Essays, or discourses, vol. 1 (of 4)

by Benito Jerónimo Feijoo

SECT. I.

I. The most unjust adoration the world bestows, is that which is given to, and received by conquering Princes, they being only deserving of the public hatred; while living, mankind pay them a forced obedience, and when dead a courteous applause; the first is necessity, the second folly.

II. What is a conqueror but a scourge, which the divine anger has sent among us for our chastisement? What, but an animated pestilence, both to his own kingdom, and those of the Princes his neighbours also; a malignant star, which rules and influences nought but murders, robberies, desolations, and conflagrations; a comet, which equally threatens the destruction of cottages and of palaces; and, to sum up the whole, a man who is the enemy of all other men, because in the prosecution of his ambitious views, he would deprive all mankind of their liberty, and take from many their lives and fortunes?

III. In this, as in many other things, I admire the superior judgment of the Chinese. Isaac Vossius affirms, that in the annals of those people, they do not celebrate warlike, but pacific Princes; neither do they triumph in future ages, or acquire the applauses of posterity, who have by their arms added new dominions to the state, but those who have governed with justice and moderation the territories which descended to them by inheritance. This is applauding with judgment.

IV. I don’t deny, that valour, military skill, and other endowments peculiar to conquerors, are estimable; but only mean to inculcate, that when they are accompanied with a tyrannic use, they cause those who make such an application of them, to become objects of abhorrence and detestation. There never was any man eminent for feats of wickedness, who was not endued with great qualities of body and mind; at least, they are rarely deficient in those of robustness, industry, and bravery: but who, on this account, would employ himself in celebrating, or becoming the panegyrist of malefactors?

V. It is not comparison, but identity, which I mean to propound and enforce; for truly those great heroes, who are so celebrated by the trumpets of fame, were in reality nothing better than malefactors in a high form. If I was to set about writing a catalogue of the most famous rogues who have figured on the theatre of the world, I should place at the head of it, Alexander the Great, and Julius Cæsar.

VI. No one had a juster sense of his situation in this respect, nor made a more candid acknowledgment of his profession and occupation, than Antigonus King of Asia. When he was in the zenith of his conquests, a philosopher dedicated a book to him which he had just finished, the subject-matter of which was, an encomium on the virtue of justice. As soon as Antigonus read the title of the book, he smiled, and said, “It is certainly very à propos, to dedicate a treatise in commemoration of the virtue of justice to me, who am robbing all the world of every thing I can.”

VII. And although, neither Alexander, nor Cæsar, ever made so candid a confession, they manifested sufficiently, that they were stung with the remorse, and affected with the bitings of their own consciences. The first, shewed the influence these feelings had over him, in the instance of the temper and forbearance, with which he suffered the pirate who fell into his hands, to upbraid him with being a greater and more scandalous pirate than himself; for if Alexander had not been conscious that the man spoke truth, the consequence of his boldness would have been very terrible to him. The second displayed it, in his perplexities at the crisis of passing the Rubicon; it being most probable, that intrepid soul was not withheld so much by the contemplation of the dangerous undertaking he was going to engage in, as by the sense of the crime he was about to commit.

SECT. II.

VIII. In reality, conquering Princes are so totally bad, that they are not even good to themselves. They are bad neighbours, as is notorious; they are bad to their subjects, who in the end are equal sufferers with the others; because by the excessive contributions that are extorted from them, they are drained of their property, and in the obstinate wars in which their Princes engage, are deprived of their lives. It is true they conquer; but ten battles gained cost more men to a nation than two or three lost. If we were to add to this, the loss incurred in consequence of the neglect and decay of arts, manufactures, commerce, and agriculture; at winding up the bottom you will find, that with the exception of a few military men, who have been exceedingly fortunate and successful, or whose services have been liberally rewarded, and also with that of a few others, who have enriched themselves by plunder, or the spoils of their own country; the conquerors are left in as bad a situation as the vanquished.