"It is upon this account that of all political speculators sovereign princes are by far the most dangerous. This arrogance is perfectly familiar to them. They entertain no doubt of the immense superiority of their own judgment . . . . and consider the state as made for themselves, not themselves for the state."It is otherwise with the real patriot, with the man whose public spirit is prompted altogether by humanity and benevolence. He "will respect the established powers and privileges even of individuals, and still more those of the great orders and societies into which the state is divided. Though he should consider some of them as in some measure abusive, he will content himself with moderating, what he often cannot annihilate without great violence. When he cannot conquer the rooted prejudices of the people by reason and persuasion, he will not attempt to subdue them by force, but will religiously observe what by Cicero is justly called the divine maxim of Plato, never to use violence to his country, no more than to his parents.
He will accommodate, as well as he can, his public arrangements to the confirmed habits and prejudices of the people; and will remedy, as well as he can, the inconveniences which may flow from the want of those regulations which the people are adverse to submit to. When he cannot establish the right, he will not disdain to ameliorate the wrong; but, like Solon, where he cannot establish the best system of laws, he will endeavour to establish the best that the people can bear."But although Prudence, Justice, and Benevolence comprise all the qualities and actions which go to make up the highest Virtue, another quality, that of Self-Command, is also necessary, in order that we may not be misled by our own passions to violate the rules of the other three virtues. The most perfect knowledge, unless supported by the most perfect self-command, will not of itself enable us to do our duty.
The two sets of passions which it is necessary to command are those which, like fear and anger, it is difficult to control even for a moment, or those which, like the love of ease, pleasure, applause, or other selfish gratifications, may be restrained indeed often for a moment, but often prevail in the long run, by reason of their continual solicitations. The command of the first set of passions constitutes what the ancient moralists denominated fortitude, or strength of mind; that of the other set what they called temperance, decency, moderation.
Self-command therefore is a union of the qualities of fortitude and temperance; and independently of the beauty it derives from utility, as enabling us to act according to the dictates of prudence, justice, and benevolence, it has a beauty of its own, and deserves for its own sake alone some degree of our admiration and esteem.
For self-command is not only itself a great virtue, but it is the chief source of the lustre of all the other virtues. Thus the character of the most exalted wisdom and virtue is that of a man who acts with the greatest coolness in extreme dangers and difficulties, who observes religiously the sacred rules of justice, in spite of the temptation by his strongest interests or by the grossest injuries to violate them, and who suffers not the benevolence of his temper to be damped by the ingratitude of its objects.
The first quality in the character of self-command is Courage or the restraint of the passion of fear. The command of fear is more admirable than that of anger. The exertion displayed by a man, who in persecution or danger suffers no word or gesture to escape him, which does not perfectly accord with the feelings of the most indifferent spectator, commands a high degree of admiration. Had Socrates been suffered to die quietly in his bed, even his glory as a philosopher might never have attained that dazzling splendour which has ever been attached to him. Courage even causes some degree of regard to be paid to the greatest criminals who die with firm- ness; and the ******* from the fear of death, the great fear of all, is that which ennobles the profession of a soldier, and bestows upon it a rank and dignity superior to that of every other profession. It is for this reason that some sort of esteem is attached to characters, however worthless, who have conducted with success a great warlike exploit, though under- taken contrary to every principle of justice, and. carried on with no regard to humanity.
The command of the passion of anger, though it has no special name like that of the passion of fear, merits on many occasions much admiration.
But whilst courage is always admired irrespective of its motive, our approval of the command of anger depends on our sense of its dignity and propriety.
Our whole sense of the beauty of the Philippics of Demosthenes or of the Catiline orations of Cicero is derived from the propriety with which a just indignation is express ed in them. This just indignation is nothing but anger re- strained to that degree with which the impartial spectator can sympathize. It is because a blustering and noisy anger interests the spectator less for the angry man than for the person with whom lie is angry that the nobleness of pardoning so often appears superior to the most perfect propriety of resentment. But the fact that the restraint of anger may be due to the presence of fear accounts for the less general admiration that is paid to the former than is often paid to the latter. The indulgence of anger seems to show a sort of courage and superiority to fear, and for that reason it is some- times an object of vanity, whilst the indulgence of fear is never an object of a similar ostentation.
The next quality in Self-Command is Temperance , or the command of those less violent passions which appeal to our love of ease or pleasure.