The King, as I have been informed, has no inclination that they should reason on a larger compass of thought, which might possibly lead them to despise their daily employment of drilling soldiers, counting the buttons of their coats, and examining the state of their spatter-dashes and breeches. For as soon as men’s minds become superior to their business, the business will not be so well performed. Some application to other studies, and opportunities of mixing with a more general society, might make them more agreeable men, but not better captains, lieutenants, and adjutants.
His Majesty imagines he will always find a sufficient number of men of a more liberal turn of mind, and more extensive notions, for officers of great trust and separate commands, where the general must act according to emergencies, and the light of his own understanding. He believes also, that this general system will not deprive him of the advantage of particular exceptions, or prevent genius from being distinguished, when it exists in the humblest spheres of his service. As often, therefore, as he observes any dawnings of this kind; when any officer, or even soldier, discovers uncommon talents, or an extensive capacity, he is sure to be advanced, and placed in a situation where his abilities may have a full power of exertion; while those must stand still, or be moved by a very slow gradation, who have no other merit to depend on for promotion but assiduity alone, which, in the Prussian service, can never conduct to that rank in the army, where other qualifications are wanted.
As to the common men, the leading idea of the Prussian discipline is to reduce them, in many respects, to the nature of machines; that they may have no volition of their own, but be actuated solely by that of their officers; that they may have such a superlative dread of those officers as annihilates all fear of the enemy; and that they may move forwards when ordered, without deeper reasoning or more concern than the firelocks they carry along with them.
Considering the length to which this system is carried, it were to be wished that it could be carried still further, and that those unhappy men, while they retained the faculties of hearing and obeying orders, could be deprived of every other kind of feeling.
The common state of slavery in Asia, or that to which people of civil professions in the most despotic countries are subject, is freedom in comparison of this kind of military slavery. The former are not continually under the eyes of their tyrants, but for long intervals of time may enjoy life without restraint, and as their taste dictates; but all the foreign soldiers in this service, and those of the natives, who are suspected of any intention to desert, and consequently never allowed furloughs, are always under the eye of somebody, who has the power, and too often the inclination, to controul every action of their bodies, and every desire of their hearts.
Since such a number of men all over Europe are doomed to this state of constraint, it is much to be lamented that, from the nature of the service, the doom should fall on the useful, industrious peasantry, who, when uncontrolled by cruel and absurd policy, pass their days in cheerfulness, tasting every real pleasure without the nausea of satiety, or the stings of remorse, and perhaps, of all mankind, have the greatest enjoyment of life. The sum-total of happiness, destroyed by removing men from this situation into a state of misery, must be infinitely greater than if many of the useless, wealthy, and luxurious could be translated into the same state. This would not be annihilating happiness, but only shifting the scene of the wretched. Such recruits would only be harassed by the caprices of others instead of their own;—plagued with the manual exercise, instead of being tortured by peevishness and disgust;—laid up in consequence of running the gantlet, instead of being laid up with the gout;—and, finally, knocked down by a cannon-ball, instead of being killed by a fit of the apoplexy or a surfeit.