Lovely Vicious Epub Bud Reader
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In all parts of the world, mankind, however debased,retains still the sense of feeling; the weightof tyranny at last becomes insupportable; but theremedy is not so easy: in general, the only remedyby which they attempt to cure the tyranny is tochange the tyrant. This is, and always was, the casefor the greater part. In some countries, however,were found men of more penetration, who discovered"that to live by one man's will was the cause of all men'smisery." They therefore changed their formermethod, and assembling the men in their severalsocieties the most respectable for their understandingand fortunes, they confided to them the charge of thepublic welfare. This originally formed what is calledan aristocracy. They hoped it would be impossiblethat such a number could ever join in any designagainst the general good; and they promised themselvesa great deal of security and happiness from theunited counsels of so many able and experienced persons.But it is now found by abundant experience,that an aristocracy, and a despotism, differ but inname; and that a people who are in general excludedfrom any share of the legislative, are, to all intentsand purposes, as much slaves, when twenty, independentof them, govern, as when but one domineers.The tyranny is even more felt, as every individual ofthe nobles has the haughtiness of a sultan; the peopleare more miserable, as they seem on the verge ofliberty, from which they are forever debarred; thisfallacious idea of liberty, whilst it presents a vainshadow of happiness to the subject, binds faster thechains of his subjection. What is left undone by thenatural avarice and pride of those who are raisedabove the others, is completed by their suspicions, andtheir dread of losing an authority, which has no supportin the common utility of the nation. A Genoeseor a Venetian republic is a concealed despotism;where you find the same pride of the rulers, the samebase subjection of the people, the same bloody maximsof a suspicious policy. In one respect the aristocracyis worse than the despotism. A body politic, whilst itretains its authority, never changes its maxims; adespotism, which is this day horrible to a supreme degree,by the caprice natural to the heart of man, may,by the same caprice otherwise exerted, be as lovelythe next; in a succession, it is possible to meet withsome good princes. If there have been Tiberiuses,Caligulas, Neros, there have been likewise the serenerdays of Vespasians, Tituses, Trajans, and Antonines;but a body politic is not influenced by caprice orwhim, it proceeds in a regular manner, its successionis insensible; and every man as he enters it, eitherhas, or soon attains, the spirit of the whole body.Never was it known that an aristocracy, which washaughty and tyrannical in one century, became easyand mild in the next. In effect, the yoke of this speciesof government is so galling, that whenever thepeople have got the least power, they have shaken itoff with the utmost indignation, and established apopular form. And when they have not had strengthenough to support themselves, they have thrownthemselves into the arms of despotism, as the moreeligible of the two evils. This latter was the case ofDenmark, who sought a refuge from the oppressionof its nobility, in the strong hold of arbitrary power.Poland has at present the name of republic, and it isone of the aristocratic form; but it is well known thatthe little finger of this government is heavier than theloins of arbitrary power in most nations. The peopleare not only politically, but personally slaves, andtreated with the utmost indignity. The republic ofVenice is somewhat more moderate; yet even here,so heavy is the aristocratic yoke, that the nobles havebeen obliged to enervate the spirit of their subjectsby every sort of debauchery; they have denied themthe liberty of reason, and they have made themamends by what a base soul will think a more valuableliberty, by not only allowing, but encouragingthem to corrupt themselves in the most scandalousmanner. They consider their subjects as the farmerdoes the hog he keeps to feast upon. He holds himfast in his sty, but allows him to wallow as much ashe pleases in his beloved filth and gluttony. Soscandalously debauched a people as that of Veniceis to be met with nowhere else. High, low, men,women, clergy, and laity, are all alike. The rulingnobility are no less afraid of one another than theyare of the people; and, for that reason, politicallyenervate their own body by the same effeminate luxuryby which they corrupt their subjects. They areimpoverished by every means which can be invented;and they are kept in a perpetual terror by the horrorsof a state inquisition. Here you see a people deprivedof all rational freedom, and tyrannized over by abouttwo thousand men; and yet this body of two thousandare so far from enjoying any liberty by the subjectionof the rest, that they are in an infinitelyseverer state of slavery; they make themselves themost degenerate and unhappy of mankind, for noother purpose than that they may the more effectuallycontribute to the misery of a whole nation. Inshort, the regular and methodical proceedings of anaristocracy are more intolerable than the very excessesof a despotism, and, in general, much further fromany remedy. 2b1af7f3a8