Ambition,
avarice, self-love, vanity, friendship, generosity, public spirit:
these passions, mixed in various degrees, and distributed through
society, have been, from the beginning of the world, and still are,
the source of all the actions and enterprises, which have ever been
observed among mankind. Would you know the sentiments, inclinations,
and course of life of the Greeks and Romans? Study well the temper and
actions of the French and English: You cannot be much mistaken in
transferring to the former most of the observations which you have
made with regard to the latter. Mankind are so much the same, in all
times and places, that history informs us of nothing new or strange in
this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and
universal principles of human nature, by showing men in all
varieties of circumstances and situations, and furnishing us with
materials from which we may form our observations and become
acquainted with the regular springs of human action and behaviour.
These records of wars, intrigues, factions, and revolutions, are so
many collections of experiments, by which the politician or moral
philosopher fixes the principles of his science, in the same manner as
the physician or natural philosopher becomes acquainted with the
nature of plants, minerals, and other external objects, by the
experiments which he forms concerning them.
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