When we are involved in any of the divisions into which mankind are
separated under the denominations of a country, a tribe, or an order of men
any way affected by common interests, and guided by communicating passions,
the mind recognises its natural station; the sentiments of the heart, and
the talents of the understanding, find their natural exercise. Wisdom,
vigilance, fidelity, and fortitude, are the characters requisite in such a
scene, and the qualities which it tends to improve.
In simple or barbarous ages, when nations are weak, and beset with enemies,
the love of a country, of a party, or a faction, are the same. The public
is a knot of friends, and its enemies are the rest of mankind. Death, or
slavery, are the ordinary evils which they are concerned to ward off;
victory and dominion, the objects to which they aspire. Under the sense of
what they may suffer from foreign invasions, it is one object, in every
prosperous society, to increase its force, and to extend its limits. In
proportion as this object is gained, security increases. They who possess
the interior districts, remote from the frontier, are unused to alarms from
abroad.
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