Cleo. I am afraid the prospect is not so clear yet as you imagine.
Hor. Why so? The grand obstacles are removed: Untaught men, it is true, when they are grown up, are never to be governed; and our subjection is never sincere where the superiority of the governor is not very apparent: But both these are obviated; the reverence we have for a person when we are young, is easily continued as long as we live; and where authority is once acknowledged, and that acknowledgment well established, it cannot be a difficult matter to govern. If thus a man may keep up his authority over his children, he will do it still with greater ease over his grand-children: For a child that has the least reverence for his parents, will seldom refuse homage to the person to whom he sees his father pay it. Besides, a man’s pride would be a sufficient motive for him to maintain the authority once gained; and, if some of his progeny proved refractory, he would leave no stone unturned, by the help of the rest to reduce the disobedient. The old man being dead, the authority from him would devolve upon the eldest of his children, and so on.
Cleo. I thought you would go on too fast. If the wild man had understood the nature of things, and been endued with general knowledge, and a language ready made, as Adam was by miracle, what you say might have been easy; but an ignorant creature that knows nothing but what his own experience has taught him, is no more fit to govern than he is fit to teach the mathematics.
Hor. He would not have above one or two children to govern at first; and his experience would increase by degrees, as well as his family. This would require no such consummate knowledge.
Cleo. I do not say it would: An ordinary capacity of a man tolerably well educated, would be sufficient to begin with; but a man who never had been taught to curb any of his passions, would be very unfit for such a task. He would make his children, as soon as they were able, assist him in getting food, and teach them how and where to procure it. Savage children, as they got strength, would endeavour to imitate every action they saw their parents do, and every sound they heard them make; but all the instructions they received, would be confined to things immediately necessary. Savage parents would often take offence at their children, as they grew up, without a cause; and as these increased in years, so natural affection would decrease in the other. The consequence would be, that the children would often suffer for failings that were not their own. Savages would often discover faults in the conduct of what was past; but they would not be able to establish rules for future behaviour, which they would approve of themselves for any continuance; and want of foresight would be an inexhaustible fund for changes in their resolutions. The savage’s wife, as well as himself, would be highly pleased to see their daughters impregnated and bring forth; and they would both take great delight in their grand-children.
Hor. I thought, that in all creatures the natural affection of parents had been confined to their own young ones.
Cleo. It is so in all but man; there is no species but ours, that are so conceited of themselves, as to imagine every thing to be theirs. The desire of dominion is a never-failing consequence of the pride that is common to all men; and which the brat of a savage is as much born with as the son of an emperor. This good opinion we have of ourselves, makes men not only claim a right to their children, but likewise imagine, that they have a great share of jurisdiction over their grandchildren. The young ones of other animals, as soon as they can help themselves, are free; but the authority which parents pretend to have over their children, never ceases: How general and unreasonable this eternal claim is naturally in the heart of man, we may learn from the laws; which, to prevent the usurpation of parents, and rescue children from their dominion, every civil society is forced to make; limiting paternal authority to a certain term of years. Our savage pair would have a double title to their grandchildren, from their undoubted property in each parent of them; and all the progeny being sprung from their own sons and daughters, without intermixture of foreign blood, they would look upon the whole race to be their natural vassals; and I am persuaded, that the more knowledge and capacity of reasoning this first couple acquired, the more just and unquestionable their sovereignty over all their descendants would appear to them, though they should live to see the fifth or sixth generation.
Hor. Is it not strange that nature should send us all into the world with a visible desire after government, and no capacity for it at all?
Cleo. What seems strange to you, is an undeniable instance of Divine Wisdom. For, if all had not been born with this desire, all must have been destitute of it; and multitudes could never have been formed into societies, if some of them had not been possessed of this thirst of dominion. Creatures may commit force upon themselves, they may learn to warp their natural appetites, and divert them from their proper objects: but peculiar instincts, that belong to a whole species, are never to be acquired by art or discipline; and those that are born without them, must remain destitute of them for ever. Ducks run to the water as soon as they are hatched; but you can never make a chicken swim any more than you can teach it to suck.
Hor. I understand you very well. If pride had not been innate to all men, none of them could ever have been ambitious: And as to the capacity of governing, experience shows us, that it is to be acquired; but how to bring society into the world, I know no more than the wild man himself. What you have suggested to me of his unskilfulness, and want of power to govern himself, has quite destroyed all the hopes I had conceived of society from this family. But would religion have no influence upon them? Pray, how came that into the world?