The public safety, and the relative interests of states; political
establishments, the pretensions of party, commerce, and arts, are subjects
which engage the attention of nations. The advantages gained in some of
these particulars, determine the degree of national prosperity. The ardour
and vigour with which they are at any one time pursued, is the measure of a
national spirit. When those objects cease to animate, nations may be said
to languish; when they are during a considerable time neglected, states
must decline, and their people degenerate.

In the most forward, enterprising, inventive, and industrious nations, this
spirit is fluctuating; and they who continue longest to gain advantages, or
to preserve them, have periods of remissness, as well as of ardour. The
desire of public safety, is, at all times, a powerful motive of conduct;
but it operates most when combined with occasional passions, when
provocations inflame, when successes encourage, or mortifications
exasperate.

A whole people, like the individuals of whom they are composed, act under
the influence of temporary humours, sanguine hopes, or vehement
animosities. They are disposed, at one time, to enter on national struggles
with vehemence; at another, to drop them from mere lassitude and disgust.
In their civil debates and contentions at home, they are occasionally
ardent or remiss. Epidemical passions arise or subside on trivial as well
as important grounds. Parties are ready, at one time, to take their names
and the pretence of their oppositions, from mere caprice or accident; at
another time, they suffer the most serious occasions to pass in silence. If
a vein of literary genius be casually opened, or a new subject of
disquisition be started, real or pretended discoveries suddenly multiply,
and every conversation is inquisitive and animated. If a new source of