Men in such circumstances cannot be generous.They have too much at stake.It is when they are, if I may so express myself, playing for love, it is when war is a mere game at chess, it is when they are contending for a remote colony, a frontier town, the honours of a flag, a salute, or a title, that they can make fine speeches, and do good offices to their enemies.The Black Prince waited behind the chair of his captive; Villars interchanged repartees with Eugene; George II.sent congratulations to Louis XV., during a war, upon occasion of his escape from the attempt of Damien: and these things are fine and generous, and very gratifying to the author of the Broad Stone of Honour, and all the other wise men who think, like him, that God made the world only for the use of gentlemen.But they spring in general from utter heartlessness.No war ought ever to be undertaken but under circumstances which render all interchange of courtesy between the combatants impossible.It is a bad thing that men should hate each other; but it is far worse that they should contract the habit of cutting one another's throats without hatred.War is never lenient, but where it is wanton;when men are compelled to fight in selfdefence, they must hate and avenge: this may be bad; but it is human nature; it is the clay as it came from the hand of the potter.
It is true that among the dependencies of Athens seditions assumed a character more ferocious than even in France, during the reign of terror--the accursed Saturnalia of an accursed bondage.It is true that in Athens itself, where such convulsions were scarcely known, the condition of the higher orders was disagreeable; that they were compelled to contribute large sums for the service or the amusement of the public; and that they were sometimes harassed by vexatious informers.
Whenever such cases occur, Mr Mitford's scepticism vanishes.The "if," the "but," the "it is said," the "if we may believe," with which he qualifies every charge against a tyrant or an aristocracy, are at once abandoned.The blacker the story, the firmer is his belief, and he never fails to inveigh with hearty bitterness against democracy as the source of every species of crime.
The Athenians, I believe, possessed more liberty than was good for them.Yet I will venture to assert that, while the splendour, the intelligence, and the energy of that great people were peculiar to themselves, the crimes with which they are charged arose from causes which were common to them with every other state which then existed.The violence of faction in that age sprung from a cause which has always been fertile in every political and moral evil, domestic slavery.
The effect of slavery is completely to dissolve the connection which naturally exists between the higher and lower classes of free citizens.The rich spend their wealth in purchasing and maintaining slaves.There is no demand for the labour of the poor; the fable of Menenius ceases to be applicable; the belly communicates no nutriment to the members; there is an atrophy in the body politic.The two parties, therefore, proceed to extremities utterly unknown in countries where they have mutually need of each other.In Rome the oligarchy was too powerful to be subverted by force; and neither the tribunes nor the popular assemblies, though constitutionally omnipotent, could maintain a successful contest against men who possessed the whole property of the state.Hence the necessity for measures tending to unsettle the whole frame of society, and to take away every motive of industry; the abolition of debts, and the agrarian laws--propositions absurdly condemned by men who do not consider the circumstances from which they sprung.They were the desperate remedies of a desperate disease.In Greece the oligarchical interest was not in general so deeply rooted as at Rome.The multitude, therefore, often redressed by force grievances which, at Rome, were commonly attacked under the forms of the constitution.They drove out or massacred the rich, and divided their property.If the superior union or military skill of the rich rendered them victorious, they took measures equally violent, disarmed all in whom they could not confide, often slaughtered great numbers, and occasionally expelled the whole commonalty from the city, and remained, with their slaves, the sole inhabitants.
From such calamities Athens and Lacedaemon alone were almost completely free.At Athens the purses of the rich were laid under regular contribution for the support of the poor; and this, rightly considered, was as much a favour to the givers as to the receivers, since no other measure could possibly have saved their houses from pillage and their persons from violence.It is singular that Mr Mitford should perpetually reprobate a policy which was the best that could be pursued in such a state of things, and which alone saved Athens from the frightful outrages which were perpetrated at Corcyra.
Lacedaemon, cursed with a system of slavery more odious than has ever existed in any other country, avoided this evil by almost totally annihilating private property.Lycurgus began by an agrarian law.He abolished all professions except that of arms;he made the whole of his community a standing army, every member of which had a common right to the services of a crowd of miserable bondmen; he secured the state from sedition at the expense of the Helots.Of all the parts of his system this is the most creditable to his head, and the most disgraceful to his heart.
These considerations, and many others of equal importance, Mr Mitford has neglected; but he has yet a heavier charge to answer.
He has made not only illogical inferences, but false statements.