NOTEB.
There is a law universal in nature, tending to render every reproductive being the best possibly suited to its condition that its kind, or that organized matter, is susceptible of, which appears intended to model the physical and mental or instinctive powers, to their highest perfection, and to continue them so. This law sustains the lion in his strength, the hare in her swiftness, and the{365}fox in his wiles. As Nature, in all her modifications of life, has a power of increase far beyond what is needed to supply the place of what falls by Time’s decay, those individuals who possess not the requisite strength, swiftness, hardihood, or cunning, fall prematurely without reproducing—either a prey to their natural devourers, or sinking under disease, generally induced by want of nourishment, their place being occupied by the more perfect of their own kind, who are pressing on the means of subsistence. The law of entail, necessary to hereditary nobility, is an outrage on this law of nature which she will not pass unavenged—a law which has the most debasing influence upon the energies of a people, and will sooner or later lead to general subversion, more especially when the executive of a country remains for a considerable time efficient, and no effort is needed on the part of the nobility to protect their own, or no war to draw forth or preserve their powers by exertion. It is all very well, when, in stormy times, the baron has every faculty trained to its utmost ability in keeping his proud crest aloft. How far hereditary nobility, under effective government, has operated to retard “the march of intellect,” and deteriorate the species in modern Europe, is an interesting and important question. We have seen it play its part in France; we see exhibition of its influence throughout the Iberian peninsula, to the utmost degradation of its victims. It has rendered the Italian peninsula, with its islands, a blank in the political map of Europe. Let the panegyrists of hereditary nobility, primogeniture, and entail, say what these countries might not have been{366}but for the baneful influence of this unnatural custom. It is an eastern proverb, that no king is many removes from a shepherd. Most conquerors and founders of dynasties have followed the plough or the flock. Nobility, to be in the highest perfection, like the finer varieties of fruits, independent of having its vigour excited by regular married alliance with wilder stocks, would require stated complete renovation, by selection anew, from among the purest crab. In some places, this renovation would not be so soon requisite as in others, and, judging from facts, we would instance Britain as perhaps the soil where nobility will continue the longest untainted. As we advance nearer to the equator, renovation becomes sooner necessary, excepting at high elevation—in many places, every third generation, at least with the Caucasian breed, although the finest stocks be regularly imported. This renovation is required as well physically as morally.
It is chiefly in regard to the interval of time between the period of necessary feudal authority, and that when the body of the population having acquired the power of self-government from the spread of knowledge, claim a community of rights, that we have adverted to the use of war. The manufacturer, the merchant, the sailor, the capitalist, whose mind is not corrupted by the indolence induced under the law of entail, are too much occupied to require any stimulant beyond what the game in the wide field of commercial adventure affords. A great change in the circumstances of man is obviously at hand.{367}In the first step beyond the condition of the wandering savage, while the lower classes from ignorance remained as helpless children, mankind naturally fell into clans under paternal or feudal government; but as children, when grown up to maturity, with the necessity for protection, lose the subordination to parental authority, so the great mass of the present population requiring no guidance from a particular class of feudal lords, will not continue to tolerate any hereditary claims of authority of one portion of the population over their fellow-men; nor any laws to keep up rank and wealth corresponding to this exclusive power.—It would bewisdomin the noblesse of Europe to abolish every claim or law which serves to point them out a separate class, and, as quickly as possible, to merge themselves into the mass of the population. It is a law manifest in nature, that when the use of any thing is past, its existence is no longer kept up.
Although the necessity for the existence of feudal lords is past, yet the same does not hold in respect to a hereditary head or King; and the stability of this head of the government will, in no way, be lessened by such a change. In the present state of European society, perhaps no other rule can be so mild and efficient as that of a liberal benevolent monarch, assisted by a popular representative Parliament. The poorest man looks up to his king as his own, with affection and pride, and considers him a protector; while he only regards the antiquated feudal lord with contempt. The influence of a respected hereditary family, as head of a country, is also of great utility in{368}forming a principle of union to the different members, and in giving unity and stability to the government.
In respect to our own great landholders themselves, we would ask, where is there that unnatural parent—that miserable victim of hereditary pride—who does not desire to see his domains equally divided among his own children? The high paid sinecures in church and state will not much longer be a great motive for keeping up a powerful family head, whose influence may burthen their fellow-citizens with the younger branches. Besides, when a portion of land is so large, that the owner cannot have an individual acquaintance and associations with every stream, and bush, and rock, and knoll, the deep enjoyment which the smaller native proprietor would have in the peculiar features, is not called forth, and is lost to man. The abolition of the law of entail and primogeniture, will, in the present state of civilization, not only add to the happiness of the proprietor, heighten morality, and give much greater stability to the social order, but will also give a general stimulus to industry and improvement, increasing the comforts and elevating the condition of the operative class.
In the new state of things which is near at hand, the proprietor and the mercantile class will amalgamise,—employment in useful occupations will not continue to be held in scorn,—the merchant and manufacturer will no longer be barely tolerated to exist, harassed at every turn by imposts and the interference of petty tyrants;—Government, instead of forming an engine of oppression, being simplified and based on morality and justice, will{369}become a cheap and efficient protection to person and property; and the necessary taxation being levied from property alone, every individual will purchase in the cheapest market, and sell the produce of his industry in the dearest. This period might, perhaps, be accelerated throughout Europe, did the merchants and capitalists only know their own strength. Let them, as citizens of the world, hold annual congress in some central place, and deliberate on the interests of man, which is their own, and throw the whole of their influence to support liberal and just governments, and to repress slavery, crime, bigotry—tyranny in all shapes. A Rothschild might earn an unstained fame, as great as yet has been attained by man, by organizing such a power, and presiding at its councils.