They will accordingly maintain the
wretched as well as the happy. They answer one purpose, but are not
therefore sufficient for all; and are of little significance, when only
employed to maintain a timid, dejected, and servile people.
Great and powerful states are able to overcome and subdue the weak;
polished and commercial nations have more wealth, and practise a greater
variety of arts, than the rude: but the happiness of men, in all cases
alike, consists in the blessings of a candid, an active, and strenuous
mind. And if we consider the state of society merely as that into which
mankind are led by their propensities, as a state to be valued from its
effect in preserving the species, in ripening their talents, and exciting
their virtues, we need not enlarge our communities, in order to enjoy these
advantages. We frequently obtain them in the most remarkable degree, where
nations remain independent, and are of a small extent.
To increase the numbers of mankind, may be admitted as a great and
important object; but to extend the limits of any particular state, is not,
perhaps, the way to obtain it: while we desire that our fellow creatures
should multiply, it does not follow, that the whole should, if possible, be
united under one head.
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