to encounter the arrogant pretensions of kings, priests, and nobles, by corresponding pretensions on the part of the people, fell into paradoxes which exposed their doctrine to danger and disgrace. They attempted to set aside the indefeasible rights of kings maintained by their opponents, by setting up against them the doctrine of the absolute indefeasibility of all natural rights. Thus they pronounced life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to be indefeasible and unalienable rights; a doctrine which has been justly characterized, when thus broadly laid down, as utterly anarchical; since, if these rights be really indefeasible, every restraint of any kind is against right; and government itself becomes a wrong. We have shown elsewhere how the assumption of the identity of benevolence and virtue leads to the same paradoxical results.* * The leaders of the American and French Revolutions made great use of the doctrine of the Natural Rights of Man. They figure at length in the American Declaration of Independence, and in the American and French Constitutions. The authority of Rousseau, who was the most eloquent advocate of this doctrine, is well known to have been paramount during the early days of the French Republic. The mysticism with which Rousseau was so much imbued combined with other causes to produce in his followers a political fanaticism, which differed but in some trifling particulars from the religious fanaticism of two centuries previous. The idea of the public good in the one case, like the idea of the will of God in the other, almost extinguished any mercy for individuals considered hostile to those great objects. Robespierre, it is well known, was Rousseau's devoted disciple. He has been as much misrepresented and belied as ever Cromwell was, though far more honest. It has become the fashion to make him the scapegoat for all the crimes of the French Revolution. I am astonished to find such a writer as Carlyle pandering to so vulgar and unjust a prejudice. I am still more astonish 11. Laying aside, as untenable, the idea of indefeasible rights, whether natural or divine, either on the part of governors or the governed, the duties of good citizenship include all the duties of private morality; and in addition, a certain readiness to make sacrifices and to submit to pains and labors for the benefit of the community. It is this disposition which we denominate Patriotism or Public Spirit. The ordinary degree in which it exists differs greatly under different forms of government. In theocracies and most absolute monarchies, it is hardly found at all. Under such governments, the ruling power is all, the community is nothing; and patriotism is replaced by obedience and loyalty. In aristocracies, among members of the privileged class, it frequently reaches a high pitch. In democracies it becomes diffused through the whole body of the people. In mystical systems of morals the virtue of patriotism is hardly recognized; in forensic systems the rank it holds in any given community depends upon the extent, in that community, of political rights. -ed to find him lavishing so much admiration upon Mirabeau and Danton, men more showy, but not more able, and far below Robespierre in disinterestedness. Robespierre asked nothing for himself but power, which power he intended to use for the public good. Mirabeau and Danton wanted power just as much, but they wanted it as a means of amassing money to be lavished in luxurious indulgence. The leading idea of Robespierre was, the rescue of France from kings and aristocrats; the leading idea of the other two, to provide for them selves. 16* CHAPTER V. OF THE UNEQUAL BURDEN OF DUTY IMPOSED.ON WOMEN, AND HEREIN OF CHASTITY. 1. In attempting an explication of the variations and contradictions which exist in moral codes so far as pertains to the mutual and relative duties of men and women, and of the unequal burden of duty commonly imposed upon women, we must begin by recollecting that the opinion has almost universally prevailed, that woman is naturally inferior and subordinate to man, and, like other inferior creatures, rightfully to be used as an instrument for promoting his pleasure. The obvious inferiority of women in personal strength has led to the conclusion of a general inferiority. This opinion of inferiority has naturally produced a certain degree of contempt; which has naturally operated to diminish the force of the sentiment of benevolence; and, therefore, to fix the standard of men's duty to women below that of their duty towards each other. 2. Among savages who are struggling perpetually against hunger, at the same time that they are engaged in exterminating wars, the sentiment of benevolence is at the lowest ebb; and the wife is not so much the companion as the slave of her husband, purchased, indeed, of her parents, compelled to constant hard labor, and exposed to suffer personal chastisement. Yet even here, beauty and the sexual sentiment so far reinforce the sentiment of benevolence, that, for the short time her charms last, the young wife of the savage is treated with a tenderness and indulgence which disappear as she grows older and less inviting. However petted at first, she soon experiences the double mortification of finding herself a mere domestic drudge, and her place in her husband's affections supplied by a younger and handsomer rival. For, in savage and barbarous communities, every man is thought entitled to as many wives as he can purchase and maintain; and, though comparative equality and universal poverty have commonly prevented polygamy from being carried, in such communities, to any great extent, it has in no such community been esteemed wrong. 3. The increase of wealth, which constitutes one of the items of increasing civilization, of course delivers the women of wealthy families from the mere drudgery of servitude. Yet they still remain slaves, and commonly purchased slaves, the great end of whose existence is still esteemed to be, the pleasure of their husband and owner, which they are now thought most able to promote, not so much by hard labor as by elegant accomplishments and refinements in the gratification of the sexual appetite, — things of which the savage has very little idea. Lest they might be withdrawn from the fulfilment of this duty, it is considered expedient and just to seclude them from all other society; to shut them up in a harem as the Greeks did and the Orientals do; or like the Chinese, so to mutilate their feet, as to make them almost incapable of walking abroad. Nor do the women accustomed to this sort of treatment, and never having conceived of any other, as yet regard it as a hardship. They rather glory in it as a mark of consideration, whereby women of the upper class are distinguished from those below them. - 4. Humanity, however, has, by this time, considerably increased; and the pain which women inevitably feel at finding their places filled, and their consequence and pleasures curtailed by younger and handsomer rivals, is so great and so obvious, that it begins to be deemed no more than just, to provide a remedy against this evil, so far as it may be done, without trenching at all upon the pleasures of the husband. Thus, in such communities, it comes to be established as a custom, and, presently, as a rule, that not the last married, youngest, and most beautiful wife, as in ruder states of society, but the first married, the oldest wife, is esteemed the mistress of the household, and the superior, in some respects, by virtue of her prior marriage, of the other younger wives. 5. So soon as society begins to be divided into ranks and orders, a distinction also springs up between those wives whose fathers are of the same social rank with the husband, and who are no longer sold, but given in marriage, and those wives who are of an inferior rank, — perhaps the husband's born, or purchased slaves. Those of the first class monopolize the title of wives, and compel those of the second class to be content with the inferior name |