A change of national manners for the worse, may arise from a discontinuance
of the scenes in which the talents of men were happily cultivated, and
brought into exercise; or from a change in the prevailing opinions relating
to the constituents of honour or of happiness. When mere riches, or court
favour, are supposed to constitute rank; the mind is misled from the
consideration of qualities on which it ought to rely. Magnanimity, courage,
and the love of mankind, are sacrificed to avarice and vanity; or
suppressed under a sense of dependence. The individual considers his
community so far only as it can be rendered subservient to his personal
advancement or profit: he states himself in competition with his fellow
creatures; and, urged by the passions of emulation, of fear and jealousy,
of envy and malice, he follows the maxims of an animal destined to preserve
his separate existence, and to indulge his caprice or his appetite, at the
expense of his species.
On this corrupt foundation, men become either rapacious, deceitful, and
violent, ready to trespass on the rights of others; or servile, mercenary,
and base, prepared to relinquish their own.
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