SECT. I.
I. I Seek in men that love of their country, which I find so much celebrated in books, but I do not meet with it; I mean that just, noble and virtuous love, which they owe to their country. In some, I see no kind of affection for their country at all; in others, I perceive only a criminal affection, which is vulgarly called national prejudice.
II. I do not deny, that by turning over history, you will find thousands of victims sacrificed to this idol. What war is undertaken without this specious pretence? What field do we see drenched with human blood, that posterity, over the carcases from whence it flowed, has not fixed the honourable inscription, that those men lost their lives for the good of their country? But if we examine things critically, we shall find the world is much mistaken, in thinking there have been so many, or so refined sacrifices made to this imaginary deity. Let us figure to ourselves a republic, armed for a war, undertaken on the principle of a just defence; and let us also proceed to examine by the light of reason, the impulse which animates men’s hearts to expose their lives in the quarrel. Among the private men, some inlist for the pay and the plunder, others with the hopes of bettering their fortunes, and acquiring military honour and preferment; but the greatest part, from motives of obedience, and fear of the Prince or the General. He who commands the army, is instigated by his interest and his glory. The Prince, or Chief Magistrate, who is at a distance from the danger, acts more for the sake of maintaining his dominion, than for supporting the republic. Now admitting that all these people should find it more for their interest to retire to their houses, than to defend the walls, you would hardly see ten men left on the ramparts.
III. Even those feats of prowess of the antients, which are so blazoned and immortalized by fame, as the ultimate exertions of zeal for the public good, were more probably generated by ambition, and the love of glory, than by the love of their country; and I am inclined to think, that if there had not been witnesses present, to have handed down to posterity an account of their exploits, that from a principle of love to his country, neither Curtius would have precipitated himself into the pit, nor Marcus Attilius Regulus have submitted to die a lingering death in an iron cage; nor would the twin brothers, for the sake of extending the boundaries of Carthage, have consented to be buried alive. The incitement of posthumous fame had great influence among the Gentiles; and it might also happen, that some rushed on a violent death, not so much with a view of acquiring posthumous fame, as from the mad vanity of seeing themselves admired and applauded for a few instants of their lives, of which Lucian gives us a striking example, in the death that was submitted to by the philosopher Peregrinus.
IV. Among the Romans, the love of their country, was so much in vogue and so prevalent, that it seemed as if this noble inclination was the soul of their whole republic. But what appears to me is, that the Romans themselves, on account of Cato’s constant and steady attachment to the public, looked upon him as a very uncommon man, and as one descended from Heaven. It may be said of all the rest of them, almost without exception, that in serving their country, they sought more their own exaltation than the public utility. They gave Cicero the glorious surname of father of his country, for the successful and vigorous opposition he made to Catiline’s conspiracy. This in appearance was a great merit, although in reality it was but an equivocal one; for not only the success of Cicero’s attaining the consulate, depended upon that fury’s not carrying his point, but his life also; for it is true, that when afterwards Cæsar tyrannized over the republic, Cicero accommodated himself very well with him. The subornations of Jugurtha, King of Numidia, shewed abundantly, what sort of spirit influenced the Roman senate; which, contrary to the interest of the republic, tolerated in that penetrating and violent Prince, many grave and pernicious evils, because every new insolence he committed, was accompanied with a new present to the senators. He was at last brought to Rome, and detained there; and although he was so far from correcting or reforming his old practices, that within the city itself, he committed new and enormous offences; by the favour of gold, he was permitted to go at large, which in the delinquent himself begot such a contempt of that government, that when he left Rome, after getting at a little distance from the city, he turned about, and looking at it with disdain, called it a venal city, adding, that it would soon perish, if any one could find money enough to pay the price of its ruin: Urbem venalem, et mature perituram, si emptorem invenirit (Sallust in Jugurtha). The same thing, and even more pointedly, was said by Petronius:
Venalis populus, venalis curia patrem.
This is a picture of the love of their country so celebrated among the Romans, and to which many at this day, judge they owed the enormous extension of the Roman empire.