The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1De Quincey, Thomas
Philosophy
The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1
De Quincey, Thomas
English essays
Secondly, the other inference from the phenomenon of no military pay,
and therefore no separate fighting profession, is this--that foreign
war, war of aggression, war for booty, war for martial glory, is quite
unknown. Now, all rules of political economy, applied to the maintenance
of armies, must of course contemplate a regular trade of war pursued
with those objects, and not a domestic war for beating off an attack
upon hearths and altars. Such a war only, be it observed, could be
lawfully entertained by the Jewish people. Mahomet, when he stole all
his great ideas from the Mosaic and Christian revelations, found it
inevitable to add one principle unknown to either: this was a religious
motive for perpetual war of aggression, and such a principle he
discovered in the imaginary duty of summary proselytism. No instruction
was required. It was sufficient for the convert that, with or without
sincerity, under terror of a sword at his throat, he spoke the words
aloud which disowned all other faith than in Allah and Mahomet his
prophet. It was sufficient for the soldier that he heard of a nation
denying or ignoring Mahomet, to justify any atrocity of invasive
warfare. But the Jews had no such commission--a proselyte needed more
evidences of assent than simply to bawl out a short formula of words,
and he who refused to become a proselyte was no object of persecution.
Some nations have forced their languages upon others as badges of
servitude. But the Romans were so far from treating _their_ language in
this way, that they compelled barbarous nations on their frontier to pay
for a license to use the Latin tongue. And with much more reason did the
Jews, instead of wishing to obtrude their sublime religion upon
foreigners, expect that all who valued it should manifest their value by
coming to Jerusalem, by seeking instruction from the doctors of the law,
and by worshipping in the outer court of the Temple.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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