Transcript
Jefferson Papers C. 2d Series, Vol.22. No.99
May 31.1814 Carlisle
Dear Sir
I say nothing about the affairs of Europe, for they
are so clouded that no reasonable conjecture can be afford-
ed by present facts. I am most willing to believe that
the progress of knowledge cannot be stopt, and the dark
ages renewed, even should the Bourbons again ascend the
throne, but there is nothing to be expressed but hope and
good wishes. Yet from the beginning of history, it ap-
pears that excepting the short period of the bloodthirsty,
restless and unprincipled republics of Greece, the world
has been governed hitherto by royal Dynasties, which must
inevitably degenerate in a few successions into Ideocy,
like those of Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Prussia,
Sweden of the present day. I begin to fear that as it
was in the beginning, it is now and ever will be world
without end. All knowledge and all virtue consists in
discovering and counteracting the natural tendencies and
propensities of the System of which we form a part.
I have been reading very carefully, with great in-
terest and instruction the work of Cabanis. It ranks in
my estimation (considering the respective periods at which
they were published) on a par with Hartley. Cabanis has
boldly drawn the unavoidable conclusion, which Hartley
was obliged to compromise about, and talk nonsense to the