We have
heard The Rights of Man called a levelling system; but the only system to which
the word levelling is truly applicable is the hereditary monarchical system. It
is a system of mental levelling. It indiscriminately admits every species of
character to the same authority. Vice and virtue, ignorance and wisdom, in
short, every quality, good or bad, is put on the same level. Kings succeed each
other, not as rationals, but as animals. It signifies not what their mental or
moral characters are. Can we then be surprised at the abject state of the human
mind in monarchical countries, when the government itself is formed on such an
abject levelling system? It has no fixed character. Today it is one thing,
tomorrow it is something else. It changes with the temper of every succeeding
individual, and is subject to all varieties of each. It is government through
the medium of passions and accidents. It appears under all the various
characters of childhood, decrepitude, dotage, a thing at nurse, in leading-
strings or in crutches. It reverses the wholesome order of nature. It
occasionally puts children over men, and the conceits of nonage over wisdom and
experience. In short, we cannot conceive a more ridiculous figure of
government, than hereditary succession, in all its cases, presents.
Thomas
Paine (1737- 1809), from The
Rights of Man
by North Utsire
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