Chapter 5
Section 5 of the Inquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Michelle Fry, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in January 2020. and now inquiry concerning political justice and its influence on morals and happiness by william godwin published 1793 book one chapter two the history of political society
war frequency of war among the ancients among the moderns the french the english causes of war penal laws despotism deduction from the whole the extent of the influence of political systems will be forcibly illustrated by a concise recollection of the records of political society it is an old observation that the history of mankind is little else than the record of crimes if we consider the human species as they were found previously to the existence of political
society it is difficult not to be impressed with emotions of melancholy but though the chief purpose of society is to defend us from want and inconvenience it affects this purpose in a very imperfect degree we are still liable to casualties disease infirmity and death famine destroys its thousands and pestilence its ten thousands anguish visits us under every variety of form and day after day is spent in languor and dissatisfaction exquisite pleasure is a guest
of very rare approach and not less short continuance but though the evils that arise to us from the structure of the material universe are neither trivial nor few yet the history of political society sufficiently shows that man is of all other beings the most formidable enemy to man among the various schemes that he has formed to destroy and plague his kind war is the most terrible satiated with petty mischief and the retail of insulated crimes he rises in this
instance to a project that lays nations waste and thins the population of the world man directs the murderous engine against the life of his brother he invents with indefatigable care refinements in destruction he proceeds in the midst of gaiety and pomp to the execution of his horrid purpose whole ranks of sensitive beings endowed with the most admirable faculties are mowed down in an instant they perish by inches in the midst of agony and neglect lacerated with every variety
of method that can give torture to the frame. This is indeed a tremendous scene. Are we permitted to console ourselves under the spectacle of its evils, by the rareness with which it occurs, and the forcible reasons that compel men to have recourse to this last appeal of human society? Let us consider it under each of these heads. War has hitherto been found the inseparable ally of political institutions. The earliest records of time are the annals of conquerors and heroes,
a Bacchus, a Sesostris, a Semiramis, and a Cyrus. These princes led millions of men under their standard and ravaged innumerable provinces. A small number only of their forces ever returned to their native homes the rest having perished by diseases hardship and misery the evils they inflicted and the mortality introduced in the countries against which their expeditions were directed were certainly not less severe than those which their countrymen suffered no sooner does
history become more precise than we are presented with the four great monarchies that is with four successful projects by means of bloodshed violence and murder of enslaving mankind the expeditions of cambyses against egypt of darius against the scythians and of xerxes against the greeks seem almost to set credibility at defiance by the fatal consequences with which they were attended the conquests of alexander cost innumerable lives and the immortality of caesar is computed to have
been purchased by the death of 1,200,000 men. Indeed, the Romans, by the long duration of their wars and their inflexible adherence to their purpose, are to be ranked among the foremost destroyers of the human species. Their wars in Italy continued for more than 400 years, and their contest for supremacy with the Carthaginians, 200. The Mithridatic War began with a massacre of 150,000 Romans, and in three single actions 500,000 men were lost by the
eastern monarch. Scylla, his ferocious conqueror, next turned his arms against his country, and the struggle between him and Marius was attended with prescriptions, butcheries, and murders that knew no restraint from humanity or shame. The Romans at length suffered the evils they had been so prompt to inflict upon others and the world was vexed for 300 years with the eruptions of goths vandals ostrogoths huns and innumerable hordes of barbarians i forbear to detail the
victorious progress of mohammed and the pious expeditions of charlemagne i will not enumerate the crusades against the infidels the exploits of tamerlane gingas khan and aurangzib or the extensive murders of the Spaniards in the New World? Let us examine Europe, the most civilized and favored quarter of the world, or even those countries of Europe which are thought the most enlightened. France was wasted by successive battles during the whole century for the question
of Salic law and the claim of the Plantagenets. Scarcely was this contest terminated before the religious wars broke out some idea of which we may form from the siege of rochelle where of 15 000 persons shut up 11 000 perished of hunger and misery and from the massacre of saint bartholomew in which the numbers assassinated were 40 000 this quarrel was appeased by henry iv and succeeded by the 30 years war in germany for superiority with the house of austria and afterwards by the military
transactions of louis the 14th in england the war of cressy and agincourt only gave place to the civil war of york and lancaster and again after an interval to the war of charles the first and his parliament no sooner was the constitution settled by the revolution than we were engaged in a wide field of continental hostilities by king william the duke of marlborough maria theresa and the king of prussia and what are in most cases the pretenses upon which war is undertaken
what rational man could possibly have given himself the least disturbance for the sake of choosing whether henry the sixth or edward the fourth should have the style of king of england what englishman could reasonably have drawn his sword for the purpose of rendering his country an inferior dependency of France, as it must necessarily have been if the ambition of the Plantagenets had succeeded. What can be more deplorable than to see us first engage eight
years in a war rather than suffer the haughty Maria Theresa to live with a diminished sovereignty or in a private station, and then eight years more to support the free booter who had taken advantage of her helpless condition the usual causes of war are excellently described by jonathan swift gulliver's travels part four chapter five quote sometimes the quarrel between two princes is to decide which of them shall dispossess a third of his dominions where neither
of them pretends to any right sometimes one prince quarrels with another for fear the other should quarrel with him. Sometimes a war is entered upon because the enemy is too strong and sometimes because he is too weak. Sometimes our neighbors want the things which we have or have the things which we want and we both fight till they take ours or give us theirs. It is a very justifiable cause of war to invade a country after the people have been wasted by famine, destroyed by pestilence
or embroiled by factions among themselves it is justifiable to enter into a war against our nearest ally when one of his towns lies convenient for us or a territory of land that would render our dominions round and compact if a prince sends forces into a nation where the people are poor and ignorant he may lawfully put the half of them to death and make slaves of the rest in order to civilize and reduce them from their barbarous way of living it is a very kingly honorable and
frequent practice when one prince desires the assistance of another to secure him against an invasion that the assistant when he has driven out the invader should seize on the dominions himself and kill imprison or banish the prince he came to relieve close quote if we turn from the foreign transactions of states with each other to the principles of their domestic policy we shall not find much greater reason to be satisfied a numerous class of mankind are held down in a state of abject
penury and are continually prompted by disappointment and distress to commit violence upon their more fortunate neighbors the only mode which is employed to repress this violence and to maintain the order and peace of society is punishment whips axes and gibbets dungeons chains and racks are the most approved and established methods of persuading men to obedience and impressing upon their minds the lessons of reason there are few subjects upon which human ingenuity has been more fully displayed
than in inventing instruments of torture the lash of the whip a thousand times repeated on the back of the defenseless victim, the bastinado on the soles of the feet, the dislocation of limbs, the fracture of bones, the faggot and the stake, the cross, impaling, and the mode of drifting pirates on the Volga make but a small part of the catalogue. When Damien's, the maniac, was arraigned for his abortive attempt on the life of Louis XV of France, the Council of Anatomists
was summoned to deliberate how a human being might be destroyed with the longest protracted and most diversified agony. Hundreds of victims are annually sacrificed at the shrine of positive law and political institution. Add to this the species of government which prevails over nine tenths of the globe, which is despotism. A government, as John Locke justly observes in his book on government quote altogether vile and miserable and more to be deprecated than anarchy
itself close quote certainly every man who takes a dispassionate survey of this picture will feel himself inclined to pause respecting the necessity of the havoc which is thus made of his species and to question whether the established methods for protecting mankind against the caprices of each other are the best that can be devised he will be at a loss which of the two to pronounce most worthy of regret the misery that is inflicted or the depravity by which
it is produced if this be the unalterable allotment of our nature the eminence of our rational faculties must be considered as rather an abortion than a substantial benefit and we shall not fail to lament that while in some respects we are elevated above the brutes we are in so many important ones destined forever to remain their inferiors end of section five
