The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• To the Right Honourable Charles James Fox.
• Preface.
• Personal Nobility Or , Letters to a Young Noble Man
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• The Spirit of Despotism.
• Preface.
• Section I.: Introductory.
• Section II. Oriental Manners, and the Ideas Imbibed In Youth, Both In the West and East Indies, Favourable to the Spirit of Despotism.
• Section III. Certain Circumstances In Education Which Promote the Spirit of Despotism.
• Section IV. Corruption of Manners Has a Natural Tendency to Promote the Spirit of Despotism.
• Section V. An Abhorrence of Despotism and an Ardent Love of Liberty Perfectly Consistent With Order and Tranquillity; and the Natural Consequence of Well-informed Understandings and Benevolent Dispositions.
• Section VI. On the Venality of the Press Under the Influence of the Despotic Spirit, and Its Effects In Diffusing That Spirit.
• Section VII. The Fashionable Invectives Against Philosophy and Reason, a Proof of the Spirit of Despotism.
• Section VIII. Of Loyalty, and Certain Mistaken Ideas of It.
• Section IX. On Taking Advantage of Popular Commotions, Accidental Excesses, and Foreign Revolutions, to Extend Prerogative and Power, and Encroach On the Liberties of the People.
• Section X. When Human Life Is Held Cheap, It Is a Symptom of a Prevailing Spirit of Despotism.
• Section XI. Indifference of the Middle and Lower Classes of the People to Public Affairs, Highly Favourable to the Encroachments of the Tory Principle, and Therefore to the Spirit of Despotism.
• Section XII. The Despotic Spirit Is Inclined to Discourage Commerce, As Unfavourable to Its Purposes.
• Section XIII. The Spirit of Despotism Displaying Itself In Private Life, and Proceeding Thence to Avail Itself of the Church and the Military.
• Section XIV. The Despotic Spirit Inclined to Avail Itself of Spies, Informers, False Witnesses, Pretended Conspiracies, and Self-interested Associations Affecting Patriotism.
• Section XV. The Manners of Tory Courtiers, and of Those Who Ape Them, As People of Fashion, Inconsistent With Manliness, Truth, and Honesty; and Their Prevalence Injurious to a Free Constitution, and the Happiness of Human Nature.
• Section XVI. The Spirit of Truth, Liberty, and Virtue, Public As Well As Private, Chiefly to Be Found In the Middle Ranks of the People.
• Section XVII. On Debauching the Minds of the Rising Generation and a Whole People, By Giving Them Military Notions In a Frée and Commercial Country.
• Section XVII. Levity, Effeminacy, Ignorance, and Want of Principle In Private Life, Inimical to All Public Virtue, and Favourable to the Spirit of Despotism.
• Section XIX. Certain Passages In Dr. Brown’s “estimate” Which Deserve the Serious Consideration of All Who Would Oppose the Subversion of a Free Constitution By Corruption of Manners and Principles, and By Undue Influence.
• Section XX. On Several Subjects Suggested By Lord Melcombe’s Diary; Particularly the Practice of Bartering the Cure of Souls For the Corruption of Parliament.
• Section XXI. On Choosing Rich Men, Without Parts, Spirit, Or Liberality, As Representatives In the National Council.
• Section XXII. Of the Despotic Influence of Great Merchants Over Their Subalterns, of Customers Over Their Tradesmen, and Rich Trading Companies Over Their Various Dependents, In Compelling Them to Vote For Court Candidates For Seats In Parliment, Merely T
• Section XXIII. Of the Pageantry of Life; That It Originates In the Spirit of Despotism; and Contributes to It, Without Advancing Private Any More Than Public Felicity.
• Section XXIV. Insolence of the Higher Orders to the Middle Ranks and the Poor; With Their Affected Condescension, In Certain Circumstances, to the Lowest of the People.
• Section XXV. Of a Natural Aristocracy.
• Section XXVI. The Excessive Love of Distinction and Power Which Prevails Wherever the Spirit of Despotism Exists, Deadens Some of the Finest Feelings of the Heart, and Counteracts the Laws of Nature.
• Section XXVII. On the Opinion That the People Are Annihilated Or Absorbed In Parliament; That the Voice of the People Is No Where to Be Heard But In Parliament; and On Similar Doctrines, Tending to Depreciate the People.
• Section XXVIII. The Fashionable Contempt Thrown On Mr. Locke, and His Writings In Favour of Liberty; and On Other Authors and Books Espousing the Same Cause.
• Section XXIX. Of the Despotism of Influence; While the Forms of a Free Constitution Are Preserved.
• Section XXX. The Spirit of Despotism Delights In War Or Systematic Murder.
• Section XXXI. On the Idea That We Have Arrived At Perfection In Politics, Though All Other Sciences Are In a Progressive State.
• Section XXXII. On Political Ethics; Their Chief Object Is to Throw Power Into the Hands of the Worst Part of Mankind, and to Render Government an Institution Calculated to Enrich and Aggrandize a Few, At the Expense of the Liberty, Property, and Lives of
• Section XXXIII. On Trafficking With the Cure of Souls, (cura Animarum,) For the Purposes of Political, I. E. Moral, Corruption.
• Section XXXIV. Of Mr. Hume’s Idea, That Absolute Monarchy Is the Easiest Death, the True Euthanasia of the British Constitution.
• Section XXXV. The Permission of Lawyers By Profession, Aspiring to Honours In the Gift of the Crown, to Have the Greatest Influence In the Legislature, a Circumstance Unfavourable to Liberty.
• Section XXXVI. Poverty, When Not Extreme, Favourable to All Virtue, Public and Private, and Consequently to the Happiness of Human Nature; and Enormous Riches, Without Virtue, the General Bane.
• Section XXXVII. On the Natural Tendency of Making Judges and Crown Lawyers, Peers; of Translating Bishops and Annexing Preferments to Bishoprics, In, What Is Called Commendam.
• Section XXXVIII. That All Opposition to the Spirit of Despotism Should Be Conducted With the Most Scrupulous Regard to the Existing Laws, and to the Preservation of Public Peace and Good Order.
• Section XXXIX. The Christian Religion Favourable to Civil Liberty, and Likewise to Equality Rightly Understood.
• Section Xl. the Pride Which Produces the Spirit of Despotism Conspicuous Even On the Tombstone. It Might Be Treated With Total Neglect, If It Did Not Tend to the Oppression of the Poor, and to Bloodshed and Plunder.
• Section Xli.: Conclusion.
• Antipolemus; Or, the Plea of Reason, Religion, and Humanity, Against War. a Fragment; Translated From the Latin of Erasmus.
• Preface. By the Translator.
• Antipolemus; Or, the Plea of Reason, Religion, and Humanity, Against War.

LETTER I.

My Lord,

I congratulate you on your determination to adorn the lustre of your birth by the accomplishments of elegant literature. The eagerness with which you solicit my correspondence is a compliment to me, and a proof of your own ardour in the pursuit of improvement. You need not doubt my compliance. It will be a pleasing amusement in my retreat, to contribute to the embellishment of a mind like yours; no less ennobled by a disposition to every generous virtue, than by a long line of illustrious ancestors.

You have already made, under your excellent tutor, an uncommon proficiency in those grammatical and elementary studies, which, however unostentatious in their appearance, are necessary to form a solid basis for a durable and beautiful superstructure. Proceed in your conquests; but take care to preserve the territory already subdued. Be not afraid of literary labour. At your age, you have health and strength enough to support a great deal, without the least detriment to your constitution, and with a certainty of pleasure and profit in return.

I admire that prudence which induces you to employ the valuable years of youth in useful and honourable studies, rather than in frivolous occupations; such as too often engross the minds of young men at your age, and in your elevated station. But forgive the caution of a friend. I dread the effects of example. Can you withstand the shafts of ridicule? For though your conduct will be esteemed by all men of sense and virtue, yet it will be derided by fops, gamesters, and professed men of pleasure.

Arm yourself, my Lord, with all your manly resolution on first entering into life. Your sense and accomplishments, seconded by courage in steadily pursuing the right path which you have chosen, will awe the weak and the vain to silence; and, in time, convert their contempt into esteem.

In the mean while, your sun will be rising gloriously in the horizon; and their feeble luminaries declining in clouds and darkness, to rise no more. You will soon become an important character, while they are sinking into insignificance. Your birth and fortune will indeed give you civil rank; but your attainments and your conduct will give you, what is better, the weight of personal authority. Both united must render you what every nobleman should ambitiously desire to be, an ornament to your country and to human nature.

But I know your liberal spirit, and trust to it. You want not the exhortations which my zeal has suggested. You have often expressed your scorn of being indebted to accidental nobility alone for personal distinction. May the ardour of virtue which irradiates the morning of your life, glow intensely at its noon, and add warmth and lustre to its evening! Thus while you live, you will be honoured; and at that day, when all human grandeur must be levelled to the earth, adorned with a better ornament than an escutcheon.

Forgive the zeal of friendship even when intemperate. My future letters shall be principally on subjects of polite literature, useful science, or the means of supporting the true dignity of a British nobleman.

I may indeed touch on politics; for they are the peculiar study of a British peer. But my politics are not the politics of a faction or a venal court. They are the politics of philanthropy. The solid happiness of all human creatures, high as well as low, and low as well as high, is their object. To that happiness civil liberty is essential. I mean liberty restrained by reason, by humanity, by justice, by a love of peace and a love of order.

I am, &c.