The French revolution also furnished a signal instance of the retrograde steps of philosophy. The oppressions, the injustice, the absurdities of the French monarchy, and above all, the incongruities of many of its institutions with the state of knowledge and of private society in France, could not be corrected without calling forth all the strongest impulses of our nature—the worst passions of the worst men, as well as the nobler feelings of the best. The advanced state of reason and philosophy among the educated classes, acting on the sense of justice, indelibly stamped on the heart of man, made the mass of the nation see and feel the odium of their civil institutions, and determined them to attempt a remedy. They were prompted in their schemes, and quickened in their sensibility by the superior social condition of their neighbors, the English, and yet more by the American revolution and its happy issue. Before this great event, their notice of the defects or abuses of their government was confined to philosophical speculatists—to rhetorical declaimers—or to those who wielded the lighter, but no less efficient weapons of ridicule—to all of whom many of those classes who most profited by the existing abuses, bowing to the resistless force of truth, and not foreseeing the danger to themselves, gave their cordial support. Public opinion was thus gradually gaining strength and unanimity; and when accident afforded a favorable occasion for the reformers to act, every one was astonished at the rapidity and force with which they acted. But there were strong interests and passions arrayed on the other side, and the shock of the conflict was violent in proportion.
As soon as the cry of reform and change was sounded, every furious and ignoble passion—every sordid and profligate and depraved motive, hoping to profit by the confusion, entered into the strife, and corrupted the whole mass. Then it was that in the heart of Christendom, we saw a city, associated in our minds with every refinement of civilization—the emporium of science, literature and the arts—suddenly transformed into a moral desert. The annals of mankind had recorded no such metamorphosis. To the senses indeed, all the monuments of science and art and social improvement remained, but they seemed to belong to other times. Every thing relative to the human character was forcibly overturned, or wrested from its natural position. Women without humanity or timidity, at one moment braving death, and at another thirsting for blood. Science and practical art employed in devising new modes of taking away life. Statesmen and legislators engrossed by the one great subject of how they might exterminate citizens no less than foreign enemies. Speculative minds racking their inventions to frame excuses for these enormities, or in making frivolous changes in the names of streets and provinces—of the months and days—while Religion, finding nothing congenial to her own mildness and purity, fled from the country, and the infuriated multitude hallooed and exulted in her retreat: and in the metropolis of fashion, which had given the laws of dress to all Europe, and one of whose most distinguished literati5 had asserted that the apparel was a part of the man, an attention to outward appearance was deemed presumptive evidence of aristocracy. Nor was there a more certain mode of awakening suspicion of incivism, than to seem to be devout, or moral, or gentlemanly, unless these obnoxious qualities were redeemed by some accompaniment of crime.
5 The Count de Buffon.
There have been those who would make philosophy responsible for these extravagances and excesses, because it had been assiduously cultivated in Paris, just before the Revolution, and some of its maxims were appealed to in justification of the excesses. But nothing can be more unjust. There was mingled with the enlightened part of the Paris population, a far larger portion which was immersed in the grossest ignorance. They had been brought up as it were in a prison house, into which the surrounding light of heaven could never penetrate; and, when set free from the restraints of law, they were powerful instruments of mischief in the hands of those who were at once skilful and unscrupulous in using them. There were also those who partook of the intellectual light of the age, but who from a faulty education, or accident, or the unjust institutions of society had not proportional moral improvement—men who saw the inequality with which the goods of life were distributed; that those who had the smallest share were the most numerous; and that they might be prompted to the inclination, as they already had the ability, to be their own carvers. An alliance was thus formed between cunning and ignorance—the cunning few and ignorant many—and no wonder that in a short time, all that was venerable and virtuous and generous, as well as all that had been tyrannical and oppressive, were furiously assailed and beaten to the ground. The progress of knowledge had no other agency in producing this result, than that a portion of society borrowed its intellectual light without approaching near enough to profit by its moral warmth: and it is as unreasonable to blame philosophy for these outrages, as to blame religion for the bloody massacres and merciless persecutions which were perpetrated in her name. With far greater reason may the moderation observed by the mob of Paris, in the three day revolution of 1830, be ascribed to the influence of the liberal and philosophical spirit, which had been gaining ground throughout the civilized world, and particularly in France for twenty years before: and it deserves notice, that this moderation, as well as the occasion on which it would be exercised, was confidently predicted in this country, by a French gentleman,6 now enjoying an elevated rank in France; and he founded his prediction on the improved character of the population of Paris.
6 General Bernard, whose anticipations of the leading events of that revolution, in a conversation with the author, had all the accuracy of history.
Having thus taken a view of the past effects of the progress of philosophy, let us now look before us, and endeavoring to scan the future, learn what are hereafter to be its effects on the world, especially on that portion of it, in which we are most interested.
We are sometimes reproached with being more disposed to look at what our country will be, than at what it is; but when the changes are so rapid and great, we should not only betray a strange insensibility to our future destiny, but be grossly wanting in prudence, not to keep the fact constantly present to our minds. It should affect our policy, legislation, and even our individual contracts and schemes of profit; and while we do not object to other nations seeing, in the mirror of the past, interesting memorials of their former glory, they may suffer us to look at ours, through the prism of hope, in which objects are a little distorted without being exaggerated, and appear in hues delightfully gay and diversified. Let us see then how the certain progress of population, and the probable progress of reason and philosophy are likely to affect us.
Of the rapid advancement of the United States in numbers, powers and wealth, we have now a moral certainty. After the lapse of forty years, we have seen that their population continues to double at the rate which Franklin long ago assumed, and we have full confirmation of the views taken by Malthus more than thirty years ago, and by Franklin long before him, that mankind continue thus to increase where the means of subsistence are easy. There will hardly be any change in this particular here, before our numbers have reached 60 persons to a square mile. Perhaps when we consider the remarkable fertility of the larger part, not before we have reached 100: but with the former limit, our country would contain 100 millions of inhabitants, in three periods of doubling, or in 75 years. Some doubts have been entertained whether our future increase will not diminish in an increasing ratio; and a very general error as to the rate of increase, exhibited at the last census, has favored that opinion. But in point of fact, the increase for the ten years ending in 1830, was a fraction more than 34 per cent., instead of a fraction more than 33 per cent., as our almanacs and other periodicals have stated, because they did not attend to the fact, that the last census shewed the increase only for nine years and ten months. This result is so unexampled and so great, that it requires an effort for us to conceive its reality; yet it rests upon as satisfactory grounds as any future event whatever: and it is not a remote improbability, that some who now hear me will live to see our population amount to 100 millions.
For our political organization we have nothing to desire, if our present government continues. The self-healing power, which more or less pervades all bodies, politic as well as natural, has unrestricted vigor here, and may be expected to bring an adequate remedy for every political disease likely to arise.
But one of the evils apprehended by some, is a dissolution of the Union; and it is asked, if this has already been seriously threatened, how will it be when the sources of collision and rivalship shall be multiplied—when all fear of foreign aggression, which now operates as a band to keep us together, shall be removed—when personal ambition shall seek, by a separation, that field for its enterprises which the Union does not afford—and the natural increase of an indigent and ignorant class shall furnish him with ready tools for his selfish projects?