They open a door, perhaps, to disaster, as wide and accessible as
any of those they have shut. If they build walls and ramparts, they
enervate the minds of those who are placed to defend them; if they form
disciplined armies, they reduce the military spirit of entire nations; and
by placing the sword where they have given a distaste to civil
establishments, they prepare for mankind the government of force.
It is happy for the nations of Europe, that the disparity between the
soldier and the pacific citizen can never be so great as it became among
the Greeks and the Romans. In the use of modern arms, the novice is made to
learn, and to practise with ease, all that the veteran knows; and if to
teach him were a matter of real difficulty, happy are they who are not
deterred by such difficulties, and who can discover the arts which tend to
fortify and preserve, not to enervate and ruin their country.
SECTION V.
OF NATIONAL WASTE.
The strength of nations consists in the wealth, the numbers, and the
character of their people. The history of their progress from a state of
rudeness, is, for the most part, a detail of the struggles they have
maintained, and of the arts they have practised, to strengthen, or to
secure themselves.
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