No part of their
superiority will be hereby lost, but the distinction increased, and
their authority strengthened, when love in inferiors is joined to
outward respect, and the esteem of the person has a share in their
submission: and domestics will pay a more ready and cheerful service,
when they find themselves not spurned, because fortune has laid them
below the level of others at their master's feet."
These, dear Sir, are certainly the sentiments of a generous and
enlarged spirit: but I hope, I may observe, that the great distance
Mr. Locke before enjoins to be kept between children and servants, is
not very consistent with the above-cited paragraph: for if we would
prevent this undue contempt of inferiors in the temper of children,
the best way, as I humbly presume to think, is not to make it so
unpardonable a fault for them, especially in their early years, to
be in their company. For can one make the children shun the
servants without rendering them odious or contemptible to them, and
representing them to the child in such disadvantageous light, as must
needs make the servants vile in their eyes, and themselves lofty
and exalted in their own? and thereby cause them to treat them with
"domineering words, and an imperious carriage, as if they were of
another race or species beneath them; and so," as Mr.
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