37 And a philosopher of a later time, warmed by the
contemplation of the picture--which his own fancy had colored---of
public prosperity and private happiness under the rule of the Incas,
pronounces "the moral man in Peru far superior to the European." 38
Yet such results are scarcely reconcilable with the theory of the
government I have attempted to analyze. Where there is no free agency,
there can be no morality. Where there is no temptation, there can be
little claim to virtue. Where the routine is rigorously prescribed by law,
the law, and not the man, must have the credit of the conduct. if that
government is the best, which is felt the least, which encroaches on the
natural liberty of the subject only so far as is essential to civil
subordination, then of all governments devised by man the Peruvian has
the least real. claim to our admiration.
It is not easy to comprehend the genius and the full import of institutions
so opposite to those of our own free republic, where every man, however
humble his condition, may aspire to the highest honors of the state,--may
select his own career, and carve out his fortune in his own way; where
the light of knowledge, instead of being concentrated on a chosen few, is
shed abroad like the light of day, and suffered to fall equally on the poor
and the rich; where the collision of man with man wakens a generous
emulation that calls out latent talent and tasks the energies to the utmost;
where consciousness of independence gives a feeling of self-reliance
unknown to the timid subjects of a despotism; where, in short, the
government is made for man,--not as in Peru, where man seemed to be
made only for the government.
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