interest in his own
affairs goes so far that, if his own safety or that of his children is
endangered, instead of trying to avert the peril, he will fold his arms,
and wait till the nation comes to his assistance. This same individual,
who has so completely sacrificed his own free will, has no natural
propensity to obedience; he cowers, it is true, before the pettiest
officer; but he braves the law with the spirit of a conquered foe
as soon as its superior force is removed: his oscillations between
servitude and license are perpetual. When a nation has arrived at this
state it must either change its customs and its laws or perish: the
source of public virtue is dry, and, though it may contain subjects,
the race of citizens is extinct. Such communities are a natural prey to
foreign conquests, and if they do not disappear from the scene of life,
it is because they are surrounded by other nations similar or inferior
to themselves: it is because the instinctive feeling of their country's
claims still exists in their hearts; and because an involuntary pride in
the name it bears, or a vague reminiscence of its bygone fame, suffices
to give them the impulse of self-preservation.

Nor can the prodigious exertions made by tribes in the defence of a
country to which they did not belong be adduced in favor of such a
system; for it will be found that in these cases their main incitement
was religion. The permanence, the glory, or the prosperity of the nation
were become parts of their faith, and in defending the country they
inhabited they defended that Holy City of which they were all citizens.
The Turkish tribes have never taken an active share in the conduct of
the affairs of society, but they accomplished stupendous enterprises as
long as the victories of the Sultan were the triumphs of the Mohammedan
faith. In the present age they are in rapid decay, because their
religion is departing, and despotism only remains. Montesquieu, who
attributed to absolute power an authority peculiar to itself, did it,
as I conceive, an undeserved honor; for despotism, taken by itself,
can produce no durable results. On close inspection we shall find
that religion, and not fear, has ever been the cause of the long-lived
prosperity of an absolute government. Whatever exertions may be made, no
true power can be founded among men which does not depend upon the free
union of their inclinations; and patriotism and religion are the only
two motives in