THE RUINS,
OR, MEDITATION ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES
Home | Prev
| Next
| Contents
SOURCES OF THE EVILS OF SOCIETY.
In truth, scarcely were the faculties of men developed, when,
inveigled by objects which gratify the senses, they gave themselves
up to unbridled desires. The sweet sensations which nature had
attached to their real wants, to endear to them their existence, no
longer satisfied them. Not content with the abundance offered by
the earth or produced by industry, they wished to accumulate
enjoyments and coveted those possessed by their fellow men. The
strong man rose up against the feeble, to take from him the fruit
of his labor; the feeble invoked another feeble one to repel the
violence. Two strong ones then said:
"Why fatigue ourselves to produce enjoyments which we may find in
the hands of the weak? Let us join and despoil them; they shall
labor for us, and we will enjoy without labor."
And the strong associating for oppression and the weak for
resistance, men mutually afflicted each other; and a general and
fatal discord spread over the earth, in which the passions,
assuming a thousand new forms, have generated a continued chain of
misfortunes.
Thus the same self-love which, moderate and prudent, was a
principle of happiness and perfection, becoming blind and
disordered, was transformed into a corrupting poison; and cupidity,
offspring and companion of ignorance, became the cause of all the
evils that have desolated the earth.
Yes, ignorance and cupidity! these are the twin sources of all the
torments of man! Biased by these into false ideas of happiness, he
has mistaken or broken the laws of nature in his own relation with
external objects; and injuring his own existence, has violated
individual morality; shutting through these his heart to
compassion, and his mind to justice, he has injured and afflicted
his equal, and violated social morality. From ignorance and
cupidity, man has armed against man, family against family, tribe
against tribe; and the earth is become a theatre of blood, of
discord, and of rapine. By ignorance and cupidity, a secret war,
fermenting in the bosom of every state, has separated citizen from
citizen; and the same society has divided itself into oppressors
and oppressed, into masters and slaves; by these, the heads of a
nation, sometimes insolent and audacious, have forged its chains
within its own bowels; and mercenary avarice has founded political
despotism. Sometimes, hypocritical and cunning, they have called
from heaven a lying power, and a sacrilegious yoke; and credulous
cupidity has founded religious despotism. By these have been
perverted the ideas of good and evil, just and unjust, vice and
virtue; and nations have wandered in a labyrinth of errors and
calamities.
The cupidity of man and his ignorance,--these are the evil genii
which have wasted the earth! These are the decrees of fate which
have overthrown empires! These are the celestial anathemas which
have smitten these walls once so glorious, and converted the
splendor of a populous city into a solitude of mourning and of
ruins! But as in the bosom of man have sprung all the evils which
have afflicted his life, there he also is to seek and to find their
remedies.
Prev
| Next
| Contents
|