The Writings of Thomas Paine — Volume 1 (1774-1779): The American CrisisPaine, Thomas
History
The Writings of Thomas Paine — Volume 1 (1774-1779): The American Crisis
Paine, Thomas
Political science; United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783
In the close of the paragraph which I last quoted, France is styled the
"natural enemy" of England, and by way of lugging us into some strange
idea, she is styled "the late mutual and natural enemy" of both
countries. I deny that she ever was the natural enemy of either; and
that there does not exist in nature such a principle. The expression
is an unmeaning barbarism, and wholly unphilosophical, when applied to
beings of the same species, let their station in the creation be what
it may. We have a perfect idea of a natural enemy when we think of the
devil, because the enmity is perpetual, unalterable and unabateable. It
admits, neither of peace, truce, or treaty; consequently the warfare is
eternal, and therefore it is natural. But man with man cannot arrange
in the same opposition. Their quarrels are accidental and equivocally
created. They become friends or enemies as the change of temper, or the
cast of interest inclines them. The Creator of man did not constitute
them the natural enemy of each other. He has not made any one order of
beings so. Even wolves may quarrel, still they herd together. If any two
nations are so, then must all nations be so, otherwise it is not nature
but custom, and the offence frequently originates with the accuser.
England is as truly the natural enemy of France, as France is of
England, and perhaps more so. Separated from the rest of Europe, she
has contracted an unsocial habit of manners, and imagines in others the
jealousy she creates in herself. Never long satisfied with peace,
she supposes the discontent universal, and buoyed up with her own
importance, conceives herself the only object pointed at. The expression
has been often used, and always with a fraudulent design; for when the
idea of a natural enemy is conceived, it prevents all other inquiries,
and the real cause of the quarrel is hidden in the universality of the
conceit. Men start at the notion of a natural enemy, and ask no other
question. The cry obtains credit like the alarm of a mad dog, and is
one of those kind of tricks, which, by operating on the common passions,
secures their interest through their folly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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