The inhabitants of hot climes and the cold zones present strange contrasts in their natural ideas of justice, as well as in instincts and appetites. The Turk regards intemperance as a crime, and polygamy as a virtue. The Englishman looks upon the one with complaisance, but regards the other with horror. Thus reason yields to physical force, or to the differences of climate; and what men call virtue in one clime, loses its force and beauty in another. Yet there are natural laws older than the empires of force or reason; more ancient than society itself; more powerful and sublime than the passions and interests of men. These laws of kindness, of mercy, of friendship, like elementary language, come from divination.
Nature has planted certain instincts in the bosoms of all the different races of the globe alike; and these become developed according to cultivation, or debased according to degrading influences. The good of society may define the measure between good and evil, but it cannot extinguish the principles, or obliterate the sharply defined distinctions. The will of the Creator has manifested itself clearly in the workings of the natural world, if it has not been revealed to us in those tablets which fell from the skies.
XXIV.
The benign influences of society, the exercise of politeness and reason, inspire polished and agreeable manners; yet, in the midst of these, we find men who think barbarity to be one of their rights; and they abuse their fellow-creatures without pretext, and commit murder without necessity, which is a degree of ferocity below that of the carnivorous animals; for they destroy life only when impelled by the motives of hunger. Societies of men are institutions of nature, and they are founded upon the principles of mutual obligations. Society relapses into barbarism when the golden rule of “doing as we would be done by” is violated; when individual liberty is lost; and when man treats his fellow-man as property under the right of force, and therefore without legal relations. Constitutions are the indices of the education and the aspiration of nations, and they keep pace with the onward march of intelligence. These become altered and modified, as the intellect and hearts of men expand; and it is nothing but bigotry that believes in the inviolability, the perfection of the doctrines and tenets of men in the present or the past. The wise man, says the old proverb, often changes his opinion, the fool never.
XXV.
Slavery appears to be coeval with war; and war is as ancient as the human race. Plutarch believed that there had been a time, a golden age, when there were neither masters nor slaves. The human mind, at the time when Plutarch wrote, was almost controlled by the empire of force. The selfishness and superstition of society fettered the nobility of nature, and healthy reason could not assume its rightful sway.
The depth of the philosophical reasoning, the degree of humanity of one of the brightest periods of antiquity, may be comprehended from the “Politics” of Aristotle, when he says, “To the Greeks belongs dominion over the barbarians, because the former have the understanding requisite to rule, the latter, the body only to obey. For the slave, considered simply as such, no friendship can be entertained, but it may be felt for him, as he is a man.” Some of the ancient nations, the most enthusiastic in the dreams of liberty, were the most savage and stern in their laws concerning their slaves; and they adhered to their brutal doctrines in defiance of nature with singular tenacity. The right of life and death over the slave was one of the fundamental principles of the society of the Athenians, Lacedemonians, Romans, and Carthaginians.
Strange condition of society among men who cultivated the arts and sciences so successfully! Yet it does not appear that any legislator attempted to abrogate servitude.
Stranger still that the glorious period of the reign of democracy at Athens should not have brought with it the universal freedom of men, when liberty was the divine ideal of its aspirations.
XXVI.