These excesses, according to some, proceed from mere wantonness, and love of mischief, in the people. Others assert, that they are excited by the tyranny of the lords, which has driven those poor men to despair. Whichsoever of these accounts is true, it seems evident to me, that it would be much better for the lords, as well as the peasants, that the latter, instead of being bond-men, were in a state of freedom. At present, they pay their rent by working a certain number of days in the week for their masters, and maintain themselves and families by labouring the other days on their own account. You will readily believe, that more real business will be done in one day when they work for themselves, than in two days labour for their lords. This occasions ill-humour and blows on the part of the master, and hatred and revolt on that of the peasants.
If the estates in Bohemia were let to free-men at a reasonable rent, freedom and property would excite a spirit of industry among these indolent people. They would then work every day with cheerfulness and good-will, and I am convinced the landlords revenues would increase daily. In consequence of this, the peasants would, in all probability, continue as much attached to the ground from choice, as they are at present from necessity.—Do we not see families in Great Britain remain for many generations on gentlemen’s estates, though the master has the privilege of changing his tenant, and the tenant his master, at the end of every lease?
In almost every country in Europe, except England, the inhabitants are confined by some barrier or other, to the situation in which they are born. The total want of education necessarily obliges the greater part to gain their livelihood by bodily labour. National opinions prevent others from ever rising above the level of their birth, however sublime their genius, or however great their acquired knowledge. But in our island the door of science, and consequently the road to ambition, is open to almost every individual. Even in the most remote villages some degree of education is bestowed on the poorest inhabitants.
This may be of little or no importance to ninety-nine in a hundred; and if the small number who, by improving this pittance of knowledge, raise themselves above the state in which they were born, very few arrive at any degree of eminence; the reason of which is, that great genius is a quality very sparingly dealt out to mankind. Though it must be allowed, that much the greater part of the inhabitants of the same country and climate are born with nearly the same natural abilities; and that the degrees of education, and other opportunities of improvement, gradually form all the difference which appears among them in after-life; yet I cannot, with Helvetius, believe that genius is entirely the work of education.