Manners will always be found of more consequence than laws, and they depend, in a great measure, on the wise regulations of government in every country.
Not only do most governments profit by laying the vices of the people under contribution; but, as revenue is, by a very false rule, taken as a criterion from which the prosperity of a nation may be estimated, the very evil that brings on decay serves to disguise its approach. A nation may be irretrievably undone, before it is perceived that it has any tendency to decline; it is, therefore, unwise for governments to wait till they see the effects of decay, and then to hope to counteract them; they must look before-hand, and prevent, otherwise all their exertions will prove ineffectual. [end of page #174]
CHAP. X.
Of the external Causes of Decline.-- the Envy and Enmity of other Nations.--their Efforts, both in Peace and War, to bring Wealthy Nations down to their level.
THE external causes of the decline of nations are much more simple in themselves than the internal ones, besides which, their action is more visible; the way of operation is such as to excite attention, and has made them thought more worthy of being recorded.
The origin of envy and enmity are the same. The possession of what is desirable, in a superior degree, is the cause of envy. That occasions injurious and unjust proceedings, and enmity is the consequence, though both originated in the same feeling at first, they assume distinct characteristics in the course of time.
The desire of possession, in order to enjoy, is the cause of enmity and envy; and all the crimes of nations, and of individuals, have the same common origin.
It follows, as a natural consequence, arising from this state of things, that those nations which enjoyed a superior degree of wealth, became the objects of the envy of others. If that wealth was accompanied by sufficient power for its protection, then the only way to endeavour to share it was by imitation; but if the wealth was found unprotected, then conquest or violence was always considered as the most ready way of obtaining possession.
The wandering Arabs, who are the only nations that profess robbery at the present day, (by land,) follow still the same maxim with regard to those whose wealth they mean to enjoy. If too powerful to be compelled by force to give up what they have got, they traffic and barter with the merchants of a caravan; but if they find themselves able to take, they never give themselves the trouble to adopt the legitimate but less expeditious method of plunder and robbery =sic=. [end of page #175]
As it has been found that wealth operates, by degrees, in destroying the bravery of a people, after a certain time, so it happens that, in the common course of things, a moment arrives when it is considered safe, by some one power or other, to attack the wealthy nation, and partake of its riches; thus it was that the cities of Tyre and of Babylon were attacked by Alexander; and thus it was that his successors, in their turn, were attacked and conquered by the Romans; and, again, the Romans themselves, by the barbarous nations of the north.