ons of society; not on account of the
real or personal merit of the individuals, but because such an institution
has a tendency to enlarge and raise the mind, to keep alive the memory of
past greatness, to connect the different ages of the world together, to
carry back the imagination over a long tract of time, and feed it with the
contemplation of remote events: because it is natural to think highly of
that which inspires us with high thoughts, which has been connected for
many generations with splendour, and affluence, and dignity, and power,
and privilege. He also conceived, that by transferring the respect from
the person to the thing, and thus rendering it steady and permanent, the
mind would be habitually formed to sentiments of deference, attachment,
and fealty, to whatever else demanded its respect: that it would be led to
fix its view on what was elevated and lofty, and be weaned from that low
and narrow jealousy which never willingly or heartily admits of any
superiority in others, and is glad of every opportunity to bring down all
excellence to a level with its own miserable standard. Nobility did not
therefore exist to the prejudice of the other orders of the state, but by,
and for them. The inequality of the different orders of society did not
destroy the unity and harmony of the whole. The health and well-being of
the moral world was to be promoted by the same means as the beauty of the
natural world; by contrast, by change, by light and shade, by variety of
parts, by order and proportion. To think of reducing all mankind to the
same insipid level, seemed to him the same absurdity as to destroy the
inequalities of surface in a country, for the benefit of agriculture and
commerce. In short, he believed that the interests of men in society
should be consulted, and their several stations and employments assigned,
with a view to their nature, not as physical, but as moral beings, so as
to nourish their hopes, to lift their imagination, to enliven their fancy,
to rouse their activity, to strengthen their virtue, and to furnish the
greatest number of objects of pursuit and means of enjoyment to beings
constituted as man is, consistently with the order and stability of the
whole.

The same reasoning might be extended farther. I do not say that his
arguments are conclusive; but they are profound and _true_, as far as they
go. There may be disadvantages and abuses necessarily interwoven with his
scheme, or opposite