"If any assistance be given to the oligarchic party within him, by his father, or the others of his family, admonishing and upbraiding him, then truly arises sedition and opposition, and a fight within him, with himself."
— Adams, John (1735-1826)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for C. Dilly, in the Poultry
Date
1787
Metaphor
"If any assistance be given to the oligarchic party within him, by his father, or the others of his family, admonishing and upbraiding him, then truly arises sedition and opposition, and a fight within him, with himself."
Metaphor in Context
As republics are generated by the manners of the people, to which, as into a current, all other things are drawn, of necessity there must be as many species of men, as of republics. We have already, in the fourth book, gone over that which we have pronounced to be good and just. We are now to go over the contentious and ambitious man, who is formed according to the Spartan republic; and then, him resembling an oligarchy; then the democratic; and then the tyrannic man, that we may contemplate the most unjust man, and set him in opposition to the most just, that our inquiry may be completed! The ambitious republic is first to be considered: it is indeed difficult for a city in this manner constituted, i. e. like Sparta, to be changed; but as every thing which is generated is liable to corruption, even such a constitution as this will not remain for ever, but be dissolved. (I shall pass over all the astrological and mystical whimsies which we meet with so often in Plato, interspersed among the most sublime wisdom and profound knowledge, and insert only what is intelligible.) The amount of what he says in this place about numbers and music, is, that mistakes will insensibly be made in the choice of persons for guardians of the laws; and by these guardians, in the rewards and promotion of merit. They will not always expertly distinguish the several species of geniuses, the golden, the silver, the brazen, and the iron. Whilst iron shall be mixed with silver, and brass with gold, dissimilitude, and discord arise, and generate war, and enmity, and sedition. When sedition is risen, two of the species of geniuses, the iron and brazen, will be carried away after gain, and the acquisition of lands and houses, gold and silver. But the golden and silver geniuses, as they are not in want, but naturally rich, will lead the soul towards virtue and the original constitution. Thus divided, drawing contrary ways, and living in a violent manner, will not this republic be in the middle, between aristocracy and oligarchy imitating, in some things, the former republic, and in others oligarchy? They will honour their rulers, their military will abstain from agriculture and mechanic arts; they will have common meals, gymnastic exercises, and contests of war, as in the former republic; but they will be afraid to bring wise men into the magistracy, be cause they have no longer any such as are truly simple and inflexible, but such as are of a mixed kind, more forward and rough, more fitted by their natural genius for war than peace, esteeming tricks and stratagems; such as these shall desire wealth, and hoard up gold and silver, as those who live in oligarchies. While they spare their own, they will love to squander the substance of others upon their pleasures: They will fly from the law, as children from a father, who have been educated not by persuasion but by force. Such a republic, mixed of good and ill, will be most remarkable for the prevalence of the contentious and ambitious spirit.
(pp. 189-91) What now shall the man be, correspondent to this republic? He will be arrogant and rough towards inferiors; mild towards equals, but extremely submissive to governors; fond of dignity and the magistracy, but thinking that political management, and military performances, not eloquence, nor any such thing, should entitle him to them: while young he may despise money, but the older he grows the more he will value it, because he is of the covetous temper, and not sincerely affected to virtue and reason. Such an ambitious youth resembles such a city, and is formed somehow in this manner:--His father, a worthy man, in an ill-regulated city, shuns honours, and magistracies, and law-suits, and all public business, that, as he can do no good, he may have no trouble. The son hears his mother venting her indignation, and complaining that she is neglected among other women, because her husband is not in the magistracy, nor attentive to the making of money; that he is unmanly and remiss, and such other things as wives are apt to cant over concerning such husbands. The domestics too privately say the same things to the sons, stimulating them to be more of men than their father, and more attentive to their money. When they go abroad they hear the same things, and see that those who mind their own affairs are called simple, and such as mind not their affairs are commended. The young man comparing the conduct, speeches, and pursuits of his father with those of other men, the one watering the rational part of his soul, and the others the concupiscible and irascible, he delivers up the government within himself to a middle power, that which is irascible and fond of contention, and so he becomes a haughty and ambitious man.--We have now the second republic, and the second man.
(pp. 191-2) This is oligarchy. Now let us consider the man who resembles it. The change from the ambitious to the oligarchic man is chiefly in this manner:--The ambitious man, has a son, who emulates his father, and follows his steps; afterwards he dashes on the city, as on a rock, wasting his substance in the office of a general, or some other principal magistracy; then falling into courts of justice, destroyed by sycophants, stripped of his dignities, disgraced, and losing all his substance. When he has thus suffered, and lost his substance, in a terror he pushes headlong from the throne of his soul that ambitious disposition; and, being humbled by his poverty, turns to the making of money, lives sparingly and meanly, and applying to work, scrapes together substance. He then seats in that throne the avaricious disposition, and makes it a mighty king within himself, decked out with Persian crowns, bracelets, and scepters. Having placed the virtuous and ambitious disposition low on the ground, he reasons on nothing but how lesser substance shall be made greater, admires and honours nothing but riches and rich people. This is the change from an ambitious youth to a covetous one, and this is the oligarchic man.
(pp. 193-4) This is oligarchy. Now let us consider the man who resembles it. The change from the ambitious to the oligarchic man is chiefly in this manner:--The ambitious man, has a son, who emulates his father, and follows his steps; afterwards he dashes on the city, as on a rock, wasting his substance in the office of a general, or some other principal magistracy; then falling into courts of justice, destroyed by sycophants, stripped of his dignities, disgraced, and losing all his substance. When he has thus suffered, and lost his substance, in a terror he pushes headlong from the throne of his soul that ambitious disposition; and, being humbled by his poverty, turns to the making of money, lives sparingly and meanly, and applying to work, scrapes together substance. He then seats in that throne the avaricious disposition, and makes it a mighty king within himself, decked out with Persian crowns, bracelets, and scepters. Having placed the virtuous and ambitious disposition low on the ground, he reasons on nothing but how lesser substance shall be made greater, admires and honours nothing but riches and rich people. This is the change from an ambitious youth to a covetous one, and this is the oligarchic man.
(pp. 193-4) Let us consider now the character of a democratical man, and how he arises out of that parsimonious one who, under the oligarchy, was trained up by his father in his manners. Such a one by force governs his own pleasures, which are expensive, and tend not to making money, and are called unnecessary. Eating, so far as conduces to preserve life, health, and a good habit of body, is a pleasure of the necessary kind: but the desire of these things beyond these purposes, is capable of being curbed in youth; and, being hurtful to the body and to the soul, with reference to her attaining wisdom and temperance, may be called unnecessary: in the same manner we shall say of venereal desires, and others. We just now denominated a drone the man who was full of such desires and pleasures; but the oligarchic man, him who was under the necessary ones. The democratic appears to arise from the oligarchic man in this manner:--When a young man, bred up without proper instruction, and in a parsimonious manner, comes to taste the honey of the drones, and associates with those vehement: and terrible creatures, who are able to procure pleasures every way diversified, from every quarter; thence imagine there is the beginning of a change in him, from the oligarchic to the democratic. And as the city was changed by the assistance of an alliance from without, with one party of it, with which it was of kin, shall not the youth be changed in the same manner, by the assistance of one species of desires from without, to another within him, which resembles it, and is akin to it? By all means. If any assistance be given to the oligarchic party within him, by his father, or the others of his family, admonishing and upbraiding him, then truly arises sedition and opposition, and a fight within him, with himself. Sometimes the democratic party yields to the oligarchic; some of the desires are destroyed, others retire, on the rise of a certain modesty in the soul of the youth, and he is again rendered somewhat decent. Again, when some desires retire, there are others akin to them, which grow up, and through inattention to the father's instructions, become both many and powerful, draw towards intimacies among themselves, and generate a multitude, seize the citadel or the soul of the youth, finding it evacuated of noble learning and pursuits, and of true reasoning, which are the best watchmen and guardians in the understandings of men beloved of the gods; and then false and boasting reasonings and opinions, rushing up in their stead, possess the same place in such a one. These false and boasting reasonings, denominating modesty to be stupidity; temperance, unmanliness; moderation, rusticity; decent expence, illiberality; thrust them all out disgracefully, and expel them their territories, and lead in in triumph insolence and anarchy, and luxury and impudence, with encomiums and applauses, shining with a great retinue, and crowned with crowns. Insolence they denominate education; anarchy, liberty; luxury, magnificence; and impudence, manhood. In this manner, a youth bred up with the necessary desires changes into the licentiousness and remissness of the unnecessary and unprofitable pleasures; his life is not regulated by any order, but deeming it pleasant, free, and happy, he puts all laws whatever on a level; like the city, he is fine and variegated, and many men and women too would desire to imitate his life, as he hath in him a great many patterns of republics and of manners.
(pp. 195-8)
(pp. 189-91) What now shall the man be, correspondent to this republic? He will be arrogant and rough towards inferiors; mild towards equals, but extremely submissive to governors; fond of dignity and the magistracy, but thinking that political management, and military performances, not eloquence, nor any such thing, should entitle him to them: while young he may despise money, but the older he grows the more he will value it, because he is of the covetous temper, and not sincerely affected to virtue and reason. Such an ambitious youth resembles such a city, and is formed somehow in this manner:--His father, a worthy man, in an ill-regulated city, shuns honours, and magistracies, and law-suits, and all public business, that, as he can do no good, he may have no trouble. The son hears his mother venting her indignation, and complaining that she is neglected among other women, because her husband is not in the magistracy, nor attentive to the making of money; that he is unmanly and remiss, and such other things as wives are apt to cant over concerning such husbands. The domestics too privately say the same things to the sons, stimulating them to be more of men than their father, and more attentive to their money. When they go abroad they hear the same things, and see that those who mind their own affairs are called simple, and such as mind not their affairs are commended. The young man comparing the conduct, speeches, and pursuits of his father with those of other men, the one watering the rational part of his soul, and the others the concupiscible and irascible, he delivers up the government within himself to a middle power, that which is irascible and fond of contention, and so he becomes a haughty and ambitious man.--We have now the second republic, and the second man.
(pp. 191-2) This is oligarchy. Now let us consider the man who resembles it. The change from the ambitious to the oligarchic man is chiefly in this manner:--The ambitious man, has a son, who emulates his father, and follows his steps; afterwards he dashes on the city, as on a rock, wasting his substance in the office of a general, or some other principal magistracy; then falling into courts of justice, destroyed by sycophants, stripped of his dignities, disgraced, and losing all his substance. When he has thus suffered, and lost his substance, in a terror he pushes headlong from the throne of his soul that ambitious disposition; and, being humbled by his poverty, turns to the making of money, lives sparingly and meanly, and applying to work, scrapes together substance. He then seats in that throne the avaricious disposition, and makes it a mighty king within himself, decked out with Persian crowns, bracelets, and scepters. Having placed the virtuous and ambitious disposition low on the ground, he reasons on nothing but how lesser substance shall be made greater, admires and honours nothing but riches and rich people. This is the change from an ambitious youth to a covetous one, and this is the oligarchic man.
(pp. 193-4) This is oligarchy. Now let us consider the man who resembles it. The change from the ambitious to the oligarchic man is chiefly in this manner:--The ambitious man, has a son, who emulates his father, and follows his steps; afterwards he dashes on the city, as on a rock, wasting his substance in the office of a general, or some other principal magistracy; then falling into courts of justice, destroyed by sycophants, stripped of his dignities, disgraced, and losing all his substance. When he has thus suffered, and lost his substance, in a terror he pushes headlong from the throne of his soul that ambitious disposition; and, being humbled by his poverty, turns to the making of money, lives sparingly and meanly, and applying to work, scrapes together substance. He then seats in that throne the avaricious disposition, and makes it a mighty king within himself, decked out with Persian crowns, bracelets, and scepters. Having placed the virtuous and ambitious disposition low on the ground, he reasons on nothing but how lesser substance shall be made greater, admires and honours nothing but riches and rich people. This is the change from an ambitious youth to a covetous one, and this is the oligarchic man.
(pp. 193-4) Let us consider now the character of a democratical man, and how he arises out of that parsimonious one who, under the oligarchy, was trained up by his father in his manners. Such a one by force governs his own pleasures, which are expensive, and tend not to making money, and are called unnecessary. Eating, so far as conduces to preserve life, health, and a good habit of body, is a pleasure of the necessary kind: but the desire of these things beyond these purposes, is capable of being curbed in youth; and, being hurtful to the body and to the soul, with reference to her attaining wisdom and temperance, may be called unnecessary: in the same manner we shall say of venereal desires, and others. We just now denominated a drone the man who was full of such desires and pleasures; but the oligarchic man, him who was under the necessary ones. The democratic appears to arise from the oligarchic man in this manner:--When a young man, bred up without proper instruction, and in a parsimonious manner, comes to taste the honey of the drones, and associates with those vehement: and terrible creatures, who are able to procure pleasures every way diversified, from every quarter; thence imagine there is the beginning of a change in him, from the oligarchic to the democratic. And as the city was changed by the assistance of an alliance from without, with one party of it, with which it was of kin, shall not the youth be changed in the same manner, by the assistance of one species of desires from without, to another within him, which resembles it, and is akin to it? By all means. If any assistance be given to the oligarchic party within him, by his father, or the others of his family, admonishing and upbraiding him, then truly arises sedition and opposition, and a fight within him, with himself. Sometimes the democratic party yields to the oligarchic; some of the desires are destroyed, others retire, on the rise of a certain modesty in the soul of the youth, and he is again rendered somewhat decent. Again, when some desires retire, there are others akin to them, which grow up, and through inattention to the father's instructions, become both many and powerful, draw towards intimacies among themselves, and generate a multitude, seize the citadel or the soul of the youth, finding it evacuated of noble learning and pursuits, and of true reasoning, which are the best watchmen and guardians in the understandings of men beloved of the gods; and then false and boasting reasonings and opinions, rushing up in their stead, possess the same place in such a one. These false and boasting reasonings, denominating modesty to be stupidity; temperance, unmanliness; moderation, rusticity; decent expence, illiberality; thrust them all out disgracefully, and expel them their territories, and lead in in triumph insolence and anarchy, and luxury and impudence, with encomiums and applauses, shining with a great retinue, and crowned with crowns. Insolence they denominate education; anarchy, liberty; luxury, magnificence; and impudence, manhood. In this manner, a youth bred up with the necessary desires changes into the licentiousness and remissness of the unnecessary and unprofitable pleasures; his life is not regulated by any order, but deeming it pleasant, free, and happy, he puts all laws whatever on a level; like the city, he is fine and variegated, and many men and women too would desire to imitate his life, as he hath in him a great many patterns of republics and of manners.
(pp. 195-8)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
7 entries in ESTC (1787, 1788, 1794, 1797).
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, by John Adams, LL.D. and a Member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences at Boston. (London: Printed for C. Dilly, in the Poultry, 1787). <Link to ESTC>
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, by John Adams, LL.D. and a Member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences at Boston. (London: Printed for C. Dilly, in the Poultry, 1787). <Link to ESTC>
Date of Entry
11/11/2013
