Add to this the species of government which prevails over nine

tenths of the globe, which is despotism: a government, as Locke

justly observes, altogether "vile and miserable," and "more to be
deprecated than anarchy itself."(2*)
Certainly every man who takes a dispassionate survey of this
picture will feel himself inclined to pause respecting the necessity
of the havoc which is thus made of his species, and to question
whether the established methods for protecting mankind against
the caprices of each other are the best that can be devised. He will
be at a loss which of the two to pronounce most worthy of regret,
the misery that is inflicted, or the depravity by which it is
produced. If this be the unalterable allotment of our nature, the
eminence of our rational faculties must be considered as rather an
abortion than a substantial benefit; and we shall not fail to lament
that, while in some respects we are elevated above the brutes, we
are in so many important ones destined for ever to remain their
inferiors.
NOTES:1. Gulliver's Travels, Part IV, Chapter V.2. Locke on
Government, Book I, Chapter i, section 1; and Book II, Chapter
vii., section 91.
Most of the above arguments may be found much more at large in
Burke's Vindication of Natural Society; a treatise in which the evils
of the existing political institutions are displayed with
incomparable force of reasoning and lustre of eloquence, while the
intention of the author was to show that these evils were to be
considered as trivial.
CHAPTER IIISPIRIT OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.
Additional perspicuity will be communicated to our view of the
evils of political society if we reflect with further and closer
attention upon what may be called its interior and domestic history.

Two of the greatest abuses relative to the interior policy of nations,

which at this time prevail in the world, consist in the irregular
transfer of property, either first by violence, or secondly by fraud.
If among the inhabitants of any country there existed no desire in
one individual to possess himself of the substance of another, or no
desire so vehement and restless as to prompt him to acquire it by
means inconsistent with order and justice, undoubtedly in that
country guilt could scarcely be known but by report. If every man
could with perfect facility obtain the necessaries of life, and,
obtaining them, feel no uneasy craving after its superfluities,
temptation would lose its power. Private interest would visibly
accord with public good; and civil society become what poetry has
feigned of the golden age. Let us enquire into the principles to
which these abuses are indebted for their existence.
First then it is to be observed that, in the most refined states of
Europe, the inequality of property has risen to an alarming height.
Vast numbers of their inhabitants are deprived of almost every
accommodation that can render life tolerable or secure. Their
utmost industry scarcely suffices for their support. The women and
children lean with an insupportable weight upon the efforts of the
man, so that a large family has in the lower orders of life become a
proverbial expression for an uncommon degree of poverty and
wretchedness. If sickness, or some of those casualties which are
perpetually incident to an active and laborious life, be added to
these burdens, the distress is yet greater.