It is vain to affirm that the genius of any nation is adverse to conquest.
Its real interests indeed most commonly are so; but every state, which is
prepared to defend itself, and to obtain victories, is likewise in hazard
of being tempted to conquer.
In Europe, where mercenary and disciplined armies are everywhere formed,
and ready to traverse the earth, where, like a flood pent up by slender
banks, they are only restrained by political forms, or a temporary balance
of power; if the sluices should break, what inundations may we not expect
to behold? Effeminate kingdoms and empires are spread from the sea of Corea
to the Atlantic ocean. Every state, by the defeat of its troops, may be
turned into a province; every army opposed in the field today may be hired
to-morrow; and every victory gained, may give the accession of a new
military force to the victor.
The Romans, with inferior arts of communication by sea and land, maintained
their dominion in a considerable part of Europe, Asia, and Africa, over
fierce and intractable nations: what may not the fleets and armies of
Europe, with the access they have by commerce to every part of the world,
and the facility of their conveyance, effect, if that ruinous maxim should
prevail, that the grandeur of a nation is to be estimated from the extent
of its territory; or, that the interest of any particular people consists
in reducing their neighbours to servitude?
SECTION VI
OF CIVIL LIBERTY
If war, either for depredation or, defence, were the principal object of
nations, every tribe would, from its earliest state, aim at the condition
of a Tartar horde; and in all its successes would hasten to the grandeur of
a Tartar empire.
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