Part 6

XXXIII. I do not condemn that affection for our native soil, which does not operate to prejudice a third person. Aristotle’s employing his favour with Alexander, to procure the rebuilding the town of Stagira his native country, ruined by the soldiers of Philip, always appeared to me right and proper; and I condemn the indifference of Crates, whose city had suffered the same misfortune, for having, when Alexander asked him if he was desirous it should be rebuilt, answered, _Of what use would the rebuilding it be, if there should come another Alexander to destroy it afresh?_ How exceedingly and ridiculously affected was the behaviour of that philosopher, who lost to his countrymen so signal a benefit, for the sake of a cold apophthegm? The misfortune was, that no other opportune sentence of a contrary tendency occurred to the philosopher just at that time; for if there had, he would have accepted the favour offered by Alexander. I have observed, that there are no people more unfit to be consulted upon serious and weighty points of business, than those who pride themselves in speaking with grace and elegance; for they are always apt to warp their opinion towards that side, on which a striking expression occurs to them, and provided they deliver themselves with air and brilliancy, they do not embarrass themselves about a little false reasoning.

XXXIV. I say once more, that I do not condemn any innocent or moderate affection for our native land. A love extremely soft and tender, is better suited to women, and more proper for children just rising up in the world, than for men; and therefore I am of opinion, the divine Homer humanizes Ulysses to a degree of excess, when he paints him, amidst all the regales of Pheacia, panting and pining, to see the smoke arise on the mountains of Ithaca, his own country:

_Exoptans oculis surgentem cernere fumum_ _Natalis terræ._

This tenderness in one of the wisest of the Greeks was very puerile; but with all, there is not much inconvenience in viewing with tenderness the smoke of one’s country, provided the smoke does not blind the eyes of him who looks at it. Let him view the smoke of his own country; but alas, do not let him prefer it to the light and splendour of foreign ones; but this is what we see every day. He who by being placed at the head of an eminent department, has the disposal of various employments at his pleasure, can scarce find any persons properly qualified for those employments, but people of his own country. In vain it is represented to him, that these men are unfit to fill the post, and that there are others better qualified. He finds the smoke of his country so grateful an aromatick, that he would abandon for it the most brilliant lights of other places. O how strangely does this smoke blind men’s eyes! How wonderfully does it disorder and affect their heads!

XXXV. In truth, some sin in this particular with their eyes wide open; I speak of those, who with the view of forming a party to support their authority, promote as many of their countrymen as they possibly can, without paying the least attention to merit. This is not manifesting their love to their country, but to themselves, and is benefiting their own soil, as the earth is benefited by the labour of the husbandman, who does not bestow it with a view of improving the land, but of advantaging himself. These are open and declared enemies of a republic, because it being next to impossible, that one district can furnish people sufficiently qualified for such a variety of employments, the places are filled with unworthy objects; this, if it is not the greatest evil that can befall a state, at least ultimately disposes towards producing such an evil.

XXXVI. Of those, who exercise their passion for their countrymen, from a belief that they are the most deserving, I am at a loss what to say, although the motive of their partiality in this matter frequently appears to me a voluntary blindness; and if that is the case, they do not stand excused. When the excess of merit in the person set aside, is so notoriously superior to that of the man promoted, that it is manifest to all the world, except to him who dispensed the preferment, what doubt can there be, that he shut his eyes to avoid seeing it? or else, that the microscope of his passion magnified to his view, the virtues of the man preferred, and the defects of him neglected? There is scarce any man, who has not a portion of good and bad in his composition; a man without fault would be a miracle, and one without a single virtue would be a monster. This made St. Austin say, that gigantic vice was as rare to be found among us, as eminent virtue: _Sicut magna pietas paucorum est, ita et magna impietas nihilominus paucorum est._ (Serm. 10. de verbis Domini.) What happens then is, that passion, being to chuse between persons of unequal merit, magnifies what is good in the bad man, and also what is bad in the good one. There is not a more unfaithful balance to weigh merit in, than that of passion and prejudice; but this is what men commonly use for the purpose. This caused David to say, men are false in their balances: _Mendaces filii hominum in stateris._ Job, to express the greatness and power of God, says, that he is able to give weight to the wind: _qui fecit ventis pondus_. But I am not clear in what sense to understand this, because I also see, that the powerful of the world in the balance of their passion, frequently give weight, and much weight to the air. What do you see in that person they have just raised? Nothing solid, nothing but air and vanity; but to this air, the great man who exalted him gave more weight, than to the gold of the other person who was his competitor for the office. But how was this done? Why, together with the air, he put earth into the scale, I mean the earth of the country in which he was born, and this earth weighs very heavy in that balance.

XXXVII. It happens in the contentions about occupying places, as it happened in the conflict between Hercules and Antæus. Hercules was much more valiant and powerful than the other, and threw him repeatedly to the ground; but the falls, enabled Antæus to renew the combat with redoubled vigour, because by his contact with the earth, his strength was doubled. The explanation of the matter is this: The antients under the veil of fables, concealed physical and moral maxims, and according to the heathen mythology, which was the term they used to signify the exposition of those mysterious fictions, Antæus was the son of the Earth. I believe, to make this fable apply to the present question, we need say no more, than that as things go in the world, every country by its recommendation, gives strength to its sons to overcome strangers, although they are people of superior abilities and vigour. Hercules lifted Antæus from the ground, and kept him suspended in the air, by which means he found no difficulty in overcoming him. It were much to be wished, that upon many occasions, in order to determine the worth of people, they should be examined divested of all favour and advantage they can derive from belonging to a particular country, for then it would be much better known to whom the preference is due.

SECT. VIII.

XXXVIII. These men of national genius and prejudice, whose spirits are all flesh and blood, and whose breasts are always in contact with the earth, like that of a snake, do in a community, what the old serpent did in paradise, or as Luzbel did in Heaven, that is, introduce into it, seditions, revolts, schisms, and battles. No fire assails a civil edifice so violently, as the flame of national passion, for it consumes the very stones of the fabric, levels merit to the ground, and makes reason tremble, excites tumults and insults, and makes way for the triumphant entry of ambition. Those hearts which ought to be cordially united by the bond of brotherly love, that bond being broken asunder, are miserably divided, and breathe nothing but vengeance and rancour. They form parties, inlist auxiliaries, and range their forces; but alas! in the end both the victors and vanquished are unfortunate and unhappy; the last lose the day and their patience, and the first by their conquest lose themselves.

XXXIX. In no words of sacred writ, is a call to a generous and virtuous life painted in more lively colours, than in those of the Psalmist, Psalm xliv. _Mark me, my Son, incline your ear, and attend to my words, you must forget your townsmen, and the house of your father._ But how greatly does he deviate from the precept contained in this admonition, who so far from forgetting his townsmen, and the house of his father, treasures up in his heart and memory, not only a house or a town, but a whole province or kingdom.

XL. Alexander, after he had conquered Persia, caused the Macedonian soldiers to marry Persian women, to the end, says Plutarch, that forgetting their native land, they should only esteem as their countrymen, those who were good, and regard as strangers those who were bad: _Ut mundum pro patria, castra pro arce, bonos pro cognatis, malos pro peregrinis agnoscerent._

XLI. It is an apophthegm, of many learned and wise men among the Gentiles, that to a man of a strong and liberal mind, all the world is his country. He who attaches his heart to that corner of the earth in which he was born, cannot look upon all the world as his country, nor himself as a citizen of it, and therefore the world should despise him, as a narrow-minded and mean-spirited person.

XLII. I believe notwithstanding, that there is something figurative contained in the words of the sentences before quoted, for mankind can never be understood to be exempted from the love and service they owe to the republic of which they are members, in preference to all other states and kingdoms; but I apprehend also, that this obligation should not be confined to a republic, because we were born within its limits, but because we are members of its society; therefore, he who has legally transferred his residence from the kingdom in which he was born, to another different one, where he has settled himself, and taken up his abode, contracts with respect to that kingdom, the same obligations he owed to that in which he was born and nursed, and he ought to regard it as the country to which he belongs. This is a distinction, that was not rightly understood by many great men of antiquity; and for this reason, we see in various authors of note, some actions celebrated as heroic, which ought to have been condemned as infamous. Demaratus King of Sparta, when he was unjustly dethroned and driven out of his kingdom by his own subjects, was kindly received and protected by the Persians. He lived among them as a member of the Persian empire, and owed to that country, besides the obligation of gratitude, the duty of a subject; but mark the sequel: the Persians meditate a military expedition against the Lacedemonians; and Demaratus, who is let into the secret, communicates the design to the Spartans, in order that they might be prepared to defeat the enterprize. Herodotus, and many other authors, celebrate this action, as a commendable mark of the glorious and heroic love which Demaratus entertained for his country; but I say, it was a perfidious, base, unworthy, and treacherous act; because in virtue of the antecedent circumstances, the obligation of his loyalty, together with his person, had been transferred from Lacedemonia to Persia.

XLIII. To conclude: I assert that if by reason of being born in it, we contract any obligation to a particular district or place, that obligation is inferior to, and ought to give place to every other christian or political one whatever. Surely the difference of being born in this or that country is not so material, that this should out-weigh every other consideration; therefore we ought never to prefer our countryman only because he is our countryman, except in those cases, where there is a perfect equality of all the other circumstances.

XLIV. In superior rulers, I don’t even with this limitation, admit of any partiality, with respect to countrymen, for the following reasons: first, because without being perfectly divested of this passion, it is hardly possible in one instance or another, to shun the danger of passing from favour to injustice. Secondly, that in whatever manner, favour to our countrymen is limited and restrained, we are apt to fall into an acceptation or preferable choice of persons, which by all those who govern ought to be studiously avoided. Thirdly, superior rulers being truly the fathers of their people, their impartial affection for them should be regarded as a consideration so incomparably superior to all others, that it ought to stifle and suffocate every kind of motive or inclination to preference, except that, which is derived from superior merit. It would be ridiculous in a father to love one child better than another, only because this was born in his own town or city, and the mother was delivered of the other in a different place, in consequence of her being from home on a journey. Therefore all those who govern, ought ever to retain in their hearts and memories, the maxim of the famous queen of Carthage, who being informed that the Trojans, in consequence of her marrying Eneas, entertained hopes of receiving superior indulgences to the Tyrians from her, declared her perfect indifference of affection for them all as a queen in the following words:

_Tros, Tyriusque mihi nullo discrimine agetur._

SECT. IX.

XLV. Having spoken in this discourse, of the favour that may be shewed to a countryman in preference to a stranger, in case he is a man of equal merit, I thought it would not be improper here, to take notice of a moral point, which frequently occurs in practice, and in which I have often seen men mistake, who in other respects are far from absurd. Those, who have annexed to their charges the distribution of honourable and useful employments, if they have not a perfect knowledge of the competitors for a vacant place, commonly avail themselves of judicial or extrajudicial informations touching their merits. This is a case that often occurs in the appointment to such professorships in many universities, as are in the disposal of the king, or his supreme council; and in these instances, all the doctors of this university of Oveido give their information to the royal council promiscuously. It is to be supposed, that the person, who by his own or delegated authority appoints to the office, when two persons of equal merit are proposed to him, may very consistently chuse which he pleases; but with respect to the equality of merit, if he is a stranger to the parties, he must be guided by the informations he receives; and I have seen it very common, when they had no just reason for doing it, for people to give their information in favour of the man they liked best, and I have known them go so far, as not only to recommend him in preference to his competitor, but to represent him as the only person qualified to fill the vacant office.

XLVI. I call this an error, because that in my opinion, such an information upon the face of it, is injurious and void of all probability, which I shall endeavour to demonstrate, by exposing the malice and indirect proceeding of him, who between two equal subjects, Peter and John for example, gives his information in favour of Peter, in preference to John; for I perceive in such behaviour, not only one, but three serious and distinct offences. And first, he offends materially in his information, against the virtue of legal and impartial justice, which requires, that he should represent people according to the true degree of their merits; but he swerves from this principle, who represents Peter as superior to John, when he is not so in reality. Secondly, he behaves unworthily and unjustly to his Prince, by usurping and preoccupying the right, which he has to chuse between the parties. Thirdly, he is guilty of injustice to the said John, who has a right to be represented according to the true degree of merit he possesses; and the proposing him as inferior to Peter, when in truth he is equal to him, is doing him a manifest injury, which besides prejudicing him with regard to other contingencies, renders it impossible in this instance, for him to partake of the king’s grace of chusing him in preference to his competitor Peter.

XLVII. From what has been premised, it may be inferred, that no contingent can ever happen, in which an informant or voter can consistently shew favour, or be partial to any man, either in such an instance as we have just mentioned, or in any other whatever, judicial or extrajudicial; because as we have shewn, competitions between subjects of equal merit do not admit of it, and if the merits of the competitors are unequal, the injustice of such a proceeding is self-evident; consequently, to him who acts conscientiously, all recommendations or solicitations are useless and improper; for he will not be biassed by friendship, country, gratitude, school-alliances, religion, college-connections, or any other motives whatever. But the misfortune is, that in the practice of the world, we see but few examples of such disinterested and upright conduct, even in cases where the merits of candidates are unequal; but on the contrary, whenever an opposition is set on foot, the favourers of each candidate, are more occupied in canvassing suffrages, than in studying questions, and more busied in examining the connections of voters, than books of faculty. The abuse is carried to such a length, that sometimes a man’s acting with integrity is imputed to him as a crime. If a voter, who is solicited by a man of eminence, answers ingenuously, and excuses himself from complying with what is requested of him; they say he is a rough, ill-bred, unpolished man: if he does not yield to the solicitations of a benefactor, they call him ungrateful; and if he does not give way to the intreaties of a friend, they exclaim that he is callous to the feelings of friendship. Finally, it appears to me, that a more intolerable error than this cannot exist, for I have seen men much esteemed by the generality of mankind for their worth, who have always prostituted their votes to these or some other temporal motives; but in the name of reason, can a man have any friend so great or so good as God? Is there any benefactor, to whom we owe so much as to him? How shall we reconcile this? Can he be called a grateful, an honourable, or a good man, who can be wanting in his duty to his best friend and greatest benefactor, by acting unjustly to oblige a creature, to whom he owes this or that limited respect, and to whom also it is impossible he should owe any thing whatever, but what he owes principally, and in the first instance to God? In vain I have urged these arguments in various private conversations; and I believe it is in vain also, that I now use them with the public at large; but if they shall not be effectual to amend the abuse, they will at least serve to disburthen my mind, and give vent to my chagrin.

ON TRUE AND FALSE URBANITY.

SECT. I.

I. The signification of the word Urbanity is equivocal, so that when you read it in different authors who lived in distinct times, you will find, the sense they understood it in varied exceedingly. It’s immediate derivation is from the Latin word _Urbanus_, which springs from _urbs_ a city; but notwithstanding this, it did not imply city in general; for it’s meaning at first, was confined in an especial manner to signify the city of Rome.

II. The reason of this was, that the word _urbanus_ began to be first made use of, at the time that the Roman republic was in the zenith of it’s prosperity, and this may be evidently inferred, from Quintilian’s saying the word was new in the days of Cicero; _Cicero favorem, et urbanum nova credit._ It was then that the generical word _urbs_ began to be used by way of eminence, to signify the city of Rome, on account of it’s portentous grandeur; and with the same pace that Rome proceeded to domineer over the world, that sort of culture which the Romans looked upon as an excellence peculiar to themselves, proceeded to gain ground, and prevail in the city, and it was then that the Romans began to make use of the word _Urbanus_, to express that compound sort of cultivation that people received there, which seemed not to be confined to letters and sciences only, but also to comprehend manner and punctillo also; _homo urbanus_, _sermo urbanus_; and they used the word _urbanitas_, to express those accomplishments in an abstracted sense.

III. But all authors did not give the same extension to the cultivation implied by the word _urbanitas_. Cicero, as we know from his book _de claris oratoribus_, restrained it to a graceful manner of speaking, which was peculiar to the Romans.

IV. Quintilian thinks, the graceful manner of speaking, which was peculiar to the Romans, and which consisted in their proper choice of words, their just application of them, and the decent tone of their voices, did not comprehend the whole, but was only a part of the accomplishment that was meant to be expressed by the term Urbanity; and he assigns as another part appertaining to it, a tincture of erudition acquired by frequent conversation with learned men; _nam, et urbanitas dicitur, qua quidem significari sermonem præ se ferentem in verbis, et sono, et usu proprium quemdam gustum urbis, et sumptam ex conversatione doctorum tacitam eruditionem, denique cui contraria sit rusticitas_.

V. Domitius Marsus, an author who lived about mid-way between the days of Cicero and Quintilian, and who wrote a treatise upon Urbanity, which we are indebted to Quintilian for the knowledge of, strikes into a new track, and maintains Urbanity to consist in the keenness and force of a short pithy expression, which delights and inclines the hearer to be affected in the manner the speaker could wish; and which is well adapted to excite either resistance or assent, according to the circumstances of persons and things: _Urbanitas est virtus quædam in breve dictum coacta, et apta ad delectandos, movendosque in omnem affectum animos, maxime idonea ad resistendum, vel lacessendum, prout quæque res ac persona desiderant. (Quintilian ubi supra.)_ This definition is truly confused, and either explains nothing, or else, only explains a particular idea of the author, distinct from every thing that has hitherto been understood, respecting the meaning of the word Urbanity.

VI. The moral philosophers, who have studied and laboured to explain the admirable ethics of Aristotle, have considered this word as equivalent to the Greek one _Eutrapelia_, which Aristotle made use of to express that virtue, which influences people to observe moderation in the tone of their voice, and their manner of expressing themselves; as vicious extremes in these particulars, were apt to degenerate into rusticity, or else, to be attended with scurrility and buffoonry; and these are the sentiments of our cardinal Aguirre and count Manuel Thesaurus.

VII. But neither the word urbanity, nor that of rusticity, which is its opposite, are made use of to express at present, what they were understood to imply formerly. They call him now-a-days, an agreeable or well-bred man, and not a man of urbanity, who speaks in a moderate and pleasing tone of voice, and who expresses himself in decent and opportune phrases; and he who delivers himself in an opposite manner, they do not call a rustic, but a coarse or an unpleasant man, or else describe him by phrases that are equivalent to those.

SECT. II.