All the arguments that have been employed to prove the insufficiency of democracy grow out of this one root, the supposed necessity of deception and prejudice for restraining the turbulence of human passions. Without the assumption of this principle the argument could not be sustained for a moment. The direct and decisive answer would be, 'Are kings and lords intrinsically wiser and better than their humbler neighbours? Can there be any solid ground of distinction except what is founded in personal merit?
Are not men, really and strictly considered, equal, except so far as what is personal and inalienable, establishes a difference?' To these questions there can be but one reply, 'Such is the order of reason and absolute truth, but artificial distinctions are necessary for the happiness of mankind.
Without deception and prejudice the turbulence of human passions cannot be restrained.' Let us then examine the merits of this theory; and these will be best illustrated by an instance.
It has been held, by some divines and some politicians, 'that the doctrine which teaches that men will be eternally tormented in another world, for their errors and misconduct in this, is in its own nature unreasonable and absurd, but that it is necessary, to keep mankind in awe. Do we not see', say they, 'that, notwithstanding this terrible denunciation, the world is overrun with vice? What then would be the case if the irregular passions of mankind were set free from their present restraint, and they had not the fear of this retribution before their eyes?'
This argument seems to be founded in a singular inattention to the dictates of history and experience, as well as to those of reason. The ancient Greeks and Romans had nothing of this dreadful apparatus of fire and brimstone, and a torment 'the smoke of which ascends for ever and ever'. Their religion was less personal than political. They confided in the Gods as protectors of the state, and this inspired them with invincible courage. In periods of public calamity, they found a ready consolation in expiatory sacrifices to appease the anger of the Gods. The attention of these beings was conceived to be principally directed to the ceremonial of religion, and very little to the moral excellencies and defects of their votaries, which were supposed to be sufficiently provided for by the inevitable tendency of moral excellence or defect to increase or diminish individual happiness. If their systems included the doctrine of a future existence, little attention was paid by them to the connecting the moral deserts of individuals in this life with their comparative situation in another. In Homer, the Elysian fields are a seat of perpetual weariness and languor: Elysium and Tartarus are enclosed in the same circuit; and the difference between them, as most, amounts to no more than the difference between sadness and misery. The same omission, of future retribution as the basis of moral obligation, runs through the systems of the Persians, the Egyptians, the Celts, the Phoenicians, the Jews, and indeed every system which has not been, in some manner or other, the offspring of the Christian. If we were to form our judgement of these nations by the above argument, we should expect to find every individual among them cutting his neighbour's throat, and inured to the commission of every enormity. But they were, in reality, as susceptible of the regulations of government, and the order of society, as those whose imaginations have been most artfully terrified by the threats of future retribution; and some of them were much more generous, determined and attached to the public weal.
Nothing can be more contrary to a just observation of the nature of the human mind than to suppose that these speculative tenets have much influence in making mankind more virtuous than they would otherwise be found. Human beings are placed in the midst of a system of things, all the parts of which are strictly connected with each other, and exhibit a sympathy and unison, by means of which the whole is rendered familiar, and, as it were, inmate to the mind. The respect I shall obtain, and the happiness I shall enjoy, for the remainder of my life are topics of which I feel the entire comprehension. I understand the value of ease, liberty and knowledge, to myself, and my fellow men. I perceive that these things, and a certain conduct intending them, are connected, in the visible system of the world, and not by any supernatural and unusual interposition. But all that can be told me of a future world, a world of spirits, or of glorified bodies, where the employments are spiritual, and the first cause is to be rendered a subject of immediate perception, or of a scene of retribution, where the mind, doomed to everlasting inactivity, shall be wholly a prey to the upbraidings of remorse, and the sarcasms of devils, is so foreign to everything with which I am acquainted, that my mind in vain endeavours to believe or to understand it. If doctrines like these occupy the habitual reflections of any, it is not of the lawless, the violent and ungovernable, but of the sober and conscientious, overwhelming them with gratuitous anxiety, or persuading them passively to submit to despotism and injustice, that they may receive the recompense of their patience hereafter. This objection is equally applicable to every species of deception. Fables may amuse the imagination; but can never stand in the place of reason and judgement as the principles of human conduct. -Let us proceed to a second instance.