The third of those causes or circumstances,
is the superiority of fortune. The authority
of riches, however, though great in every age
of society, is, perhaps, greatest in the rudest
ages of society, which admits of any considerable
inequality of fortune. A Tartar chief,
the increase of whose flocks and herds is
sufficient to maintain a thousand men, cannot
well employ that increase in any other way
than in maintaining a thousand men. The
rude state of his society does not afford him
any manufactured produce; any trinkets or
baubles of any kind, for which he can exchange
that part of his rude produce which
is over and above his own consumption. The
thousand men whom he thus maintains, depending
entirely upon him for their subsistence,
must both obey his orders in war, and
submit to his jurisdiction in peace. He is necessarily
both their general and their judge,
and his chieftainship is the necessary effect of
the superiority of his fortune. In an opulent
and civilized society, a man may possess a
much greater fortune, and yet not be able to
command a dozen of people. Though the
produce of his estate may be sufficient to maintain,
and may, perhaps, actually maintain,
more than a thousand people, yet, as those
people pay for every thing which they get
from him, as he gives scarce any thing to any
body but in exchange for an equivalent, there
is scarce any body who considers himself as
entirely dependent upon him, and his authority
extends only over a few menial servants.
The authority of fortune, however, is very
great, even in an opulent and civilized society.
That it is much greater than that either of age
or of personal qualities, has been the constant
complaint of every period of society which
admitted of any considerable inequality of fortune.
The first period of society, that of
hunters, admits of no such inequality. Universal
poverty establishes their universal equality;
and the superiority, either of age or of
personal qualities, are the feeble, but the sole
foundations of authority and subordination.
There is, therefore, little or no authority or
subordination in this period of society. The
second period of society, that of shepherds,
admits of very great inequalities of fortune,
and there is no period in which the superiority
of fortune gives so great authority to those
who possess it. There is no period, accordingly,
in which authority and subordination
are more perfectly established. The authority
of an Arabian scherif is very great; that of a
Tartar khan altogether despotical.
The fourth of those causes or circumstances,
is the superiority of birth. Superiority of
birth supposes an ancient superiority of fortune
in the family of the person who claims
it. All families are equally ancient; and the
ancestors of the prince, though they may be
better known, cannot well be more numerous
than those of the beggar. Antiquity of family
means everywhere the antiquity either
of wealth, or of that greatness which is commonly
either founded upon wealth, or accompanied
with it. Upstart greatness is everywhere
less respected than ancient greatness.
The hatred of usurpers, the love of the family
of an ancient monarch, are in a great measure
founded open the contempt which men
naturally have for the former, and upon their
veneration for the latter. As a military officer
submits, without reluctance, to the authority
of a superior by whom he has always been
commanded, but cannot bear that his inferior
should be set over his head; so men easily
submit to a family to whom they and their
ancestors have always submitted; but are
fired with indignation when another family,
in whom they had never acknowledged any
such superiority, assumes a dominion over
them.
The distinction of birth, being subsequent
to the inequality of fortune, can have no place
in nations of hunters, among whom all men,
being equal in fortune, must likewise be very
nearly equal in birth. The son of a wise and
brave man may, indeed, even among them,
be somewhat more respected than a man of
equal merit, who has the misfortune to be
the son of a fool or a coward. The difference,
however, will not be very great; and
there never was, I believe, a great family in
the world, whose illustration was entirely derived
from the inheritance of wisdom and
virtue.
The distinction of birth not only may, but
always does, take place among nations of
shepherds. Such nations are always strangers
to every sort of luxury, and great wealth can
scarce ever be dissipated among them by improvident
profusion. There are no nations,
accordingly, who abound more in families revered
and honoured on account of their descent
from a long race of great and illustrious
ancestors; because there are no nations
among whom wealth is likely to continue
longer in the same families.
Birth and fortune are evidently the two circumstances
which principally set one man above
another. They are the two great sources of personal
distinction, and are, therefore, the principal
causes which naturally establish authority
and subordination among men. Among
nations of shepherds, both those causes operate
with their full force. The great shepherd
or herdsman, respected on account of
his great wealth, and of the great number of
those who depend upon him for subsistence,
and revered on account of the nobleness of
his birth, and of the immemorial antiquity of
his illustrious family, has a natural authority
over all the inferior shepherds or herdsmen of
his horde or clan. He can command the
united force of a greater number of people
than any of them. His military power is
greater than that of any of them. In time of