending him to the good graces of one, who could advance him to a higher degree of preferment, than it was in the power of his old friend to procure for him?

IV. So that it is very rare to find a perverse person, who, over and above those glaring vices which manifest themselves so palpably, is not tainted with others, which he affects to hide; and in case there do not predominate in him other passions besides those, which on account of their vehemence are so very conspicuous, these of themselves are sufficient to betray him into faults, which arise from, and are the offspring of other distinct passions, when the committing those faults is indispensably necessary for attaining the objects or purposes of the ruling passion. Alexander in his natural disposition, was certainly not a cruel man, notwithstanding which, he was guilty of cruel actions; for such were the putting to death his friend Clytus, and the philosopher Calisthenes. His predominant passions were vain-glory and pride. Clytus fell a victim to the first, for having preferred the actions of Alexander’s father Philip to his; and Calisthenes fell a victim to the last, for having deterred people from idolizing Alexander as the son of Jupiter.

V. Sometimes the false appearance of a vice is put on politically, or with a view of deriving some advantage from it. A man feigns himself vindictive, when in reality he is not so, in order that the fear of his vengeance may deter people from offending. This most frequently happens, when the vice affected is meritorious in the eyes of him who rules. Sejanus would never have obtained the favour of Tiberius, by appearing a lover of justice; nor Tigilinus, nor Petronius, that of Nero, by seeming modest and continent.

VI. It is probable, that from the motive of falling in with the humour of wayward and evil-minded princes, there have been politicians who were contradictory hypocrites, and have wore the semblance of vices which their natures revolted at; and what is worse, in order to prove they were tainted with them, have put a violence on their inclinations, and although it was with reluctance, have brought themselves to commit disorders which their dispositions abhorred. When people make a merit of delinquency, instead of that hypocrisy which is properly such on account of its counteracting virtue, they study another which is the reverse of it, because it feigns vice.

VII. But these very persons will affect to appear sincere, constant, grateful, and men of veracity. There never was any man, who was not desirous of dissembling or concealing those vices, which were opposite to the virtues, which constitute what is commonly called a good man, and therefore, the hypocrites who affect the shew of these virtues are innumerable.

VIII. I do not deny, that a man’s being more under the dominion of some vices than others, depends in a great measure on his constitution, which may be compared to a soil, where some passions take deeper root, and grow more vigorous than others. This man, without attempting to restrain it, suffers himself to be carried away by incontinence, but abhors cheating: another gives himself up to gluttony and drunkenness, but looks upon perfidy with horror and indignation. Thus it is; but his enmity to these vices, lasts no longer than till he has occasion for their assistance to indulge his passion for the others. Catiline, in the early part of his life, appeared to have no other passions than those of incontinence, ostentation, and prodigality; but these vices having reduced him to poverty, and he on that account not being able to continue his pursuits of them, formed the design of tyrannizing over the republic, in order to extricate himself from indigence. In consequence of this, he became ambitious, fierce, cruel, relentless, and perfidious.

IX. I am of opinion, that nobody should put much confidence in those, who are called good sort of men, if they see them much impressed with, or under the influence of particular passions. That vice which domineers over them, is to themselves the ultimate end or object, to which they direct all their attentions; or the idol, to which, if their occasions required it, they would sacrifice all other considerations. I do not pretend that there are no exceptions to this rule; the natural abhorrence of one vice, may predominate over the inclination to commit another. But I in all cases, and at all events, would sooner place my confidence in him, who from a religious fear of God has a regard to his conscience in all his actions, than in the man, who only from his natural disposition and temperament, or from a punctilio of honour, practises those virtues, which are commonly understood to constitute the character of what the world calls a good man; temperament lets go the rein, when the ruling passion becomes impetuous, and shews an eagerness to press forward; and honour loses its influence, when it is believed the commission of the bad act will not be known. The fear of God never ceases to operate.

X. The famous Magdalen Scudery, in her book, intituled, Moral Conversations, relates a remarkable story of a man, who risqued his life for a friend in three duels; but this friend afterwards, having occasion to beg he would lend him a small sum of money which he stood in need of, he refused to comply with his request. Who would believe, that a man who on repeated occasions, had hazarded his life for his friend, would have failed him in a thing of so much less consequence? He was both covetous and intrepid, but his avarice made him consider his life as less valuable than his money. His friendship contended with his ruling passion, and the last, as the most prevalent, pressed down and stifled the finer feelings.

XI. One of the greatest mistakes which men commit in their confidences, is that of trusting those, whom they have known to be unfaithful to others. This is an error which all men condemn, and which almost every one falls into. I confide my secret to him, who has recommended himself to my favour, by revealing that of another person. I give my friendship to the man, who in compliment to me has abandoned the patron who before protected him. This is the effect of our love for, and the superior conceit we entertain of ourselves. Every one fancies, that he has in himself a most powerful attraction, that will keep the heart of a person fixed and attached to him, who has been unfaithful to other people. He thinks, that it was the power of his singular merit, which made the man abandon his benefactor or friend, for the sake of allying himself to him. He is so full of his own consequence and rare qualities, that it never enters his imagination, nor does he even harbour the least suspicion, that this very person may see, or pretend to see, a higher degree of merit in another man, to which he might make the same sacrifice of his friendship. Princes and great men, whom the habit of being flattered is apt to make the most presumptuous, are those who are most liable to fall into this snare. How often do we see in courts, treachery rewarded with promotion! The maxim that we love the treason, but hate the traitor, is received by all the world in theory, but has very few votaries in practice. The traitor is displeasing to him, who dislikes the treason; but he who interests himself in the treason, looks on the traitor with favourable eyes. This is derived in a great measure, from calling things by wrong names. Treason is termed obsequiousness, and a traitor called friend; and jointly with this, they are apt to interpret, that some honest motive intervened to excite to the action; and in case they can’t find out any other than that of interest or convenience, they applaud the ability displayed in chusing the most beneficial side. Queen Elizabeth of England was a striking exception to this rule. An unfaithful Spaniard, sold to her for a stipulated price, a town in the Low Countries; and after he had so done, to avoid the punishment due to his demerit, went over to, and resided in England, where he offered his service to the Queen as an able military officer; to which she replied, “Go your ways, when I have occasion for any one to commit an act of treachery, I will make use of you.”

SECT. II.

XII. The perfect hypocrites are few in number. I call those perfect hypocrites, whose outside is all devotion, and who within, are all baseness and iniquity, or such as answer the description of the satyrist:

_Qui curios simulant, et bacchanalia vivunt._

Upon serious reflection, it will not appear wonderful these are so few, for notwithstanding the road of hypocrisy is the shortest a man can pursue, to arrive at the temple of Fortune; still we rarely see men endued with a sufficient degree of perseverance, to engage in so laborious an undertaking; for conceive the practice of virtue to be ever so arduous, the pursuit of the feigned, is much more painful than that of the true. In order to carry it on, there is need of a constant studiousness, joined to a continual anxiety, and also an indefatigable watchfulness, to suppress the sallies of the soul, which without intermission is making efforts to disclose herself. There is no passion, which, like a wild beast chained, strives more forcibly to break its confinement, than that of dissimulation. The animal faculty of the heart is as plainly reflected on the countenance, as the vital is manifested in the artery. The tokens of their internal movements, may be compared to those of a clock, which has a bell that proclaims them, and a hand that points them out. There is not a word, nor an action, if not restrained by a contrary impetus, which would not follow the impulse of that animated machine. Curiosity and lust, importune and tempt a man’s eyes by turns; he is anxious to give vent to his bosom by his voice, and his brow manifests his impatience to do it; a pleasant jest provokes to laughter; an injury calls for vengeance; and the tongue and the ear are averse to silence. There is not a member which is not put under painful restrictions, nor a faculty that is not constrained, by being thus compelled to wear the forced appearance of composure. The strings, of which the harmony of an exterior modesty are composed, are infinite, and ought always to be kept violently on the stretch; the desires also of possessing beloved objects, are continually tapping at the doors of the senses. What force is sufficient to resist so many impulses? or what address, equal to managing so many reins at a time?