periority will be hereby lost, but the distinction increased, and
their authority strengthened, when love in inferiors is joined to
outward respect, and the esteem of the person has a share in their
submission: and domestics will pay a more ready and cheerful service,
when they find themselves not spurned, because fortune has laid them
below the level of others at their master's feet."
These, dear Sir, are certainly the sentiments of a generous and
enlarged spirit: but I hope, I may observe, that the great distance
Mr. Locke before enjoins to be kept between children and servants, is
not very consistent with the above-cited paragraph: for if we would
prevent this undue contempt of inferiors in the temper of children,
the best way, as I humbly presume to think, is not to make it so
unpardonable a fault for them, especially in their early years, to
be in their company. For can one make the children shun the
servants without rendering them odious or contemptible to them, and
representing them to the child in such disadvantageous light, as must
needs make the servants vile in their eyes, and themselves lofty
and exalted in their own? and thereby cause them to treat them with
"domineering words, and an imperious carriage, as if they were of
another race or species beneath them; and so," as Mr. Locke says,
"nurse up their natural pride into an habitual contempt of those
beneath them; and then," as he adds, "where will that probably end,
but in oppression and cruelty?" But this matter, dear Sir, I presume
to think, will all be happily accommodated and reconciled, when the
servants' good behaviour is secured by the example and injunctions of
the principals.
Upon the whole, then, of what Mr. Locke has enjoined, and what I have
taken the liberty to suggest on this head, it shall be my endeavour,
in that early part of your dear Billy's education, which you will
intrust to me, to inculcate betimes in his mind the principles of
universal benevolence and kindness to others, especially to inferiors.
Nor shall I fear, that the little dear will be wanting to himself
in assuming, as he grows up, an air of superiority and distance of
behaviour equal to his condition, or that he will descend too low for
his station. For, Sir, there is a pride and self-love natural to human
minds, that will seldom be kept so low, as to make them humbler than
they ought to be.
I have observed, before now, instances of this, in some of the
families w
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