Prof Eliga H. Gould
speaker
140 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 5 Jul
Prof Eliga H. Gould’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Talking History with Patrick Geoghegan · 250: The US Declaration of Independence · 5 Jul 2026
podcast
Right, yeah, it did not mean watching football on a Sunday afternoon.
I mean, I think what Stephanie said is absolutely right, and I think there is a very powerful Scottish influence here, Scottish enlightenment.
I think the thing I would add is, I mean, one explanation for why the switch from property to happiness is,
is that property is very agrarian and it denotes land.
It's rooted in a particular moment.
Happiness can include property, but it can also include commerce.
And I think they're conscious very much of being a commercial people.
One of the things they wanted
they kind of got was to continue, resume trade with Britain once the war was over.
And that's all part of happiness.
And I think the other thing to bear in mind is that to an 18th century mind today, I think we think of commerce and capitalism and something very self-interested.
which it is, but commerce was also understood as conferring wider benefits.
The French talk about du commerce, that is the softening effects of commerce.
So that an age of commercial happiness tends to be a more humanitarian age.
An age where people are actually kinder to each other.
An age where people keep their promises the way merchants do.
I mean, we also know, of course, the commercial age would impoverish people.
It drives the slave trade.
But when they write those words, you know, in a positive sense, they're thinking of the good things that commerce brings.
And they thought of those as communal goods.
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