LUXURY PREDECESSORS BECOMES THE NECESSITY OF SUCCESSORS
outline
idleness the enemy of soul------------ research of historic events--------decline of powerful nations--------------decline of muslim rule in india blessings of idleness-----------present situation of muslims-----------------vigorous roman empire now no more----------prevailing situation of the world--------hold your dreams
Rise-downfall, downfall-rise, this is the cycle humans saw since the beginning of the human race. History has proven that whenever a nation was cursed or destroyed, the reason was the men of knowledge of that nation, who invested in their own as well as their whole nation’s destruction.They did not even then realized their power and duty. This continues to date.
Idleness is the enemy of the soul.
IF it is of importance to study by what means a nation may acquire wealth and power, it is not less so to discover by what means wealth and power, when once acquired, may be preserved.
The latter inquiry is, perhaps, the more important of the two; for many nations have remained, during a long period, virtuous and happy, without rising to wealth or greatness; but there is no example of happiness or virtue residing amongst a fallen people.
In looking over the globe, if we fix our eyes on those places where wealth formerly was accumulated, and where commerce flourished, we see them, at the present day, peculiarly desolated and degraded.
From the borders of the Persian Gulf, to the shores of the Baltic Sea; from Babylon and Palmyra, Egypt, Greece, and Italy; to Spain and Portugal, and the whole circle of the Hanseatic League, we trace the same ruinous remains of ancient greatness, presenting a melancholy contrast with the poverty, indolence, and ignorance, of the present race of inhabitants, and an irresistible proof of the mutability of human affairs.
As in the hall, in which there has been a sumptuous banquet, we perceive the fragments of a feast now become a prey to beggars and banditti; if, in some instances, the spectacle is less wretched and disgusting; it is, because the banquet is not entirely over, and the guests have not all yet risen from the table.
Of all the nations, into which luxury is introduced, none feels its effects
From this almost universal picture, we learn that the greatness of nations is but of short duration. We learn, also, that the state of a fallen people is infinitely more wretched and miserable than that of those who have never risen from their original state of poverty. It is then well worth while to inquire into the causes of so terrible a reverse, that we may discover whether they are necessary, or only natural; and endeavour, if possible, to find the means by which prosperity may be lengthened out, and the period of humiliation procrastinated to a distant day.
Though the career of prosperity must necessarily have a termination amongst every people, yet there is some reason to think that the degradation, which naturally follows, and which has always followed hitherto, may be averted; whether it may be, or may not be so, is the subject of the following Inquiry; which, if it is of importance to any nation on earth, must be peculiarly so to England; a nation that has risen, both in commerce and power, so high above the natural level assigned to it by its population and extent. A nation that rises still, but whose most earnest wish ought to be rather directed to preservation than extension; to defending itself against adversity rather than seeking still farther to augment its power.
One of the most profound and ingenious writers of a late period, has made the following interesting observation on the prosperity of nations.
"In all speculations upon men and human affairs, it is of no small moment to distinguish things of accident from permanent causes, and from effects that cannot be altered. I am not quite of the mind of those speculators, who seem assured, that necessarily, and, by the constitution of things, all states have the same period of infancy, manhood, and decrepitude, that are found in the individuals who compose them. The objects which areattempted to be forced into an analogy are not founded in the same classes of existence. Individuals are physical beings, subject to laws universal and invariable; but commonwealths are not physical, but moral essences. They are artificial combinations, and, in their proximate efficient cause, the arbitrary productions of the human mind.
What do we see in muslim nation today? Are not we the people who are dishonest, have all the evils in us? Being muslims and having clear cut warnings in our holy book, we should have been the nicest people but instead muslims chose the way of destruction for themselves and for their coming generations. The main cause of the immense downfall of muslim rule in the subcontinent was their addiction to extra-ordinary leisures. All their idleness become the irrigated seed of the muslims destruction. The british exploited the situation and become the new rulers owing to their willingness to surpass the muslims in every field
luxury predecessors becomes the necessity of successors
We are not yet acquainted with the laws which necessarily influence that kind of work, made by that kind of agent. There is not, in the physical order, a distinct cause by which any of those fabrics must necessarily grow, flourish, and decay; nor, indeed, in my opinion, does the moral world produce any thing more determinate on that subject than what may serve as an amusement (liberal indeed, and ingenious, but still only an amusement) for speculative men. I doubt whether the history of mankind is yet complete enough, if ever it can be so, to furnish grounds for a sure theory on the internal causes, which necessarily affect the fortune of a state. I am far from denying the operation of such causes, but they are infinitely uncertain, and much more obscure, and much more difficult to trace than the foreign causes that tend to depress, and, sometimes, overwhelm society
When the Romans were in their vigour, their city was besieged by the Gauls, and saved by an animal of proverbial stupidity; but this could not have happened when Attila was under the walls, and the energy of the citizens was gone. The taking or saving the city, in the first instance, would have been equally accidental, and the consequences of short duration; but, in the latter days, the fall of Rome was owing to PERMANENT causes, and the effect has been without a remedy.
It is, then, only concerning the permanent causes, (that is to say, causes that are constantly acting, and produce permanent effects) that we mean to inquire; and, even with regard to those, it is not expected to establish a theory that will be applicable, with certainty, to the preservation of a state, but, merely to establish one, which may serve as a safe guide on a subject, the importance of which is great, beyond calculation.
There remains but one other consideration in reply to this, and that is, whether states have, necessarily, by the constitution and nature of things, the same periods of infancy, manhood, and decrepitude, that are found in the individuals that compose them? Mr. Burke thinks they have not; and, indeed, if they had, the following Inquiry would be of no sort of utility. It is of no importance to seek for means of preventing what must of necessity come to pass: but, if the word necessity is changed for tendency or propensity, then it becomes an Inquiry deserving attention, and, as all states have risen, flourished, and fallen, there can be no dispute with the regard to their tendency to do so.
If it is allowed that any practical advantage is to be derived from the history of the past, it can only be, in so far as it is applicable to the present and the future; and, if there is none, it is melancholy to reflect on the volumes that have been written without farther utility than to gratify idle curiosity. Are the true lessons of history, because they are never completely applicable to present affairs, to be ranked with the entertaining, but almost useless, pages of romance? No, certainly. Of the inheritance possessed by the present generation, the history of those that are gone before, is not the least valuable portion. Each reader now makes his application in his own way. It is an irregular application, but not an useless one; and it is, therefore, hoped, that an Inquiry, founded on a regular plan of comparison and analogy, cannot but be of some utility.
But why do we treat that as hypothetical, of which there can be no doubt? Wherefore should there be two opinions concerning the utility of an inquiry into those mighty events, that have removed wealth and commerce from the Euphrates and the Nile, to the Thames and the Texel? Does not the sun rise, and do not the seasons return to the plains of Egypt, and the deserts of Syria, the same as they did three thousand years ago? Is not inanimate nature the same now that it was then? Are the principles of vegetation altered? Or have the subordinate animals refused to obey the will of man, to assist him in his labour, or to serve him for his food? No; nature is not less bountiful, and man has more knowledge and more power than at any former period; but it is not the man of Syria, or of Egypt, that has more knowledge, or more power. There he has suffered his race to decay, and, along with himself, his works have degenerated.
When those countries were peopled with men, who were wise, prudent, industrious, and brave, their fields were fertile, and their cities magnificent; and wherever mankind have carried the same vigour, the same virtues, and the same character, nature has been found bountiful and obedient.
Throughout the whole of the earth, we see the same causes producing nearly the same effects; why then do we remain in doubt respecting their connection? Or, if under no doubt, wherefore do we not endeavour to trace their operation, that we may know how to preserve those advantages we are so eager to obtain?
If an Inquiry into the causes of the revolutions of nations is more imperfect and less satisfactory than when directed to those of individuals, and of single families, if, ever it should be rendered complete, its application will, at least, be more certain. Nations are exempt from those accidental vicissitudes which derange the wisest of human plans upon a smaller scale. Number and magnitude reduce chances to certainty. The single and unforeseen cause that overwhelms a man in the midst of prosperity, never ruins a nation: unless it be ripe for ruin, a nation never falls; and when it does fall, accident has only the appearance of doing what, in reality, was already nearly accomplished.
Even health for want of change becomes disease.
There is no physical cause for the decline of nations, nature remains the same; and if the physical man has degenerated, it was before the authentic records of history. The men who built the most stupendous pyramid in Egypt, did not exceed in stature those who now live in mean hovels at its immense base. If there is any country in the world that proves the uniformity of nature, it is this very Egypt. Unlike to other countries, that owe their fertility to the ordinary succession of seasons, of which regular registers do not exist, and are never accurate, it depends on the overflowing of the waters of a single river. The marks that indicated the rising of the Nile, in the days of the Pharaos, and of the Ptolemies, do the same at the present day, and are a guarantee for the future regularity of nature, by the undeniable certainty of it for the past.
the disposition of man to idleness; by making the very propensity to it, after a certain time, active in promoting industry.
But this can never be the case with a race of men: and, as a nation consists of a greater number of individuals, so, also, its existence consists of successive generations.
By a singular propensity for preserving the bodies of the dead, the Egyptians have left records equally authentic, with regard to the structure of the human frame. Here nothing is fabulous; and even the unintentional errors of language are impossible. We have neither to depend on the veracity nor the correctness of man. The proofs exhibited are visible and tangible; they are the object of the senses, and admit of no mistake.
But while that country exhibits the most authentic proofs of the uniform course of nature, it affords also the most evident examples of the degradation of the human mind. It is there we find the cause of those ruins that astonish, and the desolation that afflicts. Had men continued their exertions, the labour of their hands would not have fallen to decay.
It is in the exertion and conduct of man, and in the information of his mind, that we find the causes of the mutability of human affairs. We are about to tracethem through an intricate labyrinth; but, in this, we are not without a guide.
The history of three thousand years, and of nations that have risen to wealth and power, in a great variety of situations, all terminating with a considerable degree of similarity, discovers the great outline of the causes that invigorate or degrade the human mind, and thereby raise or ruin states and empires.
There are many instances where work has rendered a particular sort of labour absolutely a want. It has become a necessary,-- a means of enjoyment without which life has become a burthen.
We also have read a poem called dreams,“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird, that cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go, life is a barren field, frozen with snow.” (Langston Hughes 89) From the metaphors of this poem, we are shown a vivid image how life would be like without dreams, which is empty, lifeless, and dismal. What the author is tell is to hold fast to out dream, and life would become full of joy
how is my effort
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Friday, April 10, 2015
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