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.There is scarceperhaps to be found anywhere in Europe a more learned, decent,independent, and respectable set of men than the greater part ofthe Presbyterian clergy of Holland, Geneva, Switzerland, andScotland.Where the church benefices are all nearly equal, none of themcan be very great, and this mediocrity of benefice, though it mayno doubt be carried, too far, has, however, some very agreeableeffects.Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity toa man of small fortune.The vices of levity and vanity necessarilyrender him ridiculous, and are, besides, almost as ruinous to himAdam Smith ElecBook ClassicsThe Wealth of Nations: Book 5 1082as they are to the common people.In his own conduct, therefore,he is obliged to follow that system of morals which the commonpeople respect the most.He gains their esteem and affection bythat plan of life which his own interest and situation would leadhim to follow.The common people look upon him with thatkindness with which we naturally regard one who approachessomewhat to our own condition, but who, we think, ought to be ina higher.Their kindness naturally provokes his kindness.Hebecomes careful to instruct them, and attentive to assist andrelieve them.He does not even despise the prejudices of peoplewho are disposed to be so favourable to him, and never treatsthem with those contemptuous and arrogant airs which we sooften meet with in the proud dignitaries of opulent and well-endowed churches.The Presbyterian clergy, accordingly, havemore influence over the minds of the common people thanperhaps the clergy of any other established church.It isaccordingly in Presbyterian countries only that we ever find thecommon people converted, without persecution, completely, andalmost to a man, to the established church.In countries where church benefices are the greater part ofthem very moderate, a chair in a university is generally a betterestablishment than a church benefice.The universities have, inthis case, the picking and choosing of their members from all thechurchmen of the country, who, in every country, constitute by farthe most numerous class of men of letters.Where churchbenefices, on the contrary, are many of them very considerable,the church naturally draws from the universities the greater partof their eminent men of letters, who generally find some patronwho does himself honour by procuring them church preferment.Adam Smith ElecBook ClassicsThe Wealth of Nations: Book 5 1083In the former situation we are likely to find the universities filledwith the most eminent men of letters that are to be found in thecountry.In the latter we are likely to find few eminent men amongthem, and those few among the youngest members of the society,who are likely, too, to be drained away from it before they canhave acquired experience and knowledge enough to be of muchuse to it.It is observed by Mr.de Voltaire, that Father Porrée, aJesuit of no great eminence in the republic of letters, was the onlyprofessor they had ever had in France whose works were worththe reading.In a country which has produced so many eminentmen of letters, it must appear somewhat singular that scarce oneof them should have been a professor in a university.The famousGassendi was, in the beginning of his life, a professor in theUniversity of Aix.Upon the first dawning of his genius, it wasrepresented to him that by going into the church he could easilyfind a much more quiet and comfortable subsistence, as well as abetter situation for pursuing his studies; and he immediatelyfollowed the advice.The observation of Mr.de Voltaire may beapplied, I believe, not only to France, but to all other RomanCatholic countries.We very rarely find, in any of them, an eminentman of letters who is a professor in a university, except, perhaps,in the professions of law and physic; professions from which thechurch is not so likely to draw them.After the Church of Rome,that of England is by far the richest and best endowed church inChristendom.In England, accordingly, the church is continuallydraining the universities of all their best and ablest members; andan old college tutor, who is known and distinguished in Europe asan eminent man of letters, is as rarely to be found there as in anyRoman Catholic country.In Geneva, on the contrary, in theAdam Smith ElecBook ClassicsThe Wealth of Nations: Book 5 1084Protestant cantons of Switzerland, in the Protestant countries ofGermany, in Holland, in Scotland, in Sweden, and Denmark, themost eminent men of letters whom those countries have produced,have, not all indeed, but the far greater part of them, beenprofessors in universities.In those countries the universities arecontinually draining the church of all its most eminent men ofletters.It may, perhaps, be worth while to remark that, if we expect thepoets, a few orators, and a few historians, the far greater part ofthe other eminent men of letters, both of Greece and Rome,appear to have been either public or private teachers; generallyeither of philosophy or of rhetoric.This remark will be found tohold true from the days of Lysias and Isocrates, of Plato andAristotle, down to those of Plutarch and Epictetus, of Suetoniusand Quintilian [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]