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406 - RIESBECK’S TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY.
LETTER XXX.
Vienna.
NO doubt but there is much illufion in Rouffeau’sidea of focial contract. Fate,
which plays fo many other games with us, throws us into fome peculiar fociety, by
which we are fettered before we have time to think of a contraét. Accident, and iron
hearted neceflity, have been the true legiflators of all the monarchies, ariftocracies, de-
‘mocracies, and their numerous fubdivifions, that ever exifted in the world. It is like-
wife certain, that upon the whole, we find ourfelves better under the direGion of capri-
cious fortune, than if we had fet down originally to bind and connect each other in
eternal chains. ‘The will of the ftrongeft {till remains the ultimate decider of all diffi-
culties, and whatever covenants there might have been, it muft have been fo, as often
as the {trongeft fhould have felt his weight, or his intereft fhould have come in compe-
tition with that of others.
It is neverthelefs true, that in thefe various gallies to which we are chained, the good
of the whole cannot be better promoted, than when the will of the whole, or at leaft of
the majority, are directed according to the plumb-line of legiflation, and of focial con-
tract. No Sultan has any thing to fear from this participation of his power, though he
fhould divide it with all his fubjeéts, from his Grand Vizier, to the loweft flave under
him. ‘The fovereign, whether he has one head or a hundred, cannot promote his own
intereft more effectually, than by confidering his fupreme will as the refult of the en-
lightened wills of all, or the greater part of his fubjects. A real oppofition between the
interefts of the governor and his fubjeéts never exifts, when it feems to do fo, it is only
the cozenage of accident. All hiftory is full of this truth, the attention to which will
effe€tually fecure the people from tyranny, even when the private character of the fove-
reign isa cruel one. ‘The prince can never be more fecure from murder, treachery,
and rebellion, than when he has convinced his fubjeéts that their interefts is the rule of
his legiflation, and it muft be fo, if he will not hurt himfelf. Intereft is the moft facred
band among men, and their happinefs depends upon knowing what it truly is. The
misfortunes of men have been always more owing to their governors not knowing in
what their true interefts confifted, than to their wickednefs or depravity. packer
Superftition, and the diffipation of princes together, firft invented that fpecies of poli-
tics, the principles of which Machiavel firft collected, but did not invent. Nero and
Auguftus had already ufed it, but it was only in modern Italy that it was confidered as
a true art of government. From thence, with other arts and fciences, did this hoftile
art to human nature fpread irfelf over the reft of Europe. The minifters of feveral
European courts, which had formed themfelves after the Italian models, imagined they
would govern the better, the finer and more fubtle policy they adopted. Lewis XI.
Richelieu, and Mazarin, were the great mafters of this art, and from that time to this,
the ‘happy times of Henry IV. alone excepted, it would have been looked upon as folly
in France, to have aimed at governing the people by love, generofity, and information
with regard to their true interefts.
The priefts, particularly the jefuits, whofe government of their own focietyis eftablifhed
upon principles of the fame kind, contributed much to give them currency in courts.
There they were treated as holy myfteries, which, like the philofopher’s {tone, could
make demigods of the poffeffor. Blinded by this political art of gold making, princes
dared to deviate from the plain and ftrait line of nature, that line which always conduéts
to happinefs, which is the fame ina ftate as ina private family, according to which every
2 5 governor
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