high, the object of laudable ambition, the vis motrix of society and civilisation. Without it there would be stagnation, inanity-listless barbarity. But it has been asked, how is this ambition compatible with that modesty which all systems of morals must hold up as a virtue, that humility of mind, which the christian religion especially demands? I believe the question would never have been asked, had not an erroneous view respecting men and society been taken, according to which a state of perfection, toward which we were bound to strive, was believed necessarily to consist of a state of sameness; but we have already seen that where there is individuality there is diversity, and this diversity of combination seems to be one of our Maker's greatest laws of life, by which his greatness, inconceivable by man, appears nevertheless the more holy, the longer and deeper man contemplates it and follows it out as far as his limited faculties will sustain him. If we take the opposite view, that perfection of life does not consist in infinite combinations of character and infinite mutual relation's, necessary in order to keep society joined together, but also necessarily founded upon variety and contrast, because without it society would dissolve into equal and equally inert atoms, we must ultimately arrive, if we consistently reason, at that state held up by the wisest Hindoos as the state of perfection, in which we are "indifferent to all pairs of opposite things, as honor or dishonor, and the like, remaining absorbed in the Divine Essence." (1) (1) Ordinances of Menu, translated by Sir W. Jones, London, 1799, vol. iii, p. 237. XXXVII. Desire of distinction is just and all depends won these points, that we desire to excel or distinguish ourselves in something laudable, that after calm examination this appears to be within the reach of our faculties, endowments and position, so that we mistake not the aim pointed out to us by our individual combination, that the desire do not become excessive, or a diseased function of the soul, and that consequently we do not desire distinction because it is such but because it is in a good cause and our duty to excel in it, having the endowments for it, and therefore do not envy or hate those who excel in the same paths, but on the contrary cherish them as striving for the same good and noble end. Many persons have entirely missed their aim by striving to excel in poetry while they were made perhaps to be sound practical men; many have ruined the usefulness of their life and their happiness by not proportioning their ambition to their faculties or other means; many, by placing it upon worthless subjects, many again, by criminally placing it upon subjects legitimate in themselves. And in this latter point of view in which it becomes especially important in politics, we must not forget that it is closely coupled in gifted minds with that urgency of action, which we find always to exist in proportion to given faculties, and from which rises the love of power, not wrong in its principle, but often carried to such insatiate excess that it bewilders the mind, deranges all other functions of the soul, and ends in a monomania. Yet though ambition has frequently intoxicated superior minds and led less gifted ones to many follies, we can in politics as little dispense with ambition, as in the arts, sciences or literature, in the school, the house, or the various avocations of practical life. For if ambition in those gifted citizens, who by their peculiar mental organization are fitted for officers or as leaders, is extinguished, either by disgust at a degenerate state of things, or their own haughtiness, and if it be not properly kindled in the rising generations by directing their attention to the noblest examples of civic worth in the history of their country or that of other great nations, one of the greatest and most ruinous evils of a state must unavoidably befall it, that of political apathy or indifferentism, which always foments political demoralization, as it partly arises from it; until it finally extinguishes all public spirit and patriotism. If the best, the well-informed, the honest, do not strive for the honors of the commonwealth, the wicked, ignorant or dishonest will; if all matters of political distinction, be it by way of parliamentary honor, distinction of high office, on the bench or in whatever other manner, be disregarded or derided, matters of justice and politics themselves soon will be treated so too. If the substantial citizens become indifferentists and do not vote, perhaps too proud to mingle in the crowd, or to exercise so high a privilege of liberty at the expense of some personal inconvenience, they ought to know that others will not do the same, and that the "fæx infima populi," where such have a right of voting, will infallibly be at the poll. Indifferentism in politics leads to what was called in a previous passage, political atony, a dissolution of the political ties, and of course to the death of justice and liberty, an awful state of things, out of which convulsive revolutions alone, accompanied with suffering and violence, can develope a new order of things. XXXVIII. We ought not to forget that distinction in sciences or other branches may be acquired not indeed without sacrifices, for there is no good to be acquired without proportionate exertion and sacrifice, but without those sacrifices from which nobler minds would shrink. The politics of liberty, however, are in their nature not unfrequently of a rough character: because they are the affairs of masses, in which we cannot always expect delicacy of relations. Without ambition, without love of distinction, there would then not exist sufficient incentive for those who have the mind and mould of soul to become great citizens. For this reason, however, it is also necessary not to withhold from the excellent or great the just reward of their ambition, not to instil into them by unworthy ingratitude the poison of jealousy, or contempt of popular acknowledgment; not to permit that honorable ambition, which respects and obeys the public voice, to degenerate into the love of power for its own sake, the most reckless and unscrupulous of passions. Habitual ingratitude produces one of two things: either it leads those who long for power to use the people while they despise it; or it drives the best minds from the stage of politics. Niebuhr, in his History of Rome, says: "M. Manlius, the preserver of the capitol, of whom the chronicles relate that in birth and valor he was second to none, and in personal beauty, exploits, eloquence, vigor and daring superior to all, found himself bitterly disappointed in his claims to gratitude and honor. Camillus, his enemy, to whom he felt himself at least equal, who had not shared in the distress of the siege, who had imprecated curses on his country, was repeatedly raised by the houses to the dictatorship, and by the comitia, which were under the influence of the aristocracy, to the military tribunate: while he, though a consular, found himself excluded from all dignities. This insulting neglect, in return for an action standing foremost but not alone in a heroic life, the energy of which was still unexhausted, poisoned his heart with virulent rancor. He was one of those powerful-minded men who have received a calling to be the first among their countrymen, and feel an unconquerable longing to fulfil it, while low minds, envying and disliking them, are resolved to keep them back from the place which is their due; one of those, the superhuman vehemence of whose character, when drawn forth by such a conflict, makes even honest but timid natures shrink. For indeed it is their doom to be haunted by a spirit, against the snares of which nothing can protect them but the confidence and esteem of honorable minds. God will require their souls from those who have driven them into fatal courses: their faults he will judge more mercifully, than those which ruined his noblest work. These mighty characters have always an intense inborn feeling in behalf of justice, truth, and whatever is glorious; they are animated by love and pity, by hatred and indignation of the right sort: these become subservient to their fierce passions, but not to die away: it is glaringly unjust, even when they have gone irretrievably astray, to regard actions, which in a man of blameless life would be extolled as noble and praiseworthy, in any other light in them, although vulgar souls may do the same things from selfish motives." So far the historian of Rome. We shall return to the subject of gratitude and popularity in politics. |