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Page 22
Though I have already extended this letter beyond what I at first
proposed, I am, nevertheless, obliged to omit many observations I
originally designed to have made. I wish there had been no occasion
for making any. But the wrong ideas which the Abbe's work had a
tendency to excite, and the prejudicial impressions they might make,
must be an apology for my remarks, and the freedom with which they are
made.
I observe the Abbe has made a sort of epitome of a considerable part
of the pamphlet Common Sense, and introduced it in that form into his
publication. But there are other places where the Abbe has borrowed
freely from the said pamphlet without acknowledging it. The difference
between society and government, with which the pamphlet opens, is
taken from it, and in some expressions almost literally, into the
Abbe's work, as if originally his own; and through the whole of the
Abbe's remarks on this head, the idea in Common Sense is so closely
copied and pursued, that the difference is only in words, and in the
arrangement of the thoughts, and not in the thoughts themselves.[3]
FOOTNOTE:
[3]
COMMON SENSE. ABBE RAYNAL.
"Some writers have so confounded "Care must be taken not to confound
society With government, as to leave together society with government.
little or no distinction between them; That they may be known distinctly,
whereas they are not only different, their origin should be considered.
but have different origins.
"Society is produced by our wants, "Society originates in the wants of
and governments by our wickedness; men, government in their vices.
the former promotes our happiness Society tends always to good; government
_positively_, by uniting our affections; ought always to tend to the
the latter _negatively_, by restraining repressing of evil."
our vices."
_In the following paragraphs there is less likeness in the language, but
the ideas in the one are evidently copied from the other_.
"In order to gain a clear and just "Man, thrown, as it were by
idea of the design and end of government, chance upon the globe, surrounded
let us suppose a small number by all the evils of nature, obliged
of persons, meeting in some frequented continually to defend and protect his
part of the earth, unconnected life against the storms and tempests
with the rest; they will then represent of the air, against the inundations of
the peopling of any country or water, against the fire of volcanoes,
of the world. In this state of natural against the intemperance of frigid
liberty, society will be our first and torrid zones, against the sterility
thought. A thousand motives will of the earth which, refuses him aliment,
excite them thereto. The strength of or its baneful fecundity, which
one man is so unequal to his wants, makes poison spring up beneath his
and his mind so unfitted for perpetual feet; in short against the claws and
solitude, that he is soon obliged to teeth of savage beasts, who dispute
seek assistance of another, who, in with him his habitation and his prey,
his turn, requires the same. Four or and attacking his person, seem resolved
five united would be able to raise to render themselves rulers of
a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a this globe, of which he thinks himself
wilderness; but _one_ man might to be the master. Man, in this
labour out the common period of life, state, alone and abandoned to himself,
without accomplishing any thing; could do nothing for his preservation.
when he has felled his timber, he It was necessary, therefore,
could not remove it, nor erect it after that he should unite himself, and associate
it was removed; hunger, in the with his like, in order to
mean time would, urge him from his bring together their strength and intelligence
work, and every different want call in common stock. It is
him a different way. Disease, nay by this union that he has triumphed
even misfortune would be death; over so many evils, that he has
for though neither might be immediately fashioned this globe to his use, restrained
mortal, yet either of them the rivers, subjugated the
would disable him from living, and seas, insured his subsistence, conquered
reduce him to a state in which he apart of the animals in obliging
might rather be said to perish than to them to serve him, and driven others
die.--Thus necessity, like a gravitating far from his empire, to the depths of
power, would form our newly deserts or of woods, where their
arrived emigrants into society, the number diminishes from age to age.
reciprocal benefits of which would What a man alone would not have
supersede and render the obligations been able to effect, men have executed
of law and government unnecessary, in concert; and altogether they
while they remained perfectly just preserve their work.--Such is the
to each other. But as nothing but origin, such the advantages, and the
heaven is impregnable to vice, it will end of society.--Government owes
unavoidably happen, that in proportion its birth to the necessity of preventing
as they surmount the first and repressing the injuries which
difficulties of emigration which bound the associated individuals had to fear
them together in a common cause, from one another. It is the sentinel
they will begin to relax in their duty who watches, in order that the common
and attachment to each other, and this labourers be not disturbed."
remissness will point out the necessity
of establishing some form of
moral virtue."
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