The first impressions made on the mind are of the utmost importance for the remainder of life. In the tender years of infancy and youth, the human mind and heart easily receive the seeds of good or evil. Hence the education of youth is one of the most important affairs that deserve the attention of the government. It ought not to be entirely left to fathers. The most certain way of forming good citizens is to found good establishments for public education, to provide them with able masters,—direct them with prudence,—and pursue such mild and suitable measures, that the citizens will not neglect to take advantage of them. How admirable was the education of the Romans, in the flourishing ages of their republic, and how admirably was it calculated to form great men! The young men put themselves under the patronage of some illustrious person; they frequented his house, accompanied him wherever he went, and equally improved by his instructions and example: their very sports and amusements were exercises proper to form soldiers. The same practice prevailed at Sparta; and this was one of the wisest institutions of the incomparable Lycurgus. That legislator and philosopher entered into the most minute details respecting the education of youth,* being persuaded that on that depended the prosperity and glory of his republic.
Who can doubt that the sovereign,—the whole nation,—ought to encourage the arts and sciences? To say nothing of the many useful inventions that strike the eye of every beholder,—literature and the polite arts enlighten the mind, and soften the manners: and if study does not always inspire the love of virtue, it is because it sometimes, and even too often, unhappily meets with an incorrigibly vicious heart. The nation and its conductors ought then to protect men of learning and great artists, and to call forth talents by honours and rewards. Let the friends of barbarism declaim against the sciences and polite arts;—let us, without deigning to answer their <49> vain reasonings, content ourselves with appealing to experience. Let us compare England, France, Holland, and several towns of Switzerland and Germany, to the many regions that lie buried in ignorance, and see where we can find the greater number of honest men and good citizens. It would be a gross error to oppose against us the example of Sparta, and that of ancient Rome. They, it is true, neglected curious speculations, and those branches of knowledge and art that were purely subservient to pleasure and amusement: but the solid and practical sciences,—morality, jurisprudence, politics, and war, were cultivated by them, especially by the Romans, with a degree of attention superior to what we bestow on them.
In the present age, the utility of literature and the polite arts is pretty generally acknowledged, as is likewise the necessity of encouraging them. The immortal Peter I. thought that without their assistance he could not entirely civilise Russia, and render it flourishing. In England, learning and abilities lead to honour and riches. Newton was honoured, protected, and rewarded while living, and after his death his tomb was placed among those of kings. France also, in this respect, deserves particular praise: to the munificence of her kings she is indebted for several establishments that are no less useful than glorious. The Royal Academy of Sciences diffuses on every side the light of knowledge, and the desire of instruction. Louis XV. furnished the means of sending to search, under the equator and the polar circle, for the proof of an important truth; and we at present know what was before only believed on the strength of Newton’s calculations. Happy will that kingdom be, if the too general taste of the age does not make the people neglect solid knowledge, to give themselves up to that which is merely amusing, and if those who fear the light do not succeed in extinguishing the blaze of science!
§114. Freedom of philosophical discussion.
I speak of the freedom of philosophical discussion, which is the soul of the republic of letters. What can genius produce when trammelled by fear? Can the greatest man that ever lived contribute much towards enlightening the minds of his fellow-citizens, if he finds himself constantly exposed to the cavils of captious and ignorant bigots,—if he is obliged to be continually on his guard, to avoid being accused by innuendo-mongers of indirectly attacking the received opinions? I know that liberty has its proper bounds,—that a wise government ought to have an eye to the press, and not to allow the publication of scandalous productions, which attack morality, government, or the established religion. But yet great care should be taken not to extinguish a light that may afford the state the most valuable advantages. Few men know how to keep a just medium; and the office of literary censor ought to be intrusted to none but those who are at once both prudent and enlightened. Why should they search in a book for what the author does not appear to have intended to put into it? and when a writer’s thoughts and <50> discourses are wholly employed on philosophy, ought a malicious adversary to be listened to, who would set him at variance with religion? So far from disturbing a philosopher on account of his opinions, the magistrate ought to chastise those who publicly charge him with impiety, when in his writings he shews respect to the religion of the state. The Romans seem to have been formed to give examples to the universe: that wise people carefully supported the worship and religious ceremonies established by law, and left the field open to the speculations of philosophers. Cicero—a senator, a consul, an augur—ridicules superstition, attacks it, and demolishes it in his philosophical writings; and, in so doing, he thought he was only promoting his own happiness and that of his fellow-citizens: but he observes that “to destroy superstition is not destroying religion; for (says he) it becomes a wise man to respect the institutions and religious ceremonies of his ancestors: and it is sufficient to contemplate the beauty of the world, and the admirable order of the celestial bodies, in order to be convinced of the existence of an eternal and all-perfect being, who is entitled to the veneration of the human race.”* And in his Dialogues on the Nature of the Gods, he introduces Cotta the academic, who was high-priest, attacking with great freedom the opinions of the stoics, and declaring that he should always be ready to defend the established religion from which he saw the republic had derived great advantages; that neither the learned nor the ignorant should make him abandon it: he then says to his adversary, “These are my thoughts, both as pontiff and as Cotta. But do you, as a philosopher, bring me over to your opinion by the strength of your arguments: for a philosopher ought to prove to me the truth of the religion he would have me embrace, whereas I ought in this respect to believe our forefathers, even without proof.”*
Let us add experience to these examples and authorities. Never did a philosopher occasion disturbances in the state, or in religion, by his opinions: they would make no noise among the people, nor ever offend the weak, if malice or intemperate zeal did not take pains to discover a pretended venom lurking in them. It is by him who endeavours to place the opinions of a great man in opposition to the doctrines and worship established <51> by law, that the state is disturbed, and religion brought into danger.
§115. Love of virtue, and abhorrence of vice to be excited.
To instruct the nation, is not sufficient:—in order to conduct it to happiness, it is still more necessary to inspire the people with the love of virtue, and the abhorrence of vice. Those who are deeply versed in the study of morality are convinced that virtue is the true and only path that leads to happiness; so that its maxims are but the art of living happily; and he must be very ignorant of politics, who does not perceive how much more capable a virtuous nation will be, than any other, of forming a state that shall be at once happy, tranquil, flourishing, solid, respected by its neighbours, and formidable to its enemies. The interest of the prince must then concur with his duty and the dictates of his conscience, in engaging him to watch attentively over an affair of such importance. Let him employ all his authority in order to encourage virtue, and suppress vice: let the public establishments be all directed to this end: let his own conduct, his example, and the distribution of favours, posts, and dignities, all have the same tendency. Let him extend his attention even to the private life of the citizens, and banish from