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tion of himself and of all things within the scope of his intelligence.

Therefore, without intelligence there is no rational life : and things are only good in so far as they aid man in his enjoyment of the intellectual life, which is defined by intelligence. Contrariwise, whatsoever things hinder man's perfecting of his reason and capability to enjoy the rational life are alone called evil.

As all things whereof man is the efficient cause are necessarily good, no evil can befall man except through external causes; namely, by virtue of man being a part of universal nature, whose laws human nature is compelled to obey, and to conform to in almost infinite ways.

It is impossible that man should not be a part of nature, or that he should not follow her general order: but if he be thrown among individuals whose nature is in harmony with his own, his power of action will thereby be aided and fostered; whereas, if he be thrown among such as are but very little in harmony with his nature, he will hardly be able to accommodate himself to them without undergoing a great change himself.

Whatsoever in nature we deem to be evil, or to be capable of injuring our faculty for existing and enjoying the rational life, we may endeavor to remove in whatever way seems safest to us; on the other hand, whatsoever we deem to be good or useful for preserving our being, and enabling us to enjoy the rational life, we may appropriate to our use and employ as we think best. Every one without exception may, by sovereign right of nature, do whatsoever he thinks will advance his own interest.

Nothing can be in more harmony with the nature of any given thing than other individuals of the same species; therefore for man, in the preservation of his being and the enjoyment of the rational life, there is nothing more useful than his fellowman who is led by reason. Further, as we know not anything among individual things which is more excellent than a man led by reason, no man can better display the power of his skill and disposition than in so training man that they come at last to live under the dominion of their own reason.

In so far as men are influenced by envy or any kind of hatred, one towards another, they are at variance, and are therefore to be feared in proportion as they are more powerful than their fellows.

Yet minds are not conquered by force, but by love and high-mindedness.

It is before all things useful to men to associate their ways of life, to bind themselves together with such bonds as they think most fitted to gather them all into unity, and generally to do whatsoever serves to strengthen friendship.

But for this there is need of skill and watchfulness. For men are diverse (seeing that those who live under the guidance of reason are few), yet are they generally envious, and more prone to revenge than to sympathy. No small force of character is therefore required to take every one as he is, and to restrain one's self from imitating the emotions of others. But those who carp at mankind, and are more skilled in railing advice than instilling virtue, and who break rather than strengthen men's dispositions, are hurtful both to themselves and others. Thus many, from too great impatience of spirit, or from misguided religious zeal, have preferred to live among brutes rather than among men as boys or youths, who cannot peaceably endure the chidings of their parents, will enlist as soldiers and choose the hardships of war and the despotic discipline, in preference to the comforts of home and the admonitions of their father; suffering any burden to be put upon them, so long as they may spite their parents.

Those things which beget harmony are such as are attributable to justice, equity, and honorable living. For men brook ill not only what is unjust or iniquitous, but also what is reckoned disgraceful, or that a man should slight the received customs of their society. For winning love those qualities are especially necessary which have regard to religion and piety.

Further, harmony is often the result of fear; but such harmony is insecure. Further, fear arises from infirmity of spirit, and moreover belongs not to the exercise of reason; the same is true of compassion, though this latter seems to bear a certain resemblance to piety.

Men are also gained over by liberality, especially such as have not the means to buy what is necessary to sustain life. However, to give aid to every poor man is far beyond the power and the advantage of any private person. For the riches of any private person are wholly inadequate to meet such a call; again, an individual man's resources of character are too limited for him to be able to make all men his friends. Hence providing

for the poor is a duty which falls on the State as a whole, and has regard only to the general advantage.

Correctness of conduct (modestia), that is, the desire of pleasing men, which is determined by reason, is attributable to piety, but, if it spring from emotion, it is ambition, or the desire whereby men, under the false cloak of piety, generally stir up discords and seditions. For he who desires to aid his fellows either in word or in deed, so that they may together enjoy the highest good — he, I say, will before all things strive to win them over with love; not to draw them into admiration, so that a system may be called after his name, nor to give any cause for envy. Further, in his conversation he will shrink from talking of men's faults, and will be careful to speak but sparingly of human infirmity; but he will dwell at length on human virtue or power, and the way whereby it may be perfected. Thus will men be stirred not by fear nor by aversion, but only by the emotion of joy, to endeavor, so far as in them lies, to live in obedience to reason.

As, therefore, those things are good which assist the various parts of the body, and enable them to perform their functions; and as pleasure consists in an increase of, or aid to, man's power, in so far as he is composed of mind and body: it follows that all those things which bring pleasure are good. But seeing that things do not work with the object of giving us pleasure, and that their power of action is not tempered to suit our advantage, and lastly, that pleasure is generally referred to one part of the body more than the other parts; therefore most emotions of pleasure (unless reason and watchfulness be at hand), and consequently the desires arising therefrom, may become excessive. Moreover, we may add that emotion leads us to pay most regard to what is agreeable in the present, nor can we estimate what is future with emotions equally vivid.

Superstition, on the other hand, seems to account as good all that brings pain, and as bad all that brings pleasure. However, none but the envious take delight in any infirmity and trouble. For the greater the pleasure whereby we are affected, the greater is the perfection whereto we pass, and consequently the more do we partake of the divine nature; no pleasure can ever be evil, which is regulated by a true regard for our advantage. But contrariwise, he who is led by fear, and does good only to avoid evil, is not guided by reason.

POWERS CONFERRED BY NEW CONSTITUTION.

BY ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

[ALEXANDER HAMILTON, the great American statesman, was the son of a Scotch merchant and a French physician's daughter in Nevis Island, West Indies; born January 11, 1757. He had no schooling beyond twelve; then taken into a general store, at fourteen was left in sole charge of it for months. Writing at fifteen a description of a hurricane in the West Indies which attracted wide attention, he was enabled to go to King's (now Columbia) College in New York in 1774. He took vigorous part in the debates on resistance to England, and at eighteen was the recognized head of the moderate patriotic section. He studied the art of war, became captain of the first Continental artillery company, fought at Long Island, Trenton, Princeton, etc., was Washington's private secretary 1777-1781, married General Schuyler's daughter in 1780, and aided in forcing Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown. After this he became a lawyer and leader of the bar in New York, and head of the party which wished a strong central United States government. His letters and other counsel outlived the form which that government first took, and his influence was decisive in turning the Annapolis Commercial Convention of 1786 into one which discussed the remodeling of the whole governmental framework, and procured the one at Philadelphia in 1787 which did so remodel it. The struggle over this brought out the Federalist papers from Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, which remain among the foremost political treasures of the world; he had even during the Revolution preluded them by the Continentalist. In the New York Convention to ratify the Constitution, he turned a small initial minority into a majority for ratification. In Washington's first Cabinet he was Secretary of the Treasury, organized the department as in the main it still exists, and created sound national finance and prosperity out of most disheartening material. His State papers are of the highest permanent value. He framed a sound system of taxation, created (on a very moderate scale) the protection-tariff system, outlined the internal-improvement policy, and devised the policy of a United States Bank. In 1794 he crushed with great vigor and promptness the insurrection in western Pennsylvania against the whisky tax. Returning to private practice in New York, he became the head of the Federalist party when the Jefferson-Madison wing split away as the Republican party, later Democratic-Republican; in 1796-1800 his irreconcilable feud with John Adams, the official party chief, helped greatly to split the party and elect Jefferson. A deeper quarrel with Aaron Burr, the Vice-President, a political condottière who represented only personal ambition, resulted in a duel in which Hamilton fell, dying next day, July 11, 1804.]

To the People of the State of New York,

To the powers proposed to be conferred upon the federal government, in respect to the creation and direction of the national forces, I have met with but one specific objection, which, if I understand it right, is this that proper provision has not been made against the existence of standing armies in time of peace; an objection which I shall now endeavor to show rests on weak and unsubstantial foundations.

The objection under consideration turns upon a supposed necessity of restraining the LEGISLATIVE authority of the

nation, in the article of military establishments; a principle unheard of, except in one or two of our State constitutions, and rejected in all the rest.

A stranger to our politics who was to read our newspapers at the present juncture, without having previously inspected the plan reported by the convention, would be naturally led to one of two conclusions: either that it contained a positive injunction that standing armies should be kept up in time of peace; or that it vested in the EXECUTIVE the whole power of levying troops without subjecting his discretion, in any shape, to the control of the legislature.

If he came afterward to peruse the plan itself, he would be surprised to discover that neither the one nor the other was the case; that the whole power of raising armies was lodged in the Legislature, not in the Executive; that this legislature was to be a popular body, consisting of the representatives of the people, periodically elected; and that instead of the provision he had supposed in favor of standing armies, there was to be found, in respect to this object, an important qualification even of the legislative discretion, in that clause which forbids the appropriation of money for the support of an army for any longer period than two years-a precaution which, upon a nearer view of it, will appear to be a great and real security against the keeping up of troops without evident necessity.

Disappointed in his first surmise, the person I have supposed would be apt to pursue his conjectures a little further. He would naturally say to himself, it is impossible that all this vehement and pathetic declamation can be without some colorable pretext. It must needs be that this people, so jealous of their liberties, have, in all the preceding models of the constitutions which they have established, inserted the most precise and rigid precautions on this point, the omission of which, in the new plan, has given birth to all this apprehension and clamor.

If, under this impression, he proceeded to pass in review the several State constitutions, how great would be his disappointment to find that two only of them contained an interdiction of standing armies in time of peace; that the other eleven had either observed a profound silence on the subject, or had in express terms admitted the right of the legislature to authorize their existence.

Still, however, he would be persuaded that there must be some plausible foundation for the cry raised on this head. He

VOL. XIX. —19

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