The attachment which is founded upon the love of virtue, as it is certainly of all attachments the most virtuous, so it is likewise the happiest, as well as the most permanent and secure. Such friendships need not be confined to a single person, but may safely embrace all the wise and virtuous with whom we have been long and intimately acquainted, and upon whose wisdom and virtue we can, upon that account, entirely depend."And the same principles which direct the order of our benevolent affections towards individuals, likewise direct their order towards societies, recommending to them before all others those to which they can be of most importance.
Our native country is the largest society upon which our good or bad conduct can have much influence. It is that to which alone our good-will can be directed with effect. Accordingly, it is by nature most strongly recommended to us, as comprehending not only our own personal safety and prosperity, but that of our children, our parents, our relations, and friends. It is thus endeared to us by all our private benevolent, as well as by our selfish affections. Hence its prosperity and glory seem to reflect some sort of honour upon ourselves, and "when we compare it with other societies of the same kind, we are proud of its superiority, and mortified, in some degree, if it appears in any respect below them."But it is necessary to distinguish the love of our own country from a foolish dislike to every other one. "The love of our own nation often disposes us to view, with the most malignant jealousy and envy, the prosperity and aggrandizement of any other neighbouring nation. Independent and neighbouring nations, having no common superior to decide their disputes, all live in continual dread and suspicion of one another. Each sovereign, expecting little justice from his neighbours, is disposed to treat them with as little as he expects from them. The regard for the laws of nations, or for those rules which independent states profess or pretend to think themselves bound to observe in their dealings with one another, is often very little more than mere pretence and profession. From the smallest interest, upon the slightest provocation, we see those rules every day either evaded or directly violated without shame or remorse. Each nation foresees, or imagines it foresees, its own subjugation in the increasing power and aggrandizement of any of its neighbours; and the mean principle of national prejudice is often founded on the noble one of the love of our own country. ......
France and England may each of them have some reason to dread the increase of the naval and military power of the other; but for either of them to envy the internal happiness `and prosperity of the other, the cultivation of its lands, the advancement of its manufactures, the increase of its commerce, the security and number of its ports and harbours, its proficiency in all the liberal arts and sciences, is surely beneath the dignity of two such great nations. These are the real improvements of the world we live in. Mankind are benefited, human nature is ennobled by them. In such improvements each nation ought not only to endeavour itself to excel, but, from the love of mankind, to promote, instead of obstructing, the excellence of its neighbours. These are all proper objects of national emulation, not of national prejudice or envy."This passage is of interest as coming from the future author of the Wealth of Nations the future founder of the doctrine of free trade;and of historical interest, as reflecting cultivated opinion at a time when England was just in the middle of the Seven years' war, is the remark that the most extensive public benevolence is that of the statesmen who project or form alliances between neighbouring or not very distant nations, "for the preservation either of what is called the balance of power, or of the general peace and tranquillity of the states within the circle of their negotiations."But the ordinary love of our country involves two things: a certain reverence for the form of government actually established, and an earnest desire to render the condition of our fellow-citizens as safe, respectable, and happy, as possible. It is only in times of public discontent and faction that these two principles may draw different ways, and lead to doubt whether a change in the constitution might not be most conducive to the general happiness. In such times, the leaders of the discontented party often propose "to new-model the constitution, and to alter, in some of its most essential parts, that system of government under which the subjects of a great empire have enjoyed perhaps peace, security, and even glory, during the course of several centuries together." And it may require the highest effort of political wisdom to determine when a real patriot ought to support and try to re-establish the authority of the old system, and when he ought to give way to the more daring, but often dangerous, spirit of innovation.
Nothing, indeed, is more fatal to the good order of society than the policy of "a man of system," who is so enamoured of his own ideal plan of government as to be unable to suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it, and who insists upon establishing and establishing all at once, and in spite of all opposition, whatever his idea may seem to require.
Such a man erects his own judgment into the supreme standard of right and wrong, and fancies himself the only wise and worthy man in the commonwealth.