The Effects of Civilisation on the People in European States/Section VII

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The Effects of Civilisation on the People in European States (1805, 1849)
by Charles Hall
Section VII
1946763The Effects of Civilisation on the People in European States — Section VII1805, 1849Charles Hall

SECTION VII.

CONDITION OF THE POOR NOT HAPPY.

Authors and preachers frequently inculcate to the poor, in their writings and sermons, contentment and submission to the dispensations of Providence—such they pretend their hardships and depressed state to be; thus attributing the works of man to the beneficent Creator. They assert that the measure of happiness is much the same in all conditions, and nearly equal. Not to mention that such doctrine as this would suit every kind of oppression and tyranny, I believe it contrary to fact, and that from considerations drawn from the constitution of the human frame.[1] I shall say nothing as to the destitute condition of their minds, which must deprive them of every consolation from thence. The sensations and feelings of their bodies must subject them to correspondent ones of the mind, and rob them of such satisfaction as it is asserted they do enjoy.

Physicans know that there is a great degree of sympathy existing between the body and the mind; that they mutually affect each other; that the stomach is the principal medium of their reciprocal feelings; that when the sensations of this organ are comfortable, the mind is in an easy and pleasant state. A poor watery vegetable diet has the effect of exciting contrary feelings in the stomach, which are communicated to the mind: hence, it is depressed and anxious; hence, poor men generally have recourse to tobacco, which, being of a narcotic nature, deadens the sensations, and relieves the uneasiness both of the stomach, and of the mind depending on it; for which reason we see they would rather go without their food than their tobacco. Numbers of them fly to the use of spirituous liquors, which is the remedy precisely adapted to their case; and it is to be wondered at that drunkenness is not more frequent among them than it is.[2] But besides the uneasiness occasioned by those sensations, can they see with indifference their offspring perishing for the want of such things as they perceive around them, but which they cannot reach?[3] Can they see without pain the luxurious abundance of the rich, and compare it with their own pinching poverty? To write or preach in this manner is adding insult to oppression.

I have now stated, briefly and generally, the situation of the poor in most European nations, with regard to the necessaries of life, their employments, and their moral and spiritual instruction; and I have avoided entering into the description of the particular hardships, diseases, and instances of mortality, which so much abound in it—these being too obvious and affecting to need a representation to people of any observation, and endued with any sensibility; and, besides, my intention is rather to find out the causes of, and, if possible, a remedy for, the evils, than to give a laboured description of them. I shall first endeavour to discover the cause of their want of a sufficient quantity of the necessaries of life.


  1. An old author saysΟὐδὲν πενίας βαρύτερόν ἐστιν φορτίον.
  2. A dejection of spirits will rob the poor husbandman of the ease and comfort which he should feel when the labour of the day is ended.—Heberden's Comment., p. 220.
  3. Ἀγορὰν ἰδεῖν εὔοψον εὐποροῦντι μὲν
    Ἥδιστον· ἂν δ’ ἀπορῇ τις, ἀθλιώτατον.