An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. - Designed To Shew How The Prosperity Of The British Empire - May Be Prolonged by William Playfair
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which necessarily affect the fortune of a state. Thus, he not only
admits the existence of permanent causes, but says, clearly, that it is from history they are discoverable, if ever their discovery can be accomplished. This is going as far as we could wish, and, as for the sure theory, we join issue with him in despairing of ever obtaining one that will deserve the name of sure. The meaning of the word, sure, in this place, appears to be intended in a sense peculiarly strict. It seems to imply a theory, that would be certain in its application to those vicissitudes and fluctuations to which nations are liable, and not merely to explaining their rise and decline. As to such fluctuations, it would be absurd to enter into any theory about them; they depend on particular combinations of circumstances, too infinite, in variety, to be imagined, or subjected to any general law, and of too momentary an operation to be foreseen. That Mr. Burke alludes to such fluctuation is, however, evident, from what that fanciful but deeply-read man says, immediately after: "We have seen some states which have spent their vigour at their commencement. Some have [end of page #vii] blazed out in their glory a little before their extinction. The meridian of some has been the most splendid. Others, and they the greatest number, have fluctuated, and experienced, at different periods of their existence, a great variety of fortune. The death of a man at a critical juncture, his disgust, his retreat, his disgrace, have brought innumerable calamities on a whole nation; a common soldier, a child, a girl, at the door of an inn, have changed the face of fortune, and almost of nature." From this it is abundantly evident, that the theory he wished for, but despaired of ever establishing, was one that would explain such |
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