possessed his rank and his privilege, or had his apprehension of personal
rights, the members of every community were, to one another, objects of
consideration and of respect; every point to be carried in civil society
required the exercise of talents, of wisdom, persuasion, and vigour, as
well as of power. But it is the highest refinement of a despotical
government, to rule by simple commands, and to exclude every art but that
of compulsion. Under the influence of this policy, therefore, the occasions
which employed and cultivated the understandings of men, which awakened
their sentiments, and kindled their imaginations, are gradually removed;
and the progress by which mankind attained to the honours of their nature,
in being engaged to act in society upon a liberal footing, was not more
uniform, or less interrupted, than that by which they degenerate in this
unhappy condition.

When we hear of the silence which reigns in the seraglio, we are made to
believe, that speech itself is become unnecessary; and that the signs of
the mute are sufficient to carry the most important mandates of government.
No arts, indeed, are required to maintain an ascendant where terror alone
is opposed to force, where the powers of the sovereign are delegated entire
to every subordinate officer: nor can any station bestow a liberality of
mind in a scene of silence and dejection, where every breast is possessed
with jealousy and caution, and where no object, but animal pleasure,
remains to balance the sufferings of the sovereign himself, or those of his
subjects.

In other states, the talents of men are sometimes improved by the exercises
which belong to an eminent station; but here the master himself is probably
the rudest and least cultivated animal of the herd; he is inferior to the
slave whom he raises from a servile office to the first places of trust or
of dignity in his court. The primitive simplicity which formed ties of