Sociability and Cosmopolitanism by David Burrow Scott Brueninger

Author:David Burrow, Scott Brueninger [David Burrow, Scott Brueninger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, European General
ISBN: 9781317321668
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2015-10-06T04:00:00+00:00

Vaughan the Cosmopolitan

Several points require clarification here. Vaughan used the language of douxcommerce to show how trade would unite humanity into a global community and expand human sympathies and benevolence across national boundaries. His was truly a cosmopolitan vision, where national borders dissolved into one international community of trade and humanity. It should also be noted that Vaughan was quoting from Price’s Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution (1784), and as Price’s biographer Carl Cone recognized, Price was not only a friend of Benjamin Vaughan, but of all humanity:

The Constitutional Society of London on December 16 [1789] at a dinner attended by him accepted a toast to ‘Dr. Price, the friend of the Universe’. This title or its variation, the ‘Friend of Mankind’, was a usual appellation for Price by this time, and it has been used ever since. In July, 1937, a bronze plaque was unveiled in the public library at Bridgend. The inscription calls Price, ‘Philosopher. Preacher. Actuary. Cfaill Dynolryw’ (Friend of Humanity).58

This cosmopolitan description was reminiscent of the manner in which Vaughan described Franklin in the preface to his edition of the Philadelphian’s non-scientific works:

[N]o man ever made larger or bolder guesses than Dr. Franklin from like materials in politics and philosophy, which, after the scrutiny of events and of fact, have been more completely verified. Can Englishmen read these things, and not sigh at recollecting that the country which could produce their author, was once without controversy their own! … Reader, whoever you are, and how much soever you think you hate him, know that this great man loves you enough to wish to do you good: His country’s friend, but more of mankind.59

In the New and Old Principles of Trade, Vaughan added providential language to suggest that it was God’s intention to foster universal benevolence:

[I]ndividuals, learning more and more their real public interests, might consider themselves not merely as the members of separate nations (a sentiment which has hitherto seldom been the companion of general liberality or general justice,) but likewise as members of the universe, and as the common children of a common father. That common Father cannot be pleased that the pretended interests of artificial commodities should be made a motive for disturbing either the good order which is said to be the basis of their own institution, or the peace of the general community of nature.60

And in the appendix to his work, Vaughan amplified this argument:

In seeking national opulence, we must not entirely lose the idea of men being of one race, and of men and animals and the great globe itself belonging to the common Creator of them all. It is here then, if anywhere, that we must avail ourselves of that mutual aid which nature has provided for man, when she allows different places abounding in different commodities and different wants, to have the means of a mutual intercourse.61

Vaughan concluded his text with a quote from Hume’s essay, ‘On the Jealousy of Trade’: ‘I shall therefore venture to

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