nd other instruments analogous to
what, in the case of an individual, is called a violent death; by
_internal_ I mean civil contention, excessive changes, revolution, decay
of public spirit, which may be considered analogous to natural death.

Again, by objects of _imagination_, I mean such as religion, true or
false (for there are not only false imaginations but true), divine
mission of a sovereign or of a dynasty, and historical fame; and by
objects of _sense_, such as secular interests, country, home, protection
of person and property.

I do not allude to the conservative power of habit when I speak of the
social bond, because habit is rather the necessary result of possessing
a common object, and protects all states equally, barbarous and
civilized. Nor do I include moral degeneracy among the instruments of
their destruction, because this too attaches to all states, civilized
and barbarous, and is rather a disposition exposing them to the
influence of what is their bane, than a direct cause of their ruin in
itself.

3.

But what is meant by the words _barbarous_ and _civilized_, as applied
to political bodies? this is a question which it will take more time to
answer, even if I succeed in satisfying it at all. By "barbarism," then,
I suppose, in itself is meant a state of nature; and by "civilization,"
a state of mental cultivation and discipline. In a state of nature man
has reason, conscience, affections, and passions, and he uses these
severally, or rather is influenced by them, according to circumstances;
and whereas they do not one and all necessarily move in the same
direction, he takes no great pains to make them agree together, but lets
them severally take their course, and, if I may so speak, jostle into a
sort of union, and get on together, as best they can. He does not
improve his talents; he does not simplify and fix his motives; he does
not put his impulses under the control of principle, or form his mind
upon a rule. He grows up pretty much what he was when a child;
capricious, wayward, unstable, idle, irritable, excitable; with not much
more of habituation than that which experience of living unconsciously
forces even on the brutes. Brutes act upon instinct, not on reason; they
are ferocious when they are hungry; they fiercely indulge their
appetite; they gorge themselves; they fall into torpor and inactivity.
In a like, but a more human way, the savage is drawn by the object held
up to him, as