Book 8 : Of Property

Untitled Anarchism An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Political Justice and Its Influence on General Virtue, First Edition Book 8

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BOOK VIII




OF PROPERTY








CHAPTER I






PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS






The subject of property is the key-stone that completes the fabric of

political justice. According as our ideas respecting it are crude or correct,

they will enlighten us as to the consequences of a simple form of society

without government, and remove the prejudices that attach us to complexity.

There is nothing that more powerfully tends to distort our judgment and

opinions than erroneous notions concerning the goods of fortune. Finally,

the period that must put an end to the system of coercion and punishment

is intimately connected with the circumstance of property's being placed

upon an equitable basis.






Various abuses of the most incontrovertible nature have insinuated themselves

into the administration of property. Each of these abuses might usefully

be made the subject of a separate investigation. We might inquire into the

vexations of this sort that are produced by the dreams of national greatness,

and the sumptuousness of public offices and magistrates. This would lead

us to a just estimate of the different kinds of taxation, landed or mercantile,

having the necessaries or the luxuries of life for their subject of operation.

We might examine into the abuses which have adhered to the commercial system;

monopolies, charters, patents, protecting duties, prohibitions and bounties.

We might consider the claims of the church: first fruits and tithes. All

these disquisitions would tend to show the incalculable importance of this

subject. But, excluding them all from the present inquiry , it shall be the

business of what remains of this work to examine the subject in its most

general principles, and by that means endeavor to discover the source, not

only of the abuses above enumerated, but of others of innumerable kinds,

too multifarious and subtle to enter into so brief a catalog.






The subject to which the doctrine of property relates is all those things

which conduce, or may be conceived to conduce, to the benefit or pleasure

of man, and which can no otherwise be applied to the use of one or more persons

than by a permanent or temporary exclusion of the rest of the species. Such

things in particular are food, clothing, habitation and furniture.






Upon this subject two questions unavoidably arise. Who is the person entitled

to the use of any particular article of this kind? Who is the person in whose

hands the preservation and distribution of any number of these articles will

be most justly and beneficially vested?






The answer to the first of these questions is easy upon the principles

of the present work. Justice has been proved to be a rule applicable to all

the concerns of man. It pronounces upon every case that can arise, and leaves

nothing to the disposal of a momentary caprice.(1*) There is not an article

of the kinds above specified which will not ultimately be the instrument

of more benefit and happiness in one individual mode of application than

in any other than can be devised. This is the application it ought to receive.






We are here led to the consideration of that species of rights which was

designedly postponed in an earlier division of this work.(2*) Every man has

a right to that, the exclusive possession of which being awarded to him,

a greater sum of benefit or pleasure will result than could have arisen from

its being otherwise appropriated. This is the same principle as that just

delivered, with a slight variation of form. If man have a right to anything,

he has a right to justice. These terms, as they have ordinarily been used

in moral inquiry, are, strictly and properly speaking, convertible terms.






Let us see how this principle will operate in the inferences it authorities

us to make. Human beings are partakers of a common nature; what conduces

to the benefit or pleasure of one man will conduce to the benefit or pleasure

of another.(3*) Hence it follows, upon the principles of equal and impartial

justice, that the good things of the world are a common stock, upon which

one man has as valid a title as another to draw for what he wants. It appears

in this respect, as formerly it appeared in the case of our claim to the

forbearance of each other,(4*) that each man has a sphere the limit and termination

of which is marked out by the equal sphere of his neighbor. I have a right

to the means of subsistence; he has an equal right. I have a right to every

pleasure I can participate without injury to myself or others; his title

in this respect is of similar extent.






This view of the subject will appear the more striking if we pass in review

the good things of the world. They may be divided into four classes; subsistence;

the means of intellectual and moral improvement; inexpensive gratifications;

and such gratifications as are by no means essential to healthful and vigorous

existence, and cannot be purchased but with considerable labor and industry.

It is the last class principally that interposes an obstacle in the way of

equal distribution. It will be matter of after-consideration how far and

how many articles of this class would be admissible into the purest mode

of social existence.(5*) But, in the meantime, it is unavoidable to remark

the inferiority of this class to the three preceding. Without it we may enjoy

to a great extent activity, contentment and cheerfulness. And in what manner

are these seeming superfluities usually procured? By abridging multitudes

of men to a deplorable degree in points of essential moment, that one man

may be accommodated, with sumptuous yet, strictly considered, insignificant

luxuries. Supposing the alternative could fairly be brought home to a man,

and it could depend upon his instant decision, by the sacrifice of these

to give to five hundred of his fellow beings leisure, independence, conscious

dignity, and whatever can refine and enlarge the human understanding, it

is difficult to conceive him to hesitate. But, though this alternative cannot

be produced in the case of an individual, it will perhaps be found to be

the true alternative, when taken at once in reference to the species.






To the forming a just estimate of costly gratifications, it is necessary

that we should abstract the direct pleasure, on the one hand, from the pleasure

they afford us only as instruments for satisfying our love of distinction.

It must be admitted in every system of morality not tainted with monastic

prejudices, but adapted to the nature of intelligent beings, that, so far

as relates to ourselves, and leaving our connection with the species out

of the consideration, we ought not to refuse any pleasure, except as it tends

to the exclusion of some greater pleasure.(6*) But it has already been shown(7*)

that the difference in the pleasures of the palate, between a simple and

wholesome diet on the one hand, and all the complexities of the most splendid

table on the other, is so small that few men would even think it worth the

tedium that attends upon a change of services, if the pleasure of the palate

were the only thing in question, and they had no spectator to admire their

magnificence. 'He who should form himself, with the greatest care, upon a

system of solitary sensualism, would probably come at last to a decision

not different from that which Epicurus is said to have adopted in favor

of fresh herbs, and water from the spring.'(8*) The same observation applies

to the splendor of furniture, equipage and dress. So far as relates to the

gratification of the eye, this pleasure may be reaped, with less trouble,

and in greater refinement, from the beauties which nature exhibits to our

observation. No man, if the direct pleasure were the only thing in consideration,

would think the difference to himself worth purchasing by the oppression

of multitudes.






But these things, though trivial in themselves, are highly pried, from

that love of distinction which is characteristic of every human mind. The

creditable artisan or tradesman exerts a certain species of industry to supply

his immediate wants. But these are soon supplied. The rest is exerted that

he may wear a better coat, that he may clothe his wife with gay attire, that

he may have not merely a shelter, but a handsome habitation, not merely bread

and flesh to eat, but that he may set it out with suitable decorum. How many

of these things would engage his attention if he lived in a desert island,

and had no spectator of his economy? If we survey the appendages of our persons,

there is scarcely an article that is not in some respect an appeal to the

good will of our neighbors, or a refuge against their contempt. It is for

this that the merchant braves the perils of the ocean, and the mechanical

inventor bring forth the treasures of his meditation. The soldier advances

even to the cannon's mouth, and the statesman exposes himself to the rage

of an indignant people, because he cannot bear to pass through life without

distinction and esteem. Exclusively of certain higher motives which will

hereafter be mentioned,(9*) this is the purpose of all the great exertions

of mankind. The man who has nothing to provide for but his animal wants scarcely

ever shakes off the lethargy of his mind; but the love of honor hurries

us on to the most incredible achievements.






It must be admitted indeed that the love of distinction appears, from

experience and the past history of mankind, to have been their ruling passion.

But the love of distinction is capable of different directions. At present,

there is no more certain road to the general deference of mankind than the

exhibition of wealth. The poet, the wit, the orator, the savior of his country,

and the ornament of his species may upon certain occasions be treated with

neglect and biting contempt; but the man who possesses and disburses money

in profusion can scarcely fail to procure the attendance of the obsequious

man and the flatterer. But let us conceive this erroneous and pernicious

estimate of things to be reversed. Let us suppose the avaricious man, who

is desirous of monopolizing the means of happiness, and the luxurious man,

who expends without limitation, in pampering his appetites, that which, in

strict justice, is the right of another, to be contemplated with as much

disapprobation as they are now beheld by a mistaken world with deference

and respect. Let us imagine the direct and unambiguous road to public esteem

to be the acquisition of talent, or the practice of virtue, the cultivation

of some species of ingenuity, or the display of some generous and expansive

sentiment; and that the persons who possess these talents were as conspicuously

treated with affection and esteem as the wealthy are now treated with slavish

attention. This is merely, in other words, to suppose good sense, and clear

and correct perceptions, at some time to gain the ascendancy in the world.

But it is plain that, under the reign of such sentiments, the allurements

that now wait upon costly gratification, would be, for the most part, annihilated.

If, through the spurious and incidental recommendations it derives from the

love of distinction, it is now rendered, to many, a principal source of agreeable

sensation, under a different state of opinion, it would not merely be reduced

to its intrinsic value in point of sensation, but, in addition to this, would

be connected with ideas of injustice, unpopularity and dislike. So small

is the space which costly gratifications are calculated unalterably to fill

in the catalog of human happiness .






It has sometimes been alleged, as an argument against the equal rights

of men in the point of which we are treating, 'that the merits of men are

different, and ought to be differently rewarded' . But it may be questioned

whether this proposition, though true, can with any show of plausibility

be applied to the present subject. Reasons have been already suggested to

prove that positive institutions do not afford the best means for rewarding

virtue, and that human excellence will be more effectually forwarded by those

encouragements which inevitably arise from the system of the universe.(10*)

But, exclusively of this consideration, let us recollect, upon the grounds

of what has just been stated, what sort of reward is thus proposed to exertion.

'If you show yourself deserving, you shall have the essence of a hundred

times more food than you can eat, and a hundred times more clothes than you

can wear. You shall have a patent for taking away from others the means of

a happy and respectable existence, and for consuming them in riotous and

unmeaning extravagance.' is this the reward that ought to be offered to virtue,

or that virtue should stoop to take?






The doctrine of the injustice of accumulated property has been the foundation

of all religious morality. Its most energetic teachers have been irresistibly

led to assert the precise truth in this respect. They have taught the rich

that they hold their wealth only as a trust, that they are strictly accountable

for every atom of their expenditure, that they are merely administrators,

and by no means proprietors in chief.(11*) But, while religion thus inculcated

on mankind the pure principles of justice, the majority of its prosessors

have been but too apt to treat the practice of justice, not as a debt, which

it ought to be considered, but as an affair of spontaneous generosity and

bounty.






The effect which is produced by this accommodating doctrine is to place

the supply of our wants in the disposal of a few, enabling them to make a

show of generosity with what is not truly their own, and to purchase the

submission of the poor by the payment of a debt. Theirs is a system of clemency

and charity, instead of a system of justice. It fills the rich with unreasonable

pride, by the spurious denominations with which it decorates their acts;

and the poor with servility, by leading them to regard the slender comforts

they obtain, not as their incontrovertible due, but as the good pleasure

and grace of their opulent neighbors.






NOTES:






1. Book II, Chap. II.






2. Book II, Chap. V.






3. Book III, Chap. III.






4. Book II, Chap. V.






5. Chap. VII.






6. Book IV, Chap. XI.






7. Book I, Chap. V.






8. Book I, Chap. V.






9. Chap. VI.






10. Book V, Chap. XII; Book XI, Chap I.






11. Mark, Ch. X, ver. 21; Acts, Ch. II, ver. 44, 45. See also Swift's

Sermon on Mutual Subjection.








CHAPTER II






PRINCIPLES OF PROPERTY






Having considered at large the question of the person entitled to the

use of the means of benefit or pleasure, it is time that we proceed to the

second question, of the person in whose hands the preservation and distribution

of any of these means will be most justly and beneficially vested. An interval

must inevitably occur between the production of any commodity and its consumption.

Those things which are necessary for the accommodation of man in society

cannot be obtained without the labor of man. When fit for his use, they

do not admit of being left at random, but require that some care and vigilance

should be exerted to preserve them, for the period of actual consumption.

They will not, in the first instance, fall into the possession of each individual,

in the precise proportion necessary for his consumption. Who then is to be

the factor or warehouseman that is to watch over their preservation, and

preside at their distribution?






This is strictly speaking the question of property. We do not call the

person who accidentally takes his dinner at my table the proprietor of what

he eats, though it is he, in the direct and obvious sense, who receives the

benefit of it. Property implies some permanence of external possession, and

includes in it the idea of a possible competitor.






Of property there are three degrees.






The first and simplest degree is that of my permanent right in those things

the use of which being attributed to me, a greater sum of benefit or pleasure

will result than could have arisen from their being otherwise appropriated.

It is of no consequence, in this case, how I came into possession of them,

the only necessary conditions being their superior usefulness to me, and

that my title to them is such as is generally acquiesced in by the community

in which I live. Every man is unjust who conducts himself in such a manner

respecting these things as to infringe, in any degree, upon my power of using

them, at the time when the using them will be of real importance to me.






It has already appeared(1*) that one of the most essential of the rights

of man is my right to the forbearance of others; not merely that they shall

refrain from every thing that may, by direct consequence, affect my life,

or the possession of my powers, but that they shall refrain from usurping

upon my understanding, and shall leave me a certain equal sphere for the

exercise of my private judgment. This is necessary because it is possible

for them to be wrong, as well as for me to be so, because the exercise of

the understanding is essential to the improvement of man, and because the

pain and interruption I suffer are as real, when they infringe, in my conception

only, upon what is of importance to me, as if the infringement had been,

in the utmost degree, palpable. Hence it follows that no man may, in ordinary

cases, make use of my apartment, furniture or garments, or of my food, in

the way of barter or loan, without having first obtained my consent.






The second degree of property is the empire to which every man is entitled

over the produce of his own industry, even that part of it the use of which

ought not to be appropriated to himself. It has been repeatedly shown that

all the rights of man which are of this description are passive.(2*) He has

no right of option in the disposal of anything which may fall into his hands.

Every shilling of his property, and even every, the minutest, exertion of

his powers have received their destination from the decrees of justice. He

is only the steward. But still he is the steward. These things must be trusted

to his award, checked only by the censorial power that is vested, in the

general sense, and favorable or unfavorable opinion, of that portion of

mankind among whom he resides. Man is changed from the capable subject of

illimitable excellence, into the vilest and most despicable thing that imagination

can conceive, when he is restrained from acting upon the dictates of his

understanding. All men cannot individually be entitled to exercise compulsion

on each other, for this would produce universal anarchy. All men cannot collectively

be entitled to exercise unbounded compulsion, for this would produce universal

slavery: the interference of government, however impartially vested, is,

no doubt, only to be resorted to upon occasions of rare occurrence, and indispensable

urgency.






It will readily be perceived that this second species of property is in

a less rigorous sense fundamental than the first. It is, in one point of

view, a sort of usurpation. It vests in me the preservation and dispensing

of that which in point of complete and absolute right belongs to you.






The third degree of property is that which occupies the most vigilant

attention in the civilized states of Europe. It is a system, in whatever

manner established, by which one man enters into the faculty of disposing

of the produce of another man's industry. There is scarcely any species of

wealth, expenditure or splendor, existing in any civilized country, that

is not, in some way, produced by the express manual labor, and corporeal

industry, of the inhabitants of that country. The spontaneous productions

of the earth are few, and contribute little to wealth, expenditure or splendor.

Every man may calculate, in every glass of wine he drinks, and every ornament

he annexes to his person, how many individuals have been condemned to slavery

and sweat, incessant drudgery, unwholesome food, continual hardships, deplorable

ignorance, and brutal insensibility, that he may be supplied with these luxuries.

It is a gross imposition that men are accustomed to put upon themselves when

they talk of the property bequeathed to them by their ancestors. The property

is produced by the daily labor of men who are now in existence. All that

their ancestors bequeathed to them was a moldy patent which they show as

a title to extort from their neighbors what the labor of those neighbors

has produced.






It is clear therefore that the third species of property is in direct

contradiction to the second.






The most desirable state of human society would require that the quantity

of manual labor and corporal industry to be exerted, and particularly that

part of it which is not the uninfluenced choice of our own judgment, but

is imposed upon each individual by the necessity of his affairs, should be

reduced within as narrow limits as possible. For any man to enjoy the most

trivial accommodation, while, at the same time a similar accommodation is

not accessible to every other member of the community, is, absolutely speaking,

wrong. All refinements of luxury, all inventions that tend to give employment

to a great number of laboring hands, are directly adverse to the propagation

of happiness. Every additional tax that is laid on, every new channel that

is opened for the expenditure of the public money, unless it be compensated

(which is scarcely ever the case) by an equivalent deduction from the luxuries

of the rich, is so much added to the general stock of ignorance, drudgery

and hardship. The country-gentleman who, by leveling an eminence, or introducing

a sheet of water into his park, finds work for hundreds of industrious poor

is the enemy, and not, as has commonly been imagined, the friend, of his

species. Let us suppose that, in any country, there is now ten times as much

industry and manual labor as there was three centuries ago. Except so far

as this is applied to maintain an increased population, it is expended in

the more costly indulgences of the rich. Very little indeed is employed to

increase the happiness or conveniences of the poor. They barely subsist at

present, and they did as much at the remoter period of which we speak. Those

who, by fraud or force, have usurped the power of buying and selling the

labor of the great mass of the community are sufficiently disposed to take

care that they should never do more than subsist. An object of industry added

to or taken from the general stock produces a momentary difference, but things

speedily fall back into their former state. If every laboring inhabitant

of Great Britain were able and willing today to double the quantity of his

industry, for a short time he would derive some advantage from the increased

stock of commodities produced. But the rich would speedily discover the means

of monopolizing this produce, as they had done the former. A small part of

it only could consist in commodities essential to the subsistence of man,

or be fairly distributed through the community. All that is luxury and superfluity

would increase the accommodations of the rich, and perhaps, by reducing the

price of luxuries, augment the number of those to whom such accommodations

were accessible. But it would afford no alleviation to the great mass of

the community. Its more favored members would give their inferiors no greater

wages for twenty hours' labor, suppose, than they now do for ten.






What reason is there then that this species of property should be respected?

Because, ill as the system is, it will perhaps be found that it is better

than any other, which, by any means, except those of reason, the love of

distinction, or the love of justice, can be substituted in its place. It

is not easy to say whether misery or absurdity would be most conspicuous

in a plan which should invite every man to seize upon everything he conceived

himself to want. If, by positive institution, the property of every man were

equalized today, without a contemporary change in men's dispositions and

sentiments, it would become unequal tomorrow. The same evils would spring

up with a rapid growth; and we should have gained nothing, by a project which,

while it violated every man's habits, and many men's inclinations, would

render thousands miserable. We have already shown,(3*) and shall have occasion

to show more at large,(4*) how pernicious the consequences would be if government

were to take the whole permanently into their hands, and dispense to every

man his daily bread. It may even be suspected that agrarian laws, and others

of a similar tendency which have been invented for the purpose of keeping

down the spirit of accumulation, deserve to be regarded as remedies more

pernicious than the disease they are intended to cure.(5*)






An interesting question suggests itself in this stage of the discussion.

How far is the idea of property to be considered as the offspring of positive

institution? The decision of this question may prove extremely essential

to the point upon which we are engaged. The regulation of property by positive

laws may be a very exceptionable means of reforming its present inequality,

at the same time that an equal objection may by no means lie against a proceeding

the object of which shall be merely to supersede positive laws, or such positive

laws as are peculiarly exceptionable.






In pursuing this inquiry, it is necessary to institute a distinction between

such positive laws, or established practices (which are often found little

less efficacious than laws), as are peculiar to certain ages and countries,

and such laws or practices as are common to all civilized communities, and

may therefore be perhaps interwoven with the existence of society.






The idea of property, or permanent empire, in those things which ought

to be applied to our personal use, and still more in the produce of our industry,

unavoidably suggests the idea of some species of law or practice by which

it is guaranteed. Without this, property could not exist. Yet we have endeavored

to show that the maintenance of these two kinds of property is highly beneficial.

Let us consider the consequences that grow out of this position.






Every man should be urged to the performance of his duty, as much as possible,

by the instigations of reason alone.(6*) Compulsion to be exercised by one

human being over another, whether individually, or in the name of the community,

if in any case to be resorted to, is at least to be resorted to only in cases

of indispensable urgency. It is not therefore to be called in for the purpose

of causing one individual to exert a little more, or another a little less,

of productive industry. Neither is it to be called in for the purpose of

causing the industrious individual to make the precise distribution of his

produce which he ought to make. Hence it follows that, while the present

erroneous opinions and prejudices respecting accumulation continue, actual

accumulation will, in some degree, take place.






For, let it be observed that, not only no well informed community will

interfere with the quantity of any man's industry, or the disposal of its

produce, but the members of every such well informed community will exert

themselves to turn aside the purpose of any man who shall be inclined, to

dictate to, or restrain, his neighbor in this respect.






The most destructive of all excesses is that where one man shall dictate

to another, or undertake to compel him to do, or refrain from doing, anything

(except, as was before stated, in cases of the most indispensable urgency)

otherwise than with his own consent. Hence .it follows that the distribution

of wealth in every community must be left to depend upon the sentiments of

the individuals of that community. If, in any society, wealth be estimated

at its true value, and accumulate and monopoly be regarded as the seals of

mischief, injustice and dishonor, instead of being treated as titles attention

and deference, in that society the accommodations of human life will tend

to their level, and the equality of conditions will be destroyed.(7*) A revolution

opinions is the only means of attaining to this inestimable benefit. Every

attempt to effect this purpose by means of regulation will probably be found

ill conceived and abortive. Be this as it will, every attempt to correct

the distribution of wealth by individual violence is certainly to be regarded

as hostile to the first principles of public security.






If one individual, by means of greater ingenuity or more indefatigable

industry, obtain a great proportion of the necessaries or conveniences of

life than his neigh-hour, and, having obtained them, determine to convert

them into the means of permanent inequality, this proceeding is not of a

sort that it would be just or wise to undertake to repress by means of coercion.

If, inequality being thus introduced, the poorer member of the community

shall be so depraved as to be willing, or so unfortunately circumstanced

as to be driven, to make himself the hired servant or laborer of his richer

neighbor, this probably is not an evil to be corrected by the interposition

of government. But, when we have gained this step, it will be difficult to

set bounds to the extent of accumulation in one man, or of poverty and wretchedness

in another.






It has already appeared that reason requires that no man shall endeavor,

by individual violence, to correct this inequality. Reason would probably,

in a well ordered community, be sufficient to restrain men from the attempt

so to correct it. Where society existed in the simplicity which hag formerly

been described,(8*) accumulation itself would be restrained by the very means

that restrained depredation, the good sense of the community, and the inspection

of all exercised upon all. Violence therefore would, on the one hand, have

little to tempt it as, on the other, it would be incessantly and irresistibly

repressed.






But, if reason prove insufficient for this fundamental purpose, other

means must doubtless be employed.(9*) It is better that one man should suffer

than that the community should be destroyed. General security is one of those

indispensable preliminaries without which nothing, good or excellent can

be accomplished. It is therefore right that property, with all its inequalities,

such as it is sanctioned by the general sense of the members of any state,

and so long as that sanction continues unvaried should be defended, if need

be, by means of coercion.






We have already endeavored to show that coercion would probably, in no

case, be necessary but for the in-judicious magnitude and complication of

political societies.(10*) In a general and absolute sense therefore it cannot

be vindicated. But there are duties incumbent upon us of a temporary and

local nature; and we may occasionally be required, by the pressure of circumstances,

to suspend and contravene principles, the most sound in their general nature.(11*)

Till men shall be persuaded to part with the ideas of a complicated government

and an extensive territory, coercion will be necessary, as an expedient to

counteract the most imminent evils. There are however various reasons that

would incline a just man to confine the province of coercion within the severest

limits. It is never to be regarded but as a temporary expedient, the necessity

of having recourse to which is deeply to be regretted. It is an expedient,

protecting one injustice, the accumulation of property, for the sake of keeping

out another evil, still more formidable and destructive. Lastly, it is to

be considered that this injustice, the unequal distribution of property,

the grasping and selfish spirit of individuals, is to be regarded as one

of the original sources of government, and, as it rises in its excesses,

is continually demanding and necessitating new injustice, new penalties and

new slavery.






Thus far then it should seem the system of coercion must be permitted

to extend. We should set bounds to no man's accumulation. We should repress

by wise and effectual, yet moderate and humane, penalties, all forcible invasion

to be committed by one man upon the acquisitions of another. But it may be

asked, are there not various laws or practices, established among civilized

nations, which do not, like these we have described, stop at the toleration

of unequal property, but which operate to its immediate encouragement, and

to the rendering this inequality still wider and more oppressive?






What are we to conceive in this respect of the protection given to inheritance,

and testamentary bequest? "There is no merit in being born the son of

a rich man, rather than of a poor one, that should justify us in raising

this man to affluence, and condemning that to invincible depression. Surely,"

we might be apt to exclaim, "it is enough to maintain men in their usurpation

[for let it never be forgotten that accumulated property is usurpation],

during the term of their lives. It is the most extravagant fiction, which

would enlarge the empire of the proprietor beyond his natural existence,

and enable him to dispose of events, when he is himself no longer in the

world."






The arguments however that may be offered, in favor of the protection

given to inheritance and testamentary bequest, are more forcible than might

at first be imagined. We have attempted to show that men ought to be protected

in the disposal of the property they have personally acquired; in expending

it, in the necessaries they require, or the luxuries in which they think

proper to indulge; in transferring it, in such portions, as justice shall

dictate, or their erroneous judgment suggest. To attempt therefore to take

the disposal out of their hands, at the period of their decease, would be

an abortive and pernicious project. If we prevented them from bestowing it

in the open and explicit mode of bequest, we could not prevent them from

transferring it before the close of their lives, and we should open a door

to vexatious and perpetual litigation. Most persons would be inclined to

bestow their property, after the period of their lives, upon their children

or nearest relatives. Where therefore they have failed to express their sentiments

in this respect, it is reasonable to presume what they would have been; and

this disposal of the property on the part of the community is the mildest,

and therefore the most justifiable, interference. Where they have expressed

a capricious partiality, this iniquity also is, in most cases, to be protected,

because, for the reasons above assigned, it cannot be prevented without exposing

us to still greater iniquities.






But, though it may possibly be true, that inheritance, and the privilege

of testation, are necessary consequences of the system of property in a community

the members of which are involved in prejudice and ignorance, it will not

be difficult to find the instances, in every political country of Europe,

in which civil institution, instead of granting, to the inequalities of accumulation,

only what could not prudently be withheld, has exerted itself, for the express

purpose of rendering these inequalities greater and more oppressive. Such

instances are, the feudal system, and the system of ranks, seignorial duties,

fines, conveyances, entails, the distinction, in landed property, of freehold,

copyhold and manor, the establishment of vassalage, and the claim of primogeniture.

We here distinctly recognize the policy of men who, having first gained a

superiority, by means of the inevitable openings before cited, have made

use of this superiority for the purpose of conspiring to monopolize whatever

their rapacity could seize, in direct opposition to every dictate of the

general interest. These articles fall under the distinction, brought forward

in the outset,(12*) of laws or practices not common to all civilized communities,

but peculiar to certain ages and countries.






It should seem therefore that these are institutions the abolition of

which is not to be entirely trusted to the silent hostility of opinion, but

that they are to be abrogated by the express and positive decision of the

community. For their abrogation, it is not necessary that any new law or

regulation should be promulgated, an operation which, to say the least, should

always be regarded with extreme jealousy. Property, under every form it can

assume, is upheld by the direct interference of institution; and that species

which we at present contemplate must inevitably perish the mordent the protection

of the state is withdrawn. Of the introduction of new regulations of whatever

description it becomes the friend of man to be jealous; but we may allow

ourselves to regard with a more friendly eye a proceeding which consists

merely in their abolition.






The conclusion however in this instance must not be pushed further than

the premises will justify. The articles enumerated will perhaps, all of them,

be found to tally with the condition annexed; they depend for their existence

upon the positive protection of the state. But there are particulars which

have grown up under their countenance that are of a different sort. Such,

for instance, are titles, armorial bearings and liveries. If the community

refuse to countenance feudal and seignorial claims, and the other substantial

privileges of an aristocracy, they must inevitably cease. But the case is

different in the instances last cited. It is one thing to abolish a law,

or refuse to persist in a practice that is made the engine of tyranny; and

a thing of a totally different sort, by a positive law to prohibit actions,

however irrational, by which no man's security is directly invaded. It should

seem unjustifiable to endeavor, by penalties, to deter a man from calling

himself by any name, or attiring himself or others, with their own consent,

in any manner he thinks proper. Not that these things are, as they have sometimes

been represented, in their own nature trivial. We have endeavored to prove

the reverse of this.(13*) They ought to be assailed with every weapon of

argument and ridicule. in an enlightened community, the man who assumes to

himself a pompous appellation will be considered as a fool or a madman. But

fulminations and penalties are not the proper instruments to repress an ecstasy

of this sort.






There is another circumstance necessary to be stated, by way of qualification

to the preceding conclusion. Evils often exist in a community, which, though

mere excrescences at first, at length become so incorporated with the principle

of social existence that they cannot suddenly be separated without the risk

of involving the most dreadful calamities. Feudal rights, and the privileges

of rank, are, in themselves considered, entitled to no quarter. The inequalities

of property perhaps constituted a state through which it was at least necessary

for us to pass, and which constituted the true original excitement to the

unfolding the powers of the human mind.(14*) But it would be difficult to

show that feudality and aristocracy ever produced an overbalance of good.

Yet, were they to be suddenly and instantly abolished, two evils would necessarily

follow. First, the abrupt reduction of thousands to a condition the reverse

of that to which they had hitherto been accustomed, a condition, perhaps

the most auspicious to human talent and felicity, but for which habit had

wholly unfitted them, and which would be to them a continual source of dejection

and suffering. It may be doubted whether the genuine cause of reform ever

demands that, in its name, we should sentence whole classes of men to wretchedness.

Secondly, an attempt abruptly to abolish practices which had originally no

apology to plead for their introduction would be attended with as dreadful

convulsions, and as melancholy a series of public calamities, as an attack

upon the first principles of society itself. All the reasonings therefore

which were formerly adduced under the head of revolutions(15*) are applicable

to the present case.






Having now accomplished what was last proposed,(16*) and endeavored to

ascertain in what particulars the present system of property is to be considered

as the capricious offspring of positive institution, let us return to the

point which led us to that inquiry, the question concerning the degree of

respect to which property in general is entitled. And here it is only necessary

that we should recollect the principle in which the doctrine of property

is founded, the sacred and indefeasible right of private judgment. There

are but two objects for which government can rationally be conceived to have

been originated: first, as a treasury of public wisdom, by which individuals

might, in all cases, with advantage be directed, and which might actively

lead us, with greater certainty, in the path of happiness: or, secondly,

instead of being forward to act itself as an umpire, that the community might

fill the humbler office of guardian of the rights of private judgment, and

never interpose but when one man appeared, in this respect, alarmingly to

encroach upon another. All the arguments of this work have tended to show

that the latter, and not the former, is the true end of civil institution.

The first idea of property then is a deduction from the right of private

judgment; the first object of government is the preservation of this right.

Without permitting to every man, to a considerable degree, the exercise of

his own discretion, there can be no independence, no improvement, no virtue

and no happiness. This is a privilege in the highest degree sacred; for its

maintenance, no exertions and sacrifices can be too great. Thus deep is the

foundation of the doctrine of property. It is, in the last resort, the palladium

of all that ought to be dear to us, and must never be approached but with

awe and veneration. He that seeks to loosen the hold of this principle upon

our minds, and that would lead us to sanction any exceptions to it without

the most deliberate and impartial consideration, however right may be his

intentions, is, in that instance an enemy to the whole. A condition indispensably

necessary to every species of excellence is security. Unless I can foresee,

in a considerable degree, the treatment I shall receive from my species,

and am able to predict, to a certain extent, what will be the limits of their

irregularity and caprice, I can engage in no valuable undertaking. civil

society maintains a greater proportion of security among men than can be

found in the savage state: this is one of the reasons why, under the shade

of civil society, arts have been invented, sciences perfected and the nature

of man, in his individual and relative capacity, gradually developed.






One observation it seems proper to add to the present chapter. We have

maintained(17*) the equal rights of men, that each man has a perfect claim

upon everything the possession of which will be productive of more benefit

to him than injury to another. "Has he then" it will be asked,

"a right to take it? If not, what sort of right is that which the person

in whom it vests is not entitled to enforce?"






The difficulty here is in appearance, and not in reality. The feature

specified in the present instance adheres to every department of right. It

is right that my actions should be governed by the dictates of my own judgment:

and every man is an intruder who endeavors to compel me to act by his judgment

instead of my own. But it does not follow that I shall always do wisely or

well in undertaking to repel his intrusion by force. Persuasion, and not

force, is the legitimate instrument for influencing the human mind; and I

shall never be justifiable in having recourse to the latter, while there

is any rational hope of succeeding by the former. Add to which, the criterion

of morals is utility. When it has once been determined that my being constituted

the possessor of a certain article will be beneficial, it does not follow

that my attempting, or even succeeding, violently to put myself in possession

of it will be attended with a beneficial result. If I were quietly installed,

it may be unquestionable that that would be an absolute benefit; and yet

it may be true that my endeavors to put myself in possession, whether effectual

or ineffectual, will be attended with worse consequences than all the good

that would follow from right being done as to the object itself. The doctrine

of rights has no rational or legitimate connection with the practice of tumult.






But, though I may not, consistently with rectitude, attempt to put myself

in possession of many things which it is right I should have, yet this sort

of right is by no means futile and nugatory. It may prove to be a great truth,

resting upon irresistible evidence, and may, in that case, be expected to

make hourly progress in the convictions of mankind. If it be true, it is

an interesting truth, and may therefore be expected to germinate in the mind,

and produce corresponding effects upon the conduct. It may appear to be a

truth of that nature which is accustomed to sink deep in the human understanding,

insensibly to mix itself with all our reasonings, and ultimately to produce,

without shadow of violence, the most complete revolution in the maxims of

civil society.






NOTES:






1. Book 11, Chap. V, VI.






2. Book II, Chap. V.






3. Book VI, Chap. VIII, p. 616.






4. Chap. VIII.






5. Book VI, Chap. 1.






6. Book 11, Chap. VI; Book VII, passim.






7. Chap. I.






8. Book V, Chap. XXIV.






9. Book VII, Chap, V.






10. Book VII, Chap. V.






11. Vol. 1, Book IV, Chap. VI, App, No. 1.






12. p. 714.






13. Book V, Chap. XIL.






14. Chap. VII.






15. Book IV, Chap. II.






16. p. 714.






17. Chap. I.








CHAPTER III






BENEFITS ATTENDANT ON A SYSTEM OF EQUALITY






Having seen the justice of an equal distribution of the good things of

life, let us next proceed to consider, in detail, the benefits with which

it would be attended. And here with grief it must be confessed that, however

great and extensive are the evils that are produced by monarchies and courts,(1*)

by the imposture of priests(2*) and the iniquity of criminal laws,(3*) all

these are imbecile and impotent compared with the evils that arise out of

the established administration of property.






Its first effect is that we have already mentioned,(4*) a sense of dependence.

It is true that courts are mean-spirited, intriguing and servile, and that

this disposition is transferred by contagion from them to all ranks of society.

But accumulation brings home a servile and truckling spirit, by no circuitous

method, to every house in the nation. Observe the pauper fawning with abject

vileness upon his rich benefactor, speechless with sensations of gratitude,

for having received that which he ought to have claimed, not indeed with

arrogance, or a dictatorial and overbearing temper, but with the spirit of

a man discussing with a man, and resting his cause only on the justice of

his claim. Observe the servants that follow in a rich man's train, watchful

of his looks, anticipating his commands, not daring to reply to his insolence,

all their time and their efforts under the direction of his caprice. Observe

the tradesman, how he studies the passions of his customers, not to correct,

but to pamper them, the vileness of his flattery and the systematical constancy

with which he exaggerates the merit of his commodities. Observe the practices

of a popular election, where the great mass are purchased by obsequiousness,

by intemperance and bribery, or driven by unmanly threats of poverty and

persecution. Indeed 'the age of chivalry is' not 'gone'!(5*) The feudal spirit

still survives that reduced the great mass of mankind to the rank of slaves

and cattle for the service of a few.






We have heard much of visionary and theoretical improvements. It would

indeed be visionary to expect integrity from mankind while they are thus

subjected to hourly corruption, and bred, from father to son, to sell their

independence and their conscience for the vile rewards that oppression has

to bestow. No man can be either useful to others, or happy in himself, who

is a stranger to the grace of firmness, or who is not habituated to prefer

the dictates of his own understanding to the tyranny of command, and the

allurements of temptation. Here again, as upon a former occasion,(6*) religion

comes in to illustrate our thesis. Religion was the generous ebullition of

men who let their imagination loose on the grandest subjects, and wandered

without restraint in the unbounded field of inquiry. It is not to be wondered

at therefore if they brought home imperfect ideas of the sublimest views

that intellect can furnish. In this instance, religion teaches that the pure

perfection of man is to arm himself against the power of sublunary enticements

and sublunary terrors; that he must suffer no artificial wants, sensuality,

or fear, to come in competition with the dictates of rectitude and reflection.

But to expect a constancy of this sort from the human species, under the

present system, is an extravagant speculation. The enquirer after truth,

and the benefactor of mankind, will be desirous of removing from them those

external impressions by which their evil propensities are cherished. The

true object that should be kept in view is to extirpate all ideas of condescension

and superiority, to oblige every man to feel that the kindness he exerts

is what he is bound to perform, and to examine whether the assistance he

asks be what he has a right to claim.






A second evil that arises out of the established administration of property

is the continual spectacle of injustice it exhibits. The effect of this consists

partly in the creation of wrong propensities, and partly in a hostility to

right ones. There is nothing more pernicious to the human mind than the love

of opulence. Essentially active when the original cravings of appetite have

been satisfied, we necessarily fix on some object of pursuit, benevolent

or personal, and, in the latter case, on the attainment of some excellence,

or something which shall command the esteem and deference of others. Few

propensities, absolutely considered, can be more valuable than this. But

the established administration of property directs it into the channel of

the acquisition of wealth. The ostentation of the rich perpetually goads

the spectator to the desire of opulence . Wealth, by the sentiments of servility

and dependence it produces, makes the rich man stand forward as the principal

object of general esteem and deference. In vain are sobriety, integrity and

industry, in vain the sublimest powers of mind, and the most ardent benevolence,

if their possessor be narrow in his circumstances. To acquire wealth and

to display it is therefore the universal passion. The whole structure of

human society is made a system of the narrowest selfishness. If the state

of society were such that self-love and benevolence were apparently reconciled

as to their object, a man might then set out with the desire of eminence,

and yet become every day more generous and philanthropical in his views.

But the passion we are here describing is accustomed to be gratified at every

step by inhumanly trampling upon the interest of others. Wealth is acquired

by overreaching our neighbor, and is spent in insulting him.






The spectacle of injustice which the established administration of property

exhibits operates also in the way of hostility to right propensities. If

you would cherish in any man the love of rectitude, you must see that its

principles be impressed on him, not only by words, but actions. It happens

perhaps, during the period of education, that maxims of integrity and consistency

are repeatedly enforced, and the preceptor gives no quarter to the base suggestions

of selfishness and cunning. But how is the lesson that has been read to the

pupil confounded and reversed when he enters upon the scene of the world?

If he ask, 'Why is this man honored?' the ready answer is, 'Because he is

rich.' If he inquire further, 'Why is he rich?' the answer, in most cases,

is, 'From the accident of birth, or from a minute and sordid attention to

the cares of gain.' Humanity weeps over the distresses of the peasantry in

all civilized nations; and, when she turns from this spectacle, to behold

the luxury of their lords, gross, imperious and prodigal, her sensations

certainly are not less acute. This spectacle is the school in which mankind

have been educated. They have been accustomed to the sight of injustice,

oppression and iniquity, till their feelings are made callous, and their

understandings incapable of apprehending the principles of virtue.






In beginning to point out the evils of accumulated property, we compared

the extent of those evils with the correspondent evils of monarchies and

courts.(7*) No circumstances, under the latter, have excited a more pointed

disapprobation than pensions and pecuniary corruption, by means of which

hundreds of individuals are rewarded, not for serving, but betraying the

public, and the hard earnings of industry are employed to fatten the servile

but they are paid for being dissipated and indolent. The most powerful means

that malignity could have invented are employed to prevent them from improving

their talents, and becoming useful to the public.






This leads us to observe, thirdly, that the established administration

of property is the true leveling system with respect to the human species,

by as much as the cultivation of intellect is more valuable, and more characteristic

of man, than the gratifications of vanity or appetite. Accumulated property

treads the powers of thought in the dust, extinguishes the sparks of genius,

and reduces the great mass of mankind to be immersed in sordid cares; beside

depriving the rich, as we have already said, of the most salubrious and effectual

motives to activity. If superfluity were banished, the necessity for the

greater part of the manual industry of mankind would be superseded; and the

rest, being amicably shared among the active and vigorous members of the

community, would be burdensome to none. Every man would have a frugal, yet

wholesome diet; every man would go forth to that moderate exercise of his

corporal functions that would give hilarity to the spirits; none would be

made torpid with fatigue, but all would have leisure to cultivate the kindly

and philanthropical affections, and to let loose his faculties in the search

of intellectual improvement. What a contrast does this scene present to the

present state of society, where the peasant and the laborer work till their

understandings are benumbed with toil, their sinews contracted and made callous

by being for ever on the stretch, and their bodies invaded with infirmities,

and surrendered to an untimely grave? What is the fruit they obtain from

this disproportioned and unceasing toil? In the evening they return to a

family, famished with hunger, exposed half naked to the inclemencies of the

sky, hardly sheltered, and denied the slenderest instruction, unless in a

few instances, where it is dispensed by the hands of ostentatious charity,

and the first lesson communicated is unprincipled servility. All this while

their rich neighbor -- but we visited him before.(8*)






How rapid would be the advances of intellect if all men were admitted

into the field of knowledge? At present ninety-nine persons in a hundred

are no more excited to any regular exertions of general and curious thought

than the brutes themselves. What would be the state of public mind in a nation

where all were wise, all had laid aside the shackles of prejudice and implicit

faith, all adopted, with fearless confidence, the suggestions of reason,

and the lethargy of the soul was dismissed for ever? It is to be presumed

that the inequality of mind would, in a certain degree, be permanent; but

it is reasonable to believe that the geniuses of such an age would greatly

surpass the utmost exertions of intellect hitherto known. Genius would not

be depressed with false wants and niggardly patronage. It would not exert

itself with a sense of neglect and oppression rankling in its bosom. It would

be delivered from those apprehensions that perpetually recall us to the thought

of personal emolument; and, of consequence, would expatiate freely among

sentiments of generosity and public good.






From ideas of intellectual, let us turn to moral, improvement. And here

it is obvious that the great occasions of crime would be cut off for ever.(9*)






The fruitful source of crimes consists in this circumstance, one man's

possessing in abundance that of which another man is destitute. We must change

the nature of mind before we can prevent it from being powerfully influenced

by this circumstance, when brought strongly home to its perceptions by the

nature of its situation. Man must cease to have senses, the pleasures of

appetite and vanity must cease to gratify, before he can look on tamely at

the monopoly of these pleasures. He must cease to have a sense of justice,

before he can clearly and fully approve this mixed scene of superfluity and

want. It is true that the proper method of curing this inequality is by reason

and not by violence. But the immediate tendency of the established administration

is to persuade men that reason is impotent. The injustice of which they complain

is upheld by force; and they are too easily induced by force to attempt its

correction. All they endeavor is the partial correction of an injustice

which education tells them is necessary, but more powerful reason affirms

to be tyrannical.






Force grew out of monopoly. It might accidentally have occurred among

savages, whose appetites exceeded their supply, or whose passions were inflamed

by the presence of the object of their desire; but it would gradually have

died away, as reason and civilization advanced. Accumulated property has

fixed its empire; and henceforth all is an open contention of the strength

and cunning of one party against the strength and cunning of the other. In

this case, the violent and premature struggles of the necessitous are undoubtedly

an evil. They tend to defeat the very cause in the success of which they

are most deeply interested; they tend to procrastinate the triumph of justice.

But the true crime, in every instance, is in the selfish and partial propensities

of men, thinking only of themselves, and despising the emolument of others;

and, of these, the rich have their share.






The spirit of oppression, the spirit of servility, and the spirit of fraud,

these are the immediate growth of the established administration of property.

They are alike hostile to intellectual and moral improvement. The other vises

of envy, malice and revenge are their inseparable companions. In a state

of society where men lived in the midst of plenty, and where all shared alike

the bounties of nature, these sentiments would inevitably expire. The narrow

principle of selfishness would vanish. No man being obliged to guard his

little store, or provide, with anxiety and pain, for his restless wants,

each would lose his individual existences in the thought of the general good.

No man would be an enemy to his neighbor, for they would have no subject

of contention and of consequence, philanthropy would resume the empire which

reason assigns her. Mind would be delivered from her perpetual anxiety about

corporal support, and free to expatiate in the field of thought which is

congenial to her. Each would assist the inquiries of all.






Let us fix our attention, for a moment, upon the alteration of principles

and habits that immediately grows out of an unequal distribution of property.

Till it was thus distributed, men felt what their wants required, and sought

the supply of those wants. All that was more than this was regarded as indifferent.

But no sooner is accumulation introduced than they begin to study a variety

of methods, for disposing of their superfluity with least emolument to their

neighbor, or, in other words by which it shall appear to be most their own.

They do not long continue to buy commodities before they begin to buy men.

He that possesses, or is the spectator of, superfluity, soon discovers the

hold which it affords him on the minds of others. Hence the passions of vanity

and ostentation. Hence the despotic manners of such, as recollect with complacence

the rank they occupy; and the restless ambition of those, whose attention

is engrossed by the possible future.






Ambition is, of all the passions of the human mind, the most, extensive

in its ravages. It adds district to district, and kingdom to kingdom. It

spreads bloodshed and calamity and conquest over the face of the earth. But

the passion itself, as well as the means of gratifying it, is the produce

of the prevailing administration of property.(10*) It is only by means of

accumulation that one man obtains art unresisted sway over multitudes of

others. It is by means of a certain distribution of income that the present

governments of the world are retained in existence. Nothing more easy than

to plunge nations, so organized, into war. But, if Europe were at present

covered with inhabitants all of them possessing competence, and none of them

superfluity, what could induce its different countries to engage in hostility?

If you would lead men to war, you must exhibit certain allurements. If you

be not enabled, by a system already prevailing, and which derives force from

prescription, to hire them to your purposes, you must bring over each individual

by dint of persuasion. How hopeless a task by such means to excite mankind

to murder each other? It is clear then that war, in all its aggravations,

is the growth of unequal property. As long as this source of jealousy and

corruption shall remain, it is visionary to talk of universal peace. As soon

as the source shall be dried up, it will be impossible to exclude the consequence.

It is accumulation that forms men into one common mass, and makes them fit

to be played upon like a brute machine. Were this stumbling-block removed,

each man would be united to his neighbor, in love and mutual kindness, a

thousand times more than now: but each man would think and judge for himself.

Let then the advocates for the prevailing administration at least consider

what it is for which they plead, and be well assured that they have arguments

in its favor which will weigh against these disadvantages.






There is one other circumstance which, though inferior to those above

enumerated, deserves to be mentioned. This is population. It has been calculated

that the average cultivation of Europe might be so improved as to maintain

five times her present number of inhabitants.(11*) There is a principle in

human society by which population is perpetually kept down to the level of

the means of subsistence. Thus, among the wandering tribes of America and

Asia, we never find, through the lapse of ages, that population has so increased

as to render necessary the cultivation of the earth, Thus, among the civilized

nations of Europe, by means of territorial monopoly, the sources of subsistence

are kept within a certain limit, and, if the population became overstocked,

the lower ranks of the inhabitants would be still more incapable of procuring

for themselves the necessaries of life. There are, no doubt extraordinary

concurrences of circumstances by means of which changes are occasionally

introduced in this respect; but, in ordinary cases, the standard of population

is held, in a manner, stationary for centuries. Thus the established administration

of property may be considered as strangling a considerable portion of our

children in their cradle. Whatever may be the value of the life of man, or

rather whatever would be his capability of happiness in a free and equal

state of society, the system we are here opposing may be considered as arresting,

upon the threshold of existence, four fifths of that value and that happiness.






NOTES:






1. Book V.






2. Book VI.






3. Book VII.






4. Chap. I.






5. Burke's Reflections.






6. Chap. I.






7. p. 725






8. p. 728






9. Book I, Chap. III






10. Book V, Chap. XVI






11. Essay on Property, Part I, Sect. iii, par. 35.








CHAPTER IV






OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE FRAILTY OF THE HUMAN MIND






Having proceeded thus far in our investigation, it may be proper to recapitulate

the principles already established. The discussion, under each of its branches,

as it relates to the equality of men,(1*) and the inequalities of property,(2*)

may be considered as a discussion either of right or duty; and, in that respect,

runs parallel to the two great heads of which we treated in our original

development of the principles of society.(3*) I have a right to the assistance

of my neighbor; he has a right that it should not be extorted from him by

force. It is his duty to afford me the supply of which I stand in need; it

is my duty not to violate his province in determining, first, whether he

is to supply me, and, secondly, in what degree.






Equality of conditions, or, in other words, an equal admission to the

means of improvement and pleasure, is a law rigorously enjoined upon mankind

by the voice of justice. All other changes in society are good, only as they

are fragments of this, or steps to its attainment. All other existing abuses

are to be deprecated, only as they serve to increase and perpetuate the inequality

of conditions.






We have however arrived at another truth not less evident than this. Equality

of conditions cannot be produced by individual compulsion, and ought not

to be produced by compulsion in the name of the whole. There remains therefore

but one mode of arriving at this great end of justice and most essential

improvement of society, and that consists in rendering the cession by him

that has to him that wants an unrestrained and voluntary action. There remain

but two instruments for producing this volition, the illumination of the

understanding and the love of distinction.






These instruments have commonly been supposed wholly inadequate to their

object. It has usually been treated as 'the most visionary of all systems,

to expect the rich to "sell all that they have, and give to the poor".(4*)

It is one thing to convince men that a given conduct, on their part, would

be most conducive to the general interest, and another to persuade them actively

to postpone, to considerations of general interest, every idea of personal

ambition or pleasure. The sober calculator will often doubt whether it be

reasonable, in consistence with the nature of a human being, to expect from

him such a sacrifice: and the man of a lively and impetuous temper, even

when satisfied that it is his duty, will be in hourly danger of deserting

it, at the invitation of some allurement, too powerful for mortal frailty

to resist.'






There is certainly considerable force in this statement; and there is

good reason to believe, though the human mind be unquestionably accessible

to disinterested motives,(5*) that virtue would be in most instances an impracticable

refinement; were it not that self-love and social, however different in themselves,

are found upon strict examination to prescribe the same system of conduct.






But this observation by no means removes the difficulty intended to be

suggested in the objection. 'Though frugality, moderation and plainness may

be the joint dictate of these two authorities, yet it is the property of

the human mind to be swayed by things present more than by things absent.

In affairs of religion, we often find men indulging themselves in offenses

of small gratification, in spite of all the threats that can be held out

to them of eternal damnation. It is in vain that, for the most part, you

would preach the pleasures of abstinence amid the profusion of a feast;

or the unsubstantialness of fame and power to him who is tortured with the

goadings of ambition. The case is similar to that of the exacerbations of

grief, the attempt to cure which by the consolations of philosophy has been

a source of inexhaustible ridicule.'






The answer to these remarks has been anticipated.(6*) The ridicule lies

in supposing the endeavor to cure a man of his weakness to consist in one

phlegmatic and solitary expostulation, instead of conceiving it to be accompanied

with the vigor of conscious truth, and the progressive regularity of a course

of instruction.






Let us take up the subject in a view, in some degree varying from that

in which it was formerly considered. We have endeavored to establish, in

the commencement of the present book, the principles of justice, relative

to the distribution of the goods of fortune. Let us inquire Whether the principles

there delivered can be made productive of conviction to the rich; whether

they can be made productive of conviction, in cases not immediately connected

with personal interest; and whether they can be made productive of conviction

to the poor?






Is it possible for a rich man to see that the costly gratifications in

which he indulges are comparatively of little value, and that he may arrive

at everything that is most essential in happiness or pleasure, by means of

the three other sources formerly enumerated,(7*) subsistence, inexpensive

gratifications, and the means of intellectual and moral improvement? Is it

possible for him to understand the calculation, 'in every glass that he drinks,

and every ornament that he annexes to his person', of 'how many individuals

have been condemned to slavery and sweat, incessant drudgery, unwholesome

food, continual hardships, deplorable ignorance and brutal insensibility,

that he may be supplied with these luxuries'?(8*) Is it possible for a man

to have these ideas so repeatedly suggested to his mind, so strongly impressed,

and so perpetually haunting him, as finally to induce a rich man to desire,

with respect to personal gratifications, to live as if he were a poor one?

It is not conceivable but that every one of these questions must be answered

in the affirmative.






Be it observed by the way that the motives for a rich man to live as if

he were a poor one are very inferior now to what they would be when a general

sympathy upon this subject had taken place, and a general illumination had

diffused itself.






If then it be possible for a rich man, from the mere apprehensions of

justice, voluntarily to desire to live as if he were a poor one, we shall

have still less hesitation in affirming that a sentiment of justice in this

matter may be made productive of conviction, in cases not immediately connected

with personal interest, and of conviction to the poor.






Undoubtedly an apprehension of the demands of justice in this respect

has some tendency to the instigation of violence and tumult, were we not

to suppose the gradual development of this impression to be accompanied with

a proportionable improvement of the mind in other respects, and a slow, but

incessant, melioration of the institutions and practices of society. With

this supposition, it could not however fail to happen that, in proportion

as the prejudices and ignorance of the great mass of society declined, the

credit of wealth, and the reverent admiration with which it is now contemplated,

must also decline. But, in proportion as it lost credit with the great mass

of society, it would relax its hold upon the minds of those who possess it,

or have the means of acquiring it. We have already seen(9*) that the great

incitement to the acquisition of wealth is the love of distinction. Suppose

then that, instead of the false glare which wealth, through the present puerility

of the human mind, reflects on its possessor, his conduct in amassing and

monopolizing it were seen in its true light. We should not then demand his

punishment, but we should look on him as a man uninitiated in the plainest

sentiments of reason. He would not be pointed at with the finger, or hooted

as he passed along through the resorts of men, but he would incited to the

same assiduity in hiding his acquisitions then as he employs in displaying

them now. He would be regarded with no terror, for his conduct would appear

too absurd to excite imitation. Add to which, his acquisitions would be small,

as the independent spirit and sound discretion of mankind would allow but

little chance of his being able to retain them in his service, as now, by

generously rewarding them with a part of the fruit of their own labors.

Thus it appears, with irresistible probability, when the subject of wealth

shall be understood, and correct ideas respecting it familiarized to the

human mind, that the present disparity of conditions will subside, by a gradual

and incessant progress, into its true level.






NOTES:






1. Chap. I, III.






2. Chap. II.






3. Book II, Chap. IV, V.






4. Mark, ch. X, ver. 21






5. Book IV, Chap. X.






6. Book I Chap, V. § 3.






7. Chap. I.






8. Chap. II.






9. Chap. I.








CHAPTER V






OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE QUESTION OF PERMANENCE






The change we are here contemplating consists in the disposition of every

member of the community voluntarily to resign that which would be productive

of a much higher degree of benefit and pleasure when possessed by his neighbor

than when occupied by himself. Undoubtedly, this state of society is remote

from the modes of thinking and acting which at present prevail. A long period

of time must probably elapse before it can be brought entirely into practice.

All we have been attempting to establish is that such a state of society

is agreeable to reason, and prescribed by justice; and that, of consequence,

the progress of science and political truth among mankind is closely connected

with its introduction. The inherent tendency of intellect is to improvement.

If therefore this inherent tendency be suffered to operate, and no concussion

of nature or inundation of barbarism arrest its course, the state of society

we have been describing must, at some time, arrive.






But it has frequently been said 'that if an equality of conditions could

be introduced today, it would be destroyed tomorrow . It is impossible to

reduce the varieties of the human mind to such a uniformity as this system

demands. One man will be more industrious than another; one man will be provident

and avaricious, and another dissipated and thoughtless. Misery and confusion

would be the result of an attempt to equalize, in the first instance, and

the old vises and monopolies would succeed, in the second. All that the rich

could purchase by the most generous sacrifice would be a period of barbarism,

from which the ideas and regulations of civil society must recommence, as

from a new infancy.'






Upon this statement, it is first to be remarked that, if true, it presents

to us a picture in the highest degree melancholy and discouraging. It discovers

a disease to which it is probable there is no remedy. Human knowledge must

proceed. What we see and admire we shall at some time or other seek to attain

: Such is the inevitable law of our nature. It is impossible not to see the

beauty of equality, and not to be charmed with the benefits it appears to

promise. It is impossible not to regret the unbounded mischiefs and distress

that grow out of the opposite system. The consequence is sure. Man, according

to these reasoners, is prompted, for some time, to advance with success :

but after that, in the very act of pursuing further improvement, he necessarily

plunges beyond the compass of his powers, and has his petty career to begin

afresh : always pursuing what is beautiful, always frustrated in his object,

always involved in calamities by the very means he employs to escape them.






Secondly, it is to be observed that there is a wide difference between

the equality here spoken of, and the equality which has frequently constituted

a subject of discussion among mankind. This is not an equality introduced

by force, or maintained by the laws and regulations of a positive institution.

It is not the result of accident, of the authority of a chief magistrate,

or the over-earnest persuasion of a few enlightened thinkers; but is produced

by the serious and deliberate conviction of the public at large. It is one

thing for men to be held to a certain system by the force of laws, and the

vigilance of those who administer them; and a thing entirely different to

be held by the firm and habitual persuasion of their own minds. We can readily

conceive their finding means to elude the former; but it is not so easy to

comprehend a disobedience to the latter. If the force of truth shall be strong

enough gradually to wean men from the most rooted habits, and to introduce

a mode of society so remote from that which at present exists, it will also

probably be strong enough to hold them in the course they have commenced,

and to prevent the return of vises which have once been extirpated. This

probability will be increased if we recollect the two principles which must

have led men into such a system of action; a stricter sense of justice, and

a purer theory of happiness.






Equality of conditions cannot begin to assume a fixed appearance in human

society till the sentiment becomes deeply impressed, as well as widely diffused,

that the genuine wants of any man constitute his only just claim to the ultimate

appropriation, and the consumption, of any species of commodity. It must

previously be seen that the claims of one man are originally of the same

extent as the claims of another; and that the only difference which can arise

must relate to extraordinary infirmity, or the particular object of utility

which any individual is engaged in promoting. It must be felt that the most

fundamental and noxious of all kinds of injustice is for one man actively

to withhold from his neighbors the most indispensable benefits, for the

sake of some trivial accommodation to himself. Men who are habituated to

these views can scarcely be tempted to monopolize; and the sense of the community

respecting him who yields to the temptation will be so decisive in its tenor,

and unequivocal in its manifestation, as to afford small encouragement to

perseverance or imitation.






A spontaneous equality of conditions also implies a purer theory of happiness

than has hitherto obtained. Men will cease to regard with complacence the

happiness that consists in splendor and ostentation, of which the true object,

however disguised, is to insult our neighbors, and to feed our own vanity,

with the recollection of the goods that we possess, and from which, though

endowed with an equal claim, they are debarred. They will cease to derive

pleasure from the empire to be possessed over others, or the base servility

and terror with which they may address us. They will be contented, for the

most part, with the means of healthful existence, and of inexpensive pleasure.

They will find the highest gratification in promoting and contemplating the

general happiness. They will regard superfluities, absolutely considered,

with no impatience of desire; and will abhor the idea of obtaining them through

the medium of oppression and injustice. This conduct they would be induced

to observe, even were their own gratification only in view; and, instead

of repining at the want of exorbitant indulgencies, they will stand astonished

that men could ever have found gratification in that which was visibly stamped

and contaminated with the badge of extortion.








CHAPTER VI






OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE ALLUREMENTS OF SLOTH






Another objection which has been urged against the system which counteracts

the accumulation of property, is, "that it would put an end to industry.

We behold, in commercial countries, the miracles that are operated by the

love of gain. Their inhabitants cover the sea with their fleets, astonish

mankind by the refinements of their ingenuity, hold vast continents in subjection,

in distant parts of the world, by their arms, are able to defy the most powerful

confederacies, and, oppressed with taxes and debts, seem to acquire fresh

prosperity under their accumulated burdens. Shall we lightly part with a

motive which appears so great and stupendous in its influence? Once establish

it as a principle in society, that no man apply to his personal use more

than his necessities require; and every man will become indifferent to the

exertions which now call forth the energy of his facilities. Once establish

it as a principle, that each man, without being compelled to exert his own

powers, is entitled to partake of the superfluity of his neighbor; and indolence

will speedily become universal. Such a society must either starve, or be

obliged, in its own defense, to return to that system of monopoly and sordid

interest, which theoretical reasoners will for ever arraign to no purpose."






In reply to this objection, the reader must again be reminded that the

equality for which we are pleading, is an equality which would succeed to

a state of great intellectual improvement. So bold a revolution cannot take

place in human affairs, till the general mind has been highly cultivated.

Hasty and undigested tumults, may be produced by a superficial idea of equalization;

but it is only a clear and calm conviction of justice, of justice mutually

to be rendered and received, of happiness to be produced by the desertion

of our most rooted habits, that can introduce an invariable system of this

sort. Attempts, without this preparation, will be productive only of confusion.

Their effect will be momentary, and a new and more barbarous inequality will

succeed. Each man, with unaltered appetite, will watch the opportunity, to

gratify his love of power or of distinction, by usurping on his inattentive

neighbors.






Is it to be believed then that a state of so great intellectual improvement,

can be the forerunner of universal ignorance and brutality? Savages, it is

true, are subject to the weakness of indolence. But civilized and refined

states are the theater of a peculiar activity. It is thought, acuteness of

disquisition, and ardor of pursuit, that set the corporeal faculties at

work. Thought begets thought. Nothing perhaps can put a stop to the advances

of mind but oppression. But here, so far from being oppressed, every man

is equal, every man independent and at his case. It has been observed, that

the introduction of a republican government, is attended with public enthusiasm

and irresistible enterprise. Is it to be believed that equality, the true

republicanism, will be less effectual? It is true, that in republics this

spirit, sooner or later, is found to languish. Republicanism is not a remedy

that strikes at the root of the evil. Injustice, oppression and misery can

find an abode in those seeming happy seats. But what shall stop the progress

of ardor and improvement where the monopoly of property is unknown?






This argument will be strengthened, if we reflect on the amount of labor

that a state of equality will require. What is this quantity of exertion,

from which the objection supposes many individuals to shrink? It is so light,

as rather to assume the guise of agreeable relaxation and gentle exercise,

than of labor. In such a community, scarcely anyone can be expected, in

consequence of his situation or avocations, to consider himself as exempted

from the obligation to manual industry. There will be no rich man to recline

in indolence, and fatten upon the labor of his fellows. The mathematician,

the poet and the philosopher will derive a new stock of cheerfulness and

energy from the recurring labor that makes them feel they are men. There

will be no persons devoted to the manufacture of trinkets and luxuries; and

none whose office it should be to keep in motion the complicated machine

of government, tax-gatherers, beadles, excise-men, tide-waiters, clerks and

secretaries. There will be neither fleets nor armies, neither courtiers nor

lacqueys. It is the unnecessary employments that, at present, occupy the

great mass of every civilized nation, while the peasant labors incessantly

to maintain them in a state more pernicious than idleness.






It may be computed that not more than one twentieth of the inhabitants

of England, is substantially employed in the labors of agriculture. Add

to this, that the nature of agriculture is such, as to give full occupation

in some parts of the year, and to leave other parts comparatively vacant.

We may consider the latter as equivalent to a labor, which, under the direction

of sufficient skill, might suffice, in a simple state of society, for the

fabrication of tools, for weaving, and the occupation of taylors, bakers

and butchers. The object, in the present state of society, is to multiply

labor; in another state, it will be to simplify it. A vast disproportion

of the wealth of the community, has been thrown into the hands of a few;

and ingenuity has been continually upon the stretch, to find ways in which

it may be expended. In the feudal times, the great lord invited the poor

to come and eat of the produce of his estate, upon condition of wearing his

livery, and forming themselves in rank and file to do honor to his well

born guests. Now that exchanges are more facilitated, he has quitted this

is inartificial mode, and obliges the men who are maintained from his income

to exert their ingenuity and industry in return. Thus, in the instance just

mentioned, he pays the taylor to cut his clothes to pieces that he may sew

them together again, and to decorate them with stitching and various ornaments,

without which they would be, in no respect, less convenient and useful. We

are imagining, in the present case, a state of the most rigid simplicity.






From the sketch which has been given, it seems by no means impossible,

that the labor of every twentieth man in the community, would be sufficient

to supply to the rest all the absolute necessaries of life. If then this

labor, instead of performed by so small a number, were amicably divided

among the whole, it would occupy the twentieth part of every man's time.

Let us compute that the industry of a laboring man, engrosses ten hours

in every day, which, when we have deducted his hours of rest, recreation

and meals, seems an ample allowance. It follows that half an hour a day employed

in manual labor by every member of the community would sufficiently supply

the whole with necessaries. Who is there that would shrink from this degree

of industry? Who is there, that sees the incessant industry exerted in this

city and island, and would believe, that, with half an hour's industry per

diem, the sum of happiness to the community at large might be much greater

than at present? Is it possible to contemplate this fair and generous picture

of independence and virtue, where every man would have ample leisure for

the noblest energies of mind, without feeling our very souls refreshed with

admiration and hope?






When we talk of men's sinking into idleness, if they be not excited by

the stimulus of gain, we seem to have little considered the motives that,

at present, govern the human mind. We are deceived by the apparent mercenariness

of mankind, and imagine that the accumulation of wealth is their great object.

But it has sufficiently appeared that the present ruling passion of man is

the love of distinction.(1*) There is, no doubt, a class in society that

is perpetually urged by hunger and need, and has no leisure for motives less

gross and material. But is the class next above them less industrious than

they? Will any man affirm that the mind of the peasant is as far removed

from inaction and sloth, as the mind of the general or statesman, of the

natural philosopher who macerates himself with perpetual study, or the poet,

the bard of Mantua for example, who can never believe that he has sufficiently

revised, reconsidered and polished his compositions?






In reality, those by whom this reasoning has been urged, have mistaken

the nature of their own objection. They did not suppose, that men could be

roused into action only by the love of gain; but they conceived that, in

a state of equality, men would have nothing to occupy their attention. What

degree of truth there is in this idea we shall presently have occasion to

estimate.(2*)






Meanwhile, it is sufficiently obvious, that the motives which arise from

the love of distinction, are by no means cut off, by a state of society incompatible

with the accumulation of property. Men, no longer able to acquire the esteem,

or avoid the contempt, of their neighbors, by circumstances of dress and

furniture, will divert the passion for distinction into another channel.

They will avoid the reproach of indolence, as carefully as they now avoid

the reproach of poverty. The only persons who, at present, neglect the effect

which their appearance and manners may produce are those whose faces are

ground with famine and distress. But, in a state of equal society, no man

will be oppressed, and, of consequence, the more delicate affections will

have time to expand themselves. The general mind having, as we have already

shown, arrived at a high degree of improvement, the impulse that carries

it into action, will be stronger. The fervor of public spirit will be great.

Leisure will be multiplied; and the leisure of a cultivated understanding,

is the precise period in which great designs, designs the tendency of which

is to secure applause and esteem, are conceived. In tranquil leisure, it

is impossible for any but the sublimest mind, to exist, without the passion

for distinction. This passion, no longer permitted to lose itself in indirect

channels and useless wanderings, will seek the noblest course, and perpetually

fructify the seeds of public good. Mind, though it will perhaps at no time

arrive at the termination of its possible discoveries and improvements, will

nevertheless advance with a rapidity and firmness of progression of which

we are, at present, unable to conceive the idea.






The love of fame is no doubt a delusion. This, like every other delusion,

will take its turn to be detected and abjured. It is an airy phantom, which

will indeed afford us an imperfect pleasure so long as we worship it, but

will always, in a considerable degree, disappoint us, and will not stand

the test of examination. We ought to love nothing but a substantial happiness,

that happiness which will bear the test of recollection, and which no clearness

of perception, and improvement of understanding, will tend to undermine.

If there be any principle more substantial than the rest, it is justice,

a principle that rests upon this single postulatum, that man and man are

beings of the same nature, and susceptible, under certain limitations, of

the same advantages. Whether the benefit which is added to the common flock,

proceed from you or me, is a pitiful distinction. Fame therefore is an unsubstantial

and delusive pursuit. If it signify an opinion entertained of me greater

than I deserve, to desire it is vicious. If it be the precise mirror of my

character, it is valuable only as a means, in as much as I shall be able

most essentially to benefit those, who best know the extent of my capacity,

and the rectitude of my intentions.






The love of fame, when it perishes in minds formed under the present system,

often gives place to a principle still more reprehensible. Selfishness is

the habit that grows out of monopoly. When therefore selfishness ceases to

seek its gratification in public exertion, it too often narrows into some

frigid conception of personal pleasure, perhaps sensual, perhaps intellectual.

But this cannot be the process where monopoly is banished. Selfishness has

there no kindly circumstances to foster it. Truth, the overpowering truth

of general good, then seizes its irresistibly. It is impossible we should

want motives, so long as we see clearly how multitudes and ages may be benefited

by our exertions, how causes and effects are connected in an endless chain,

so that no honest effort can be lost, but will operate to good, centuries

after its author is consigned to the grave.(3*) This will be the general

passion, and all will be animated by the example of all.






Footnotes






1. Book VIII, Chap. I.






2. Book VIII, Chap. VII, VIII.






3. Book IV, Chap. X.








CHAPTER VII






OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE BENEFITS OF LUXURY






The objections we have hitherto examined, attack the practicability of

a system of equality. But there are not wanting reasoners, the tendency of

whose arguments is to show that, omitting the practicability, it is not even

desirable. One of the objections they advance, is as follows.






They lay it down as a maxim, in the first instance, and the truth of this

maxim we shall not contend with them, "that refinement is better than

ignorance. It is better to be a man than a brute. Those attributes therefore,

which separate the man from the brute, are most worthy of our affection and

cultivation. Elegance of taste, refinement of sentiment, depth of penetration,

and largeness of science, are among the noblest ornaments of man. But all

these," say they, "are connected with inequality; they are the

growth of luxury. It is luxury, by which palaces are built, and cities peopled.

It is for the purpose of obtaining a share of the luxury which he witnesses

in his richer neighbors, that the artificer exerts the refinements of his

skill. To this cause we are indebted, for the arts of architecture, painting,

music and poetry. Art would never have been cultivated, if a state of inequality

had not enabled some men to purchase, and excited others to acquire the talent

which was necessary to sell. In a state of equality, we must always have

remained, and with equality restored, we must again become, barbarians. Thus

we see (as in the system of optimism(1*)) disorder, selfishness, monopoly

and distress, all of them seeming discords, contributing to the admirable

harmony and magnificence of the whole. The intellectual improvement and enlargement

we witness and hope for, was worth purchasing at the expense of partial injustice

and distress."(2*)






This view of the subject, under various forms, has been very extensive

in its effects. It probably contributed to make Rousseau an advocate of the

savage state. Undoubtedly, we must not permit ourselves to think slightly,

of the mischiefs that accrue from a state of inequality. If it be necessary

that the great mass of mankind should be condemned to slavery, and, stranger

still, to ignorance, that a few may be enlightened, certainly those moralists

are not to be blamed, who doubted whether perpetual rudeness were not preferable

to such a gift. Fortunately this is by no means the real alternative.






Perhaps a state of luxury, such as is here described, and a state of inequality,

might be a stage through which it was necessary to pass, in order to arrive

at the goal of civilization. The only security we can ultimately have for

an equality of conditions, is a general persuasion of the iniquity of accumulation,

and the uselessness of wealth, in the purchase of happiness. But this persuasion

could not be established in a savage state; nor indeed can it be maintained,

if we should fall back into barbarism. It was the spectacle of inequality,

that first excited the grossness of barbarians to persevering exertion, as

a means of acquiring. It was perservering exertion, that first gave the reality,

and the sense, of that leisure, which has served the purposes of literature

and art.






But, though inequality were necessary as the prelude to civilization,

it is not necessary to its support. We may throw down the scaffolding, when

the edifice is complete. We have at large endeavored to show,(3*) that the

love of our fellow men, the love of distinction, and whatever motive is most

allied to the energies of the human mind, will remain, when the enchantments

of wealth are dissolved. He who has tasted the pleasures of refinement and

knowledge, will not relapse into ignorance.






The better to understand the futility of the present objection, it may

be proper to enter into a more accurate consideration of the sense of the

term luxury. It depends upon the meaning in which it is understood, to determine

whether it is to be regarded as a virtue or a vise. If we understand by a

luxury, something which is to be enjoyed exclusively by some, at the expense

of undue privations, and a partial burden upon others; to indulge ourselves

in luxury is then a vise. But, if we understand by luxury, which is frequently

the case, every accommodation which is not absolutely necessary to maintain

us in sound and healthful existence, the procuring and communication of luxuries

may then be virtuous. The end of virtue, is to add to the sum of pleasurable

sensation. The beacon and regulator of virtue, is impartiality, that we shall

not give that exertion to procure the pleasure of an individual, which might

have been employed in procuring the pleasure of many individuals. Within

these limits every man is laudably employed, who procures to himself or his

neighbor a real accession of pleasure; and he is censurable, who neglects

any occasion of being so employed. We ought not to study that we may live,

but to live that we may replenish existence with the greatest number of unallayed,

exquisite and substantial enjoyments.






Let us apply these reflections to the state of equality we have endeavored

to delineate. It appeared in that delineation4, that the labor of half an

hour per diem on the part of every individual in the community, would probably

be sufficient to procure for all the necessaries of life. This quantity of

industry therefore, though prescribed by no law, and inforced by no direct

penalty, would be most powerfully imposed upon the strong in intellect, by

a sense of justice, and upon the weak, by a sense of shame. After this, how

would men spend the remainder of their time? Not probably in idleness, not

all men, and the whole of their time, in the pursuit of intellectual attainments.

There are many things, the fruit of human industry, which, though not to

be classed among the necessaries of life, are highly conducive to our well

being. The criterion of these things will appear, when we have ascertained

what those accommodations are which will give us real pleasure, after the

insinuations of vanity and ostentation shall have dismissed. A considerable

portion of time would probably be dedicated, in an enlightened community,

to the production of such accommodations. A labor of this sort is perhaps

not inconsistent with the most desirable state of human existence. Laborious

employment is a calamity now, because it is imperiously prescribed upon men

as the condition of their existence, and because it shuts them out from a

fair participation in the means of knowledge and improvement. When it shall

be rendered in the strictest sense voluntary, when it shall cease to interfere

with our improvement, and rather become a part of it, or at worst be converted

into a source of amusement and variety, it may then be no longer a calamity,

but a benefit. Thus it appears that a state of equality need not be a state

of Stoical simplicity, but is compatible with considerable accommodation,

and even, in some sense, with splendor; at least, if by splendor we understand

copiousness of accommodation, and variety of invention for the purposes of

accommodation. Those persons therefore who may be concluded to have small

appearance of reason, who confound such a state with the state of the savage;

or who suppose that the acquisition of the former, is to be considered as

having a tendency to lead to the latter.






NOTES:






1. Book IV, Chap. XI.






2. The great champion of this doctrine is Mandeville. It is not however

easy to determine, whether he is seriously, or only ironically, the defender

of the present system of society. His principal work (Fable of the Bees)

is highly worthy the attention of every man, who would learn profoundly to

philosophize upon human affairs. No author has displayed, in stronger terms,

the deformity of existing abuses, or proved more satisfactorily how inseparably

these abuses are connected together. Hume (Essays; Part II, Essay II) has

endeavored to communicate to the Mandevilian system his own luster and brilliancy

of coloring. But it has unfortunately happened, that what he adds in beauty

he has subtracted from profoundness. The profoundness of Hume, which has

never been surpassed, and which ranks him with the most illustrious and venerable

of men, is for the most part the profoundness of logical distinction, rather

than of moral analysis.






3. Book VIII, Chap. I, IV, VI.






4. Book VIII, Chap. VI.








CHAPTER VIII






OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE INFLEXIBILITY OF ITS RESTRICTIONS






An objection that has often been urged against a system of equality, is,

"that it is inconsistent with personal independence. Every man, according

to this scheme, is a passive instrument in the hands of the community. He

must eat and drink, and play and sleep, at the bidding of others. He has

no habitation, no period at which he can retreat into himself, and not ask

another's leave. He has nothing that he can call his own, not even his time

or his person. Under the appearance of a perfect freedom from oppression

and tyranny, he is in reality subjected to this most unlimited slavery."






To understand the force of this objection it is necessary that we should

distinguish two sorts of independence, one of which may be denominated natural,

and the other moral. Natural independence, a freedom from all constraint,

except that of reasons and inducements presented to this understanding, is

of the utmost importance to the welfare and improvement of mind. Moral independence,

on the contrary, is always injurious. The dependence, which is essential,

in this respect, to the wholesome temperament of society, includes in it

articles, that are, no doubt, unpalatable, to a multitude of the present

race of mankind, but that owe their unpopularity only to weakness and vise.

It includes a censure to be exercised by every individual over the actions

of another, a promptness to inquire into and to judge them. Why should we

shrink from this? What could be more beneficial, than for each man to derive

assistance for correcting and molding his conduct, from the perspicacity

of his neighbors? The reason that this species of censure is at present

exercised with illiberality, is, because it is exercised clandestinely, and

because we submit to its operation with impatience and aversion. Moral independence

is always injurious: for, as has abundantly appeared in the course of the

present inquiry, there is no situation in which I can be placed, where it

is not incumbent upon me to adopt a certain conduct in preference to all

others, and, of consequence, where I shall not prove an ill member of society,

if I act in any other than a particular manner. The attachment that is felt

by the present race of mankind to independence in this respect, and the desire

to act as they please, without being accountable to the principles of reason,

are highly detrimental to the general welfare.






But, if we ought never to act independently of the principles of reason,

and, in no instance, to shrink from the candid examination of another, it

is nevertheless essential, that we should, at all times, be free, to cultivate

the individuality, and follow the dictates, of our own judgment. If there

be any thing in the idea of equality that infringes this principle, the objection

ought probably to be conclusive. If the scheme be, as it has often been represented,

a scheme of government, constraint and regulation, it is, no doubt, in direct

hostility with the principles of this work.






But the truth is, that a system of equality requires no restrictions or

superintendence. There is no need of common labor, meals or magazines. These

are feeble and mistaken instruments, for restraining the conduct, without

making conquest of the judgment. If you cannot bring over the hearts of the

community to your party, expect no success from brute regulations. If you

can, regulation is unnecessary. Such a system was well enough adapted to

the military constitution of Sparta; but it is wholly unworthy of men enlisted

in no cause but that of reason and justice. Beware of reducing men to the

state of machines. Govern them through no medium but that of inclination

and conviction.






Can there be a good reason for men's eating together, except where they

are prompted to it by the impulse of their own minds? Ought I to come at

a certain hour, from the museum where I am working, the retreat in which

I meditate, or the observatory where I remark the phenomena of nature, to

a certain hall appropriated to the office of eating; instead of eating, as

reason bids me, at the time and place most suited to my avocations? Why have

common magazines? For the purpose of carrying our provision to a certain

distance, that we may afterwards bring them back again? Or is this precaution

really necessary, after all that has been said, to guard us against the knavery

and covetousness of our associates?








APPENDIX






OF COOPERATION, COHABITATION AND MARRIAGE






It is a curious subject, to inquire into the due medium between individuality

and concert. On the one hand, it is to be observed that human beings are

formed for society. Without society, we shall probably be deprived of the

most eminent enjoyments of which our nature is susceptible. In society, no

man, possessing the genuine marks of a man, can stand alone. Our opinions,

our tempers and our habits are modified by those of each other. This is by

no means the mere operation of arguments and persuasives; it occurs in that

insensible and gradual way, which no resolution can enable us wholly to counteract.

He that would attempt to counteract it by insulating himself, will fall into

a worse error than that which he seeks to avoid. He will divest himself of

the character of a man, and be incapable of judging of his fellow men, or

of reasoning upon human affairs.






On the other hand, individuality is of the very essence of intellectual

excellence. He that resigns himself wholly to sympathy and imitation, can

possess little of mental strength or accuracy. The system of his life is

a species of sensual dereliction. He is like a captive in the garden of Armida;

he may revel in the midst of a thousand delights; but he is incapable of

the enterprise of a hero, or the severity of a philosopher. He lives forgetting

and forgot. He has deserted his station in human society. Mankind cannot

be benefited by him. He neither animates them to exertion, nor leads them

forward to unexpected improvement. When his country or his species call for

him, he is not found in his rank. They can owe him no obligations; and, if

one spark of a generous spirit remain within him, he will view his proceedings

with no complacency. The truly venerable, and the truly happy, must have

the fortitude to maintain his individuality. If he indulge in the gratifications,

and cultivate the feelings of man, he must at the same time be strenuous

in following the train of his disquisitions, and exercising the powers of

his understanding.






The objectors of a former chapter(1*) were partly in the right, when they

spoke of the endless variety of the mind. It would be absurd to say that

we are not capable of truth, of evidence and agreement. In these respects,

so far as mind is in a state of progressive improvement, we are perpetually

coming nearer to each other. But there are subjects about which we shall

continually differ, and ought to differ. The ideas, associations and circumstances

of each man, are properly his own; and it is a pernicious system that would

lead us to require all men, however different their circumstances, to act

by a precise general rule. Add to this, that, by the doctrine of progressive

improvement, we shall always be erroneous, though we shall every day become

less erroneous. The proper method for hastening the decline of error, and

producing uniformity of judgment, is not, by brute force, by laws, or by

imitation; but, on the contrary, by exciting every man to think for himself.






From these principles it appears, that every thing that is usually understood

by the term cooperation, is, in some degree, an evil. A man in solitude,

is obligated to sacrifice or postpone the execution of his best thoughts,

in compliance with his necessities. How many admirable designs have perished

in the conception, by means of this circumstance? It is still worse, when

a man is also obliged to consult the convenience of others. If I be expected

to eat or to work in conjunction with my neighbor, it must either be at

a time most convenient to me, or to him, or to neither of us. We cannot be

reduced to a clock-work uniformity.






Hence it follows that all supererogatory cooperation is carefully to be

avoided, common labor and common meals. "But what shall we say to a

cooperation, that seems dictated by the nature of the work to be performed?"

It ought to be diminished. There is probably considerably more of injury

in the concert of industry, than of sympathies. At present, it is unreasonable

to doubt, that the consideration of the evil of cooperation, is, in certain

urgent cases, to be postponed to that urgency. Whether, by the nature of

things, cooperation of some sort will always be necessary, is a question

we are scarcely competent to decide. At present, to pull down a tree, to

cut a canal, to navigate a vessel, require the labor of many. Will they

always require the labor of many? When we recollect the complicated machines

of human contrivance, various sorts of mills, of weaving engines, steam engines,

are we not astonished at the compendium of labor they produce? Who shall

say where this species of improvement must stop? At present, such inventions

alarm the laboring part of the community; and they may be productive of

the temporary distress, though they conduce, in the sequel, to the most important

interests of the multitude. But, in a state of equal labor, their utility

will be liable to no dispute. Hereafter it is by no means clear, that the

most extensive operations will not be within the reach of one man; or, to

make use of a familiar instance, that a plow may not be turned into a field,

and perform its office without the need of superintendence. It was in this

sense that the celebrated Franklin conjectured, that "mind would one

day become omnipotent over matter."(2*)






The conclusion of the progress which has here been sketched, is something

like a final close to the necessity of manual labor. It may be instructive

in such cases, to observe, how the sublime geniuses of former times, anticipated

what seems likely to be the future improvement of mankind. It was one of

the laws of Lycurgus, that no Spartan should be employed in manual labor.

For this purpose, under his system, it was necessary, that they should be

plentifully supplied with slaves devoted to drudgery. Matter, or, to speak

more accurately, the certain and unremitting laws of the universe, will be

the Helots of the period we are contemplating. We shall end in this respect,

oh immortal legislator! at the point from which you began.






To return to the subject of cooperation. It may be a curious speculation

ot attend to the progressive steps, by which this feature of human society

may be expected to decline. For example: shall we have concerts of music?

The miserable state of mechanism of the majority of the performers, is so

conspicuous, as to be, even at this day, a topic of mortification and ridicule.

Will it not be practicable hereafter for one man to perform the whole? Shall

we have theatrical exhibitions? This seems to include an absurd and vicious

cooperation. It may be doubted, whether men will hereafter come forward in

any mode, formally to repeat words and ideas that are not their own? It may

be doubted, whether any musical performer will habitually execute the compositions

of others? We yield supinely to the superior merit of our predecessors, because

we are accustomed to indulge the inactivity of our faculties. All formal

repetition of other men's ideas, seems to be a scheme for imprisoning, for

so long a time, the operations of our own mind. It borders perhaps, in this

respect, upon a breach of sincerity, which requires that we should give immediate

utterance to every useful and valuable idea that occurs.






Having ventured to state these hints and conjectures, let us endeavor

to mark the limits of individuality. Every man that receives an impression

from any external object, has the current of his own thoughts modified by

force; and yet, without external impressions, we should be nothing. Every

man that reads the composition of another, suffers the succession of his

ideas to be, in a considerable degree, under the direction of his author.

But it does not seem, as if this would ever form a sufficient objection against

reading. One man will always have stored up reflections and facts that another

wants; and mature and digested discourse will perhaps always, in equal circumstances,,

be superior to that which is extempore. Conversation is a species of cooperation,

one or the other party always yielding to have his ideas guided by the other:

yet conversation, and the intercourse of mind with mind, seem to be the most

fertile sources of improvement. It is here as it is with punishment. He that,

in the gentlest manner, undertakes to reason another out of his vises, will

probably occasion pain; but this species of punishment ought, upon no account,

to be superseded.






Let not these views of the future individuality of man, be misapprehended,

or overtrained. We ought to be able to do without one another. He is the

most perfect man, to whom society is not a necessary of life, but a luxury,

innocent and enviable, in which he joyfully indulges. Such a man will not

fly to society, as to something requisite for the consuming of his time,

or the refuge of his weakness. In society he will find pleasure; the temper

of this mind will prepare him for friendship and for love. But he will resort

with a scarcely inferior eagerness to solitude; and will find in it the highest

complacence and the purest delight.






Another article which belongs to the subject of cooperation, is cohabitation.

The evils attendant on this practice, are obvious. In order to this human

understanding's being successfully cultivated, it is necessary, that the

intellectual operations of men should be independent of each other.(3*) We

should avoid such practices as are calculated to melt our opinions into a

common mold. Cohabitation is also hostile to that fortitude, which should

accustom a man, in his actions, as well as in his opinions, to judge for

himself, and feel competent to the discharge of his own duties. Add to this,

that it is absurd to expect the inclinations and wishes of two human beings

to coincide, through any long period of time. To oblige them to act and to

live together, is to subject them to some inevitable portion of thwarting,

bickering and unhappiness. This cannot be otherwise, so long as men shall

continue to vary in their habits, their preferences and their views. No man

is always cheerful and kind; and it is better that his fits of irritation

should subside of themselves, since the mischief in that case is more limited,

and since the jarring of opposite tempers, and the suggestions of a wounded

pride, tend inexpressibly to increase the irritation. When I seek to correct

the defects of a stranger, it is with urbanity and good humor. I have no

idea of convincing him through the medium of surliness and invective. But

something of this kind inevitably obtains, where the intercourse is too unremitted.






The subject of cohabitation is particularly interesting, as it includes

in it the subject of marriage. It will therefore be proper to pursue the

inquiry in greater detail. The evil of marriage, as it is practiced in European

countries, extends further than we have yet described. The method is, for

a thoughtless and romantic youth of each sex, to come together, to see each

other, for a few times, and under circumstances full of delusion, and then

to vow to eternal attachment. What is the consequence of this? In almost

every instance they find themselves deceived. They are reduced to make the

best of an irretrievable mistake. They are led to conceive it is their wisest

policy, to shut their eyes upon realities, happy, if, by any perversion of

intellect, they can persuade themselves that they were right in their first

crude opinion of each other. Thus the institution of marriage is made a system

of fraud; and men who carefully mislead their judgments in the daily affair

of their life, must be expected to have a crippled judgment in every other

concern.






Add to this, that marriage, as now understood, is a monopoly, and the

worst of monopolies. So long as two human beings are forbidden, by positive

institution, to follow the dictates of their own mind, prejudice will be

alive and vigorous. So long as I seek, by despotic and artificial means,

to maintain my possession of a woman, I am guilty of the most odious selfishness.

Over this imaginary prize, men watch with perpetual jealousy; and one man

finds his desire, and his capacity to circumvent, as much excited, as the

other is excited, to traverse his projects, and frustrate his hopes. As long

as this state of society continues, philanthropy will be crossed and checked

in a thousand ways, and the still augmenting stream of abuse will continue

to flow.






The abolition of the present system of marriage, appears to involve no

evils. We are apt to represent that abolition to ourselves, as the harbinger

of brutal lust and depravity. But it really happens, in this, as in other

cases, that the positive laws which are made to restrain our vises, irritate

and multiply them. Not to say, that the same sentiments of justice and happiness,

which, in a state of equality, would destroy our relish for expensive gratifications,

might be expected to decrease our inordinate appetites of every kind, and

to lead us universally to prefer the pleasures of intellect to the pleasures

of sense.






It is a question of some moment, whether the intercourse of the sexes,

in a reasonable state of society, would be promiscuous, or whether each man

would select for himself a partner, to whom he will adhere, as long as that

adherence shall continue to be the choice of both parties. Probability seems

to be greatly in favor of the latter. Perhaps this side of the alternative

is most favorable to population. Perhaps it would suggest itself in preference,

to the man who would wish to maintain the several propensities of his frame,

in the order due to their relative importance, and to prevent a merely sensual

appetite from engrossing excessive attention. It is scarcely to be imagined,

that this commerce, in any state of society, will be stripped of its adjuncts,

and that men will as willingly hold it, with a woman whose personal and mental

qualities they disapprove, as with one of a different description. But it

is the nature of the human mind, to persist, for a certain length of time,

in its opinion or choice. The parties therefore having acted upon selection,

are not likely to forget this selection when the interview is over. Friendship,

if by friendship we understand that affection for an individual which is

measured singly by what we know of his worth, is one of the most exquisite

gratifications, perhaps one of the most improving exercises, of a rational

mind. Friendship therefore may be expected to come in aid of the sexual intercourse,

to refine its grossness, and increase its delight. All these arguments are

calculated to determine our judgment in favor of marriage as a salutary

and respectable institution, but not of that species of marriage in which

there is no room for repentance and to which liberty and hope are equally

strangers.






Admitting these principles therefore as the basis of the sexual commerce,

what opinion ought we to form respecting infidelity to this attachment? Certainly

no ties ought to be imposed upon either party, preventing them from quitting

the attachment, whenever their judgment directs them to quit it. With respect

to such infidelities as are compatible with an intention to adhere to it,

the point of principal importance is a determination to have recourse to

no species of disguise. In ordinary cases, and where the periods of absence

are of no long duration, it would seem that any inconstancy would reflect

some portion of discredit on the person that practiced it. It would argue

that the person's propensities were not under that kind of subordination

which virtue and self-government appear to prescribe. But inconstancy like

any other temporary dereliction, would not be found incompatible with a character

of uncommon excellence. What, at present, renders it, in many instances,

peculiarly loathsome is its being practiced in a clandestine manner. It leads

to a train of falsehood and a concerted hypocrisy, than which there is scarcely

anything that more eminently depraves and degrades the human mind.






The mutual kindness of persons of an opposite sex will, in such a state,

fall under the same system as any other species of friendship. Exclusively

of groundless and obstinate attachments, it will be impossible for me to

live in the world, without finding in one man a worth superior to that of

another. To this man I shall feel kindness, in exact proportion to my apprehension

of his worth. The case will be the same with respect to the other sex. I

shall assiduously cultivate the intercourse of that woman, whose moral and

intellectual accomplishments strike me in the most powerful manner. But "it

may happen that other men will feel for her the same preference that I do."

This will create no difficulty. We may all enjoy her conversation; her choice

being declared, we shall all be wise enough to consider the sexual commerce

as unessential to our regard. It is a mark of the extreme depravity of our

present habits, that we are inclined to suppose the sexual commerce necessary

to the advantages arising from the purest friendship. It is by no means indispensable,

that the female to whom each man attaches himself in that matter, should

appear to each the most deserving and excellent of her sex.






Let us consider the way in which this state of society will modify education.

It "may be imagined, that the abolition of the present system of marriage

would make education, in a certain-sense, the affair of the public; though,

if there be any truth in the reasonings of this work, to provide for it by

the positive institutions of a community, would be extremely inconsistent

with the true principle of an intellectual nature.(4*) Education may be regarded

as consisting of various branches. First, the personal cares which the helpless

state of an infant requires. These will probably devolve upon the mother;

unless, by frequent parturition, or by the nature of these cares, that be

found to render her share of the burden unequal; and then it will be amicably

and willingly participated by others. Secondly, food and other necessary

supplies. These will easily find their true level, and spontaneously flow,

from the quarter in which they abound, to the quarter which is deficient.

Lastly, the term education may be used to signify instruction. The task of

instruction, under such a form of society, will be greatly simplified and

altered from what it is at present. It will then scarcely be thought more

necessary to make boys slaves, than to make men so. The business will not

then be to bring forward so many adepts in the eggshell, that the vanity

of parents may be flattered by hearing their praises. No man will think of

vexing with premature learning the feeble and inexperienced,left, when they

came to years of discretion, they should refuse to be learned. The mind will

be suffered to expand itself, in proportion as occasion and impression shall

excite it, and not tortured and enervated by being cast in a particular mold.

No creature in human form will be expected to learn any thing, but because

he desires it, and has some conception of its value; and every man, in proportion

to his capacity, will be ready to furnish such general hints and comprehensive

views, as will suffice for the guidance and encouragement of him who studies

from the impulse of desire.






These observations lead us to the consideration of one additional difficulty,

which relates to the division of labor. Shall each man manufacture his tools,

furniture and accommodations? This would perhaps be a tedious operation.

Each man performs the task to which he is accustomed, more skillfully, and

in a shorter time than another. It is reasonable that you should make for

me, that which perhaps I should be three or four times as long in making,

and should make imperfectly at last. Shall we then introduce barter and exchange?

By no means. The moment I require any further reason for supplying you, than

the cogency of your claim, the moment, in addition to the dictates of benevolence,

I demand a prospect of reciprocal advantage to myself, there is an end of

that political justice and pure society of which we treat.






The division of labor, as it has been developed by commercial writers,

is the offspring of avarice. It has been found that ten persons can make

two hundred and forty times as many pins in one day as one person.(5*) This

refinement is the growth of monopoly. The object is, to see how vast a surface

the industry of the lower classes may be beaten, the more completely to gild

over the indolent and the proud. The ingenuity of the merchant is whetted,

by new improvements of this sort to transport more of the wealth of the powerful

into his coffers. The practicability of effecting a compendium of labor

by this means, will be greatly diminished, when men shall learn to deny themselves

partial superfluities. The utility of such a saving of labor, where labor

shall be changed from a burden into an amusement, will scarcely balance

the evils of so extensive a cooperation. From what has been said it appears,

that there will be a division of labor, if we compare the society in question

with the state of the solitaire and the savage. But it will produce an extensive

simplication of labor, if we compare it with that to which we are at present

accustomed in civilized Europe.






NOTES:






1. Book VIII, Chap. V.






2. I have no authority to quote for this expression but the conversation

of Doctor Price. I am happy to find upon inquiry, that Mr. William Morgan,

the nephew of Dr Price, and editor of his works, distinctly recollects to

have heard it from his uncle.






3. Book IV, Chap. III.






4. Book VI, Chap. VIII.






5. Smith's Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chap. I.








CHAPTER IX






OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION






An author who has speculated widely upon subjects of government(1*) has

recommended equality, (or, which was rather his idea, a community of goods

to be maintained by the vigilance of the state), as a complete remedy, for

the usurpation and distress which are, at present, the most powerful enemies

of human kind; for the vises which infect education in some instances, and

the neglect it encounters in more; for all the turbulence of passion, and

all the injustice of selfishness. But, after having exhibited this brilliant

picture, he finds an argument that demolishes the whole, and restores him

to indifference or despair, in "the excessive population that would

ensue."






The question of population, as it relates to the science of politics and

society, is considerably curious. Several writers upon these topics have

treated it in a way calculated to produce a very gloomy impression, and have

placed precautions to counteract the multiplication of the human species,

among the most important objects of civil prudence. These precautions appear

to have occupied much attention in several ancient nations, among whom there

prevailed a great solicitude, that the number of citizens in the state should

suffer no augmentations. In modern times a contrary opinion has frequently

obtained, and the populousness of a country has been said to constitute its

true wealth and prosperity.






Perhaps however express precautions in either kind, are superfluous and

nugatory. There is a principle in the nature of human society, by means of

which everything seems to tend to its level, and to proceed in the most auspicious

way, when least interfered with by the mode of regulation. In a certain stage

of the social progress population seems rapidly to increase; this seems to

be the case in the United States of America. In a subsequent stage, it undergoes

little change, either in the way of increase or diminution; this is the case

in the more civilized countries of Europe. The number of inhabitants in a

country will perhaps never be found, in the ordinary course of affairs, greatly

to increase, beyond the facility of subsistence.






Nothing is more easy than to account for this circumstance. So long as

there is a facility of subsistence, men will be encouraged to early marriages,

and to a careful rearing of their children. In America, it is said, men congratulate

themselves upon the increase of their families as upon a new accession of

wealth. The labor of their children, even in the early stage, soon redeems

and even repays with interest, the expense and effort of rearing them. In

such countries the wages of the laborer are high, for the number of laborers

bear no proportion to the general spirit of enterprise. In many European

countries, on the other hand, a large family has become a proverbial expression

for an uncommon degree of poverty and wretchedness. The price of labor in

any state, so long as the spirit of accumulation shall prevail, is an infallible

barometer of the state of its population. It is impossible where the price

of labor is greatly reduced, and an added population threatens a still further

reduction, that men should not be considerably under the influence of fear,

respecting an early marriage, and a numerous family.






There are various methods by the practice of which population may be checked;

by the exposing of children, as among the ancients, and, at this day, in

China; by the art of procuring abortion, as it is said to subsist in the

island of Ceylon; by a promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, which is found

extremely hostile to the multiplication of the species; or, lastly, by a

systematical abstinence, such as must be supposed, in some degree, to prevail

in monasteries of either sex. But, without any express institution of this

kind, the encouragement or discouragement that arises from the general state

of a community, will probably be found to be all-powerful in its operation.






Supposing however that population were not thus adapted to find its own

level, it is obvious to remark upon the objection of this chapter, that to

reason thus, is to foresee difficulties at a great distance. Three fourths

of the habitable globe, are now uncultivated. The improvements to be made

in cultivation, and the augmentations the earth is capable of receiving in

the article of productiveness, cannot, as yet, be reduced to any limits of

calculation. Myriads of centuries of still increasing population may pass

away, and the earth be yet found sufficient for the support of its inhabitants.

It were idle therefore to conceive discouragement from so distant a contingency.

The rational anticipation of human improvement are unlimited, not eternal.

The very globe that we inhabit, and the solar system, may, for anything that

we know, be subject to decay. Physical casualties of different denominations,

may interfere with the progressive nature of intellect. But, putting these

out of the question, it is certainly most reasonable, to commit so remote

a danger to the chance of such remedies, (remedies, of which perhaps we may,

at this time, not have the smallest idea) as shall suggest themselves at

a period sufficiently early for their practical application.






NOTES:






1. Wallace: Various Prospects of Mankind, Nature, and Providence, 1761.






APPENDIX






OF HEALTH, AND THE PROLONGATION OF HUMAN LIFE






The question respecting population is, in some degree, connected, with

the subject of health and longevity. It may therefore be allowed us, to make

use of this occasion, for indulging in certain speculations upon this article.

What follows, must be considered, as eminently a deviation into the land

of conjecture. If it be false, it leaves the system to which it is appended,

in all sound reason, as impregnable as ever.






Let us then, in this place, return to the sublime conjecture of Franklin,

a man habitually conversant with the system of the external universe, and

by no means propense to extravagant speculations, that "mind will one

day become omnipotent over matter."(1*) The sense which he annexed to

this expression, seems to have related to the improvements of human invention,

in relation to machines and the compendium of labor. But, if the power of

intellect can be established over all other matter, are we not inevitably

led to ask, why not over the matter of our own bodies? If over matter at

however great a distance, why not over matter which, ignorant as we may be

of the tie that connects it with the thinking principle, we seem always to

carry about with us, and which is our medium of communication with the external

universe?






The different cases in which thought modifies the structure and members

of the human body, are obvious to all. First, they are modified by our voluntary

thoughts or design. We desire to stretch out our hand, and it is stretched

out. We perform a thousand operations of the same species every day, and

their familiarity annihilates the wonder. They are not in themselves less

wonderful, than any of those modifications we are least accustomed to conceive.

Secondly, mind modifies body involuntarily. To omit, for the present, what

has been offered upon this subject by way of hypothesis and inference,(2*)

there are many instances in which this fact presents itself in the most unequivocal

manner. Has not a sudden piece of good news been frequently found to dissipate

a corporal indisposition? Is it not still more usual for mental impressions

to produce indisposition, and even what is called a broken heart? And shall

we believe that that which is so powerful in mischief, can be altogether

impotent for happiness? How common is the remark, that those accidents, which

are to the indolent a source of disease, are forgotten and extirpated in

the busy and active? I walk twenty miles in an indolent and half determined

temper, and am extremely fatigued. I walk twenty miles, full of ardor, and

with a motive that engrosses my soul, and I arrive as fresh and alert as

when I began my journey. Emotion, excited by some unexpected word, by a letter

that is delivered to us, occasions the most extraordinary revolutions in

our frame, accelerates the circulation, causes the heart to palpitate, the

tongue to refuse its office, and has been known to occasion death by extreme

anguish or extreme joy. There is nothing of which the physician is more frequently

aware, than of the power of the mind in assisting or retarding convalescence.






Why is it that a mature man loses that elasticity of limb, which characterizes

the heedless gaiety of youth? The origin of this appears to be, that he desists

from youthful habits. He assumes an air of dignity, incompatible with the

lightness of childish sallies. He is visited and vexed with the cares that

rise out of our mistaken institutions, and his heart is no longer satisfied

and gay. His limbs become stiff, unwieldy and aukward. This is the forerunner

of old age and of death.






A habit peculiarly favorable to corporeal vigor, is cheerfulness. Every

time that our mind becomes morbid, vacant and melancholy, our external frame

falls into disorder. Listlessness of thought is the brother of death. But

cheerfulness gives new elasticity to our limbs, and circulation to our juices.

Nothing can long be stagnant in the frame of him, whose heart is tranquil,

and his imagination active.






A further requisite in the case of which we treat, is clear and distinct

apprehension. Disease seems perhaps in all instances to be the concomitant

of confusion. When reason resigns the helm, and our ideas fluctuate without

order or direction, we sleep. Delirium and insanity are of the same nature.

Fainting appears principally to consist in a relaxation of intellect, so

that the ideas seem to mix in painful disorder, and nothing is distinguished.

He that continues to act, or is led to a renewal of action with perspicuity

and decision, is almost inevitably a man in health.






The surest source of cheerfulness is benevolence. To a youthful mind,

while every thing strikes with its novelty, the individual situation must

be peculiarly unfortunate, if gaiety of thought be not produced, or, when

interrupted, do not speedily return with its healing virtue. But novelty

is a fading charm, and perpetually decreases. Hence the approach of inanity

and listlessness. After we have made a certain round, life delights no more.

A deathlike apathy invades us. Thus the aged are generally cold and indifferent;

nothing interests their attention, or rouses their sluggishness. How should

it be otherwise? The objects of human pursuit are commonly frigid and contemptible,

and the mistake comes at last to be detected. But virtue is a charm that

never fades. The mind that overflows with kindness and sympathy, will always

be cheerful. The man who is perpetually busied in contemplations of public

good, can scarcely be inactive. Add to this, that a benevolent temper is

peculiarly irreconcilable with those sentiments of anxiety, discontent, rage,

revenge and despair, which so powerfully corrode the frame, and hourly consign

their miserable victims to an untimely grave.






Thus far we have discoursed of a negative power which, if sufficiently

exercised, would, it is to be presumed, eminently tend to the prolongation

of human life. But there is a power of another description, which seems entitled

to our attention in this respect. We have frequently had occasion to point

out the distinction between our voluntary and involuntary motions.(3*) We

have seen that they are continually running into each other; our involuntary

motions gradually becoming subject to the power of volition, and our voluntary

motions degenerating into involuntary. We concluded in an early part of this

work,(4*) and that, as it should seem, with sufficient reason, that the true

perfection of man was to attain, as nearly as possible, to the perfectly

voluntary state; that we ought to be, upon all occasions, prepared to render

a reason of our actions; and should remove ourselves to the furthest distance,

from the state of mere inanimate machines, acted upon by causes of which

they have no understanding.






Our involuntary motions are frequently found gradually to become subject

to the power of volition. It seems impossible to set limits to this species

of metamorphosis. Its reality cannot be questioned, when we consider that

every motion of the human frame was originally involuntary.(5*) Is it not

then highly probable, in the process of human improvement, that we may finally

obtain an empire over every articulation of our frame? The circulation of

the blood is a motion, in our present state, eminently involuntary. Yet nothing

is more obvious than that certain thoughts, and states of the thinking faculty,

are calculated to affect this process. Reasons have been adduced which seem

to lead to an opinion, that thought and animal motion are, in all cases,

to be considered as antecedent and consequent.(6*) We can now perhaps by

an effort of the mind correct certain commencing irregularities of the system,

and forbid, in circumstances where those phenomena would otherwise appear,

the heart to palpitate, and the limbs to tremble. The voluntary power of

some men over their animal frame, is found to extend to various articles,

in which other men are impotent.






A further probability will be reflected upon these conjectures, if we

recollect the picture which was formerly exhibited,(7*) of the rapidity of

the succession of ideas. If we can have a series of three hundred and twenty

ideas in a second of time, why should it be supposed that we may not hereafter

arrive at the skill of carrying number of contemporaneous processes without

disorder?






Nothing can be more irreconcilable to analogy, than to conclude, because

a certain species of power is beyond the train of our present observations,

that it is beyond the limits of the human mind.(8*) We talk familiarly indeed

of the extent of our faculties; and our vanity prompts us to suppose that

we have reached the goal of human capacity. But there is little plausibility

in so arrogant an assumption. If it could have been told to the savage inhabitants

of Europe in the times of Theseus and Achilles that man was capable of predicting

eclipses and weighing the air, of reducing to settled rules the phenomena

of nature so that no prodigies should remain, and of measuring the distance

and size of the heavenly bodies, this would not have appeared to them less

incredible than if we had told them of the possibility of maintaining the

human body in perpetual youth and vigor. But we have not only this analogy,

showing that the discovery in question forms, as it were, a regular branch

of the acquisitions that belong to an intellectual nature; but, in addition

to this, we seem to have a glimpse of the manner in which the acquisition

will be secured.






One remark may be proper in this place. If the remedies here proposed

tend to a total extirpation of the infirmities of our nature, then, though

we should not be able to promise them an early or complete success, we may

probably find them of some utility. They may contribute to prolong our vigor,

if not to immortalize it, and, which is of more consequence, to make us live

while we live. Every time the mind is invaded with anguish and gloom, the

frame becomes disordered. Every time langour and indifference creep upon

us, our functions fall into decay. In proportion as we cultivate fortitude

and equanimity, our circulations will be cheerful. In proportion as we cultivate

a kind and benevolent propensity, we may be secure of finding something to

interest and engage us.






Medicine may reasonably be stated to consist of two branches, animal and

intellectual. The latter of these has been infinitely too much neglected.

It cannot be employed to the purposes of a profession; or, where it has been

incidentally so employed, it has been artificially and indirectly, not in

an open and avowed manner. "Herein the patient must minister to himself."(9*)

It would no doubt be of extreme moment to us to be thoroughly acquainted

with the power of motives, perseverance, and what is called resolution, in

this respect.






The sum of the arguments which have been here offered, amounts to a species

of presumption, that the term of human life may be prolonged, and that by

the immediate operation of intellect, beyond any limits which we are able

to assign. It would be idle to talk of the absolute immortality of man. Eternity

and immortality are phrases to which it is impossible for us to annex any

distinct ideas, and the more we attempt to explain them, the more we shall

find ourselves involved in contradiction.






To apply these remarks to the subject of population. One tendency of a

cultivated and virtuous mind is to diminish our eagerness for the gratifications

of the senses. They please at present by their novelty, that is, because

we know not how to estimate them. They decay in the decline of life, indirectly

because the system refuses them, but directly and principally because they

no longer excite the ardent of the mind. The gratifications of sense please

at present by their imposture. We soon learn to despise the mere animal function,

which, apart from the delusions of intellect, would be nearly the same in

all cases; and to value it only as it happens to be relieved by personal

charms or mental excellence.






The men therefore whom we are supposing to exist, when the earth shall

refuse itself to a more extended population, will probably cease to propagate.

The whole will be a people of men, and not of children. Generation will not

succeed generation, nor truth have, in a certain degree, to recommence her

career every thirty years. Other improvements may be expected to keep pace

with those of health and longevity. There will be no war, no crimes, no administration

of justice, as it is called, and no government. Beside this, there will be

neither disease, anguish, melancholy, nor resentment. Every man will seek,

with ineffable ardor, the good of all. Mind will be active and eager, yet

never disappointed. Men will see the progressive advancement of virtue and

good, and feel that, if things occasionally happen contrary to their hopes,

the miscarriage itself was a necessary part of that progress. They will know

that they are members of the chain, that each has his several utility, and

they will not feel indifferent to that utility. They will be eager to inquire

into the good that already exists, the means by which it was produced, and

the greater good that is yet in store. They will never want motives for exertion;

for that benefit which a man thoroughly understands and earnestly loves,

he cannot refrain from endeavoring to promote.






Before we dismiss this subject it is proper once again to remind the reader,

that the substance of this appendix is given only as matter of probable conjecture,

and that the leading argument of this division of the work is altogether

independent of its truth or falsehood.






NOTES:






1. Book VIII, Chap. VIII, Appendix. The authors who have published their

conjectures respecting the possibility of extending the term of human life

are many. The most illustrious of these is probably lord Bacon; the most

recent is Condorcet, in his Outlines of a History of the Progress of the

Human Mind, published the first appearance of this work. These authors however

are inclined to rest their hopes rather upon the growing perfection of art,

than, as it is here done, upon the immediate and operation of an improved

intellect.






2. Book IV, Chap. IX.






3. Book I, Chap. V; Book IV, Chap. VII, X.






4. Book IV, Chap. IX.






5. Book IV, Chap. IX.






6. Book IV, Chap. IX.






7. Book I, Chap. VIII.






8. Book I, Chap. V, §2.






9. Shakespeare: Macbeth, Act V.








CHAPTER X






REFLECTIONS






We have now taken a general survey of the system of equality, and there

remains only to state a few incidental remarks with which it may be proper

to wind up the subject.






No idea has excited greater horror in the minds of a multitude of persons,

than that of the mischiefs that will ensue from the dissemination of what

they call leveling principles. They believe "that these principles

will inevitably ferment in the minds of the vulgar, and that the attempt

to carry them into execution will be art with every species of calamity."

They represent to themselves "the uninformed and uncivilized part of

mankind, as let loose from restraint, and hurried into every kind of excess.

Knowledge and taste, the improvements of intellect, the discoveries of sages,

the beauties of poetry and art, are trampled under foot and extinguished

by barbarians. It is another inundation of Goths and Vandals, with this bitter

aggravation, that the viper stings us to death, was fostered in our own bosom."

They conceive the scene as beginning in massacre. They suppose "all

that is great, preeminent and illustrious as ranking among the first victims.

Such as are distinguished by peculiar refinement of manners, or energy of

understanding and virtue, will be the inevitable objects of envy and jealousy.

Such as intrepidly exert themselves to succor the persecuted, or to declare

to the public what they are least inclined, but is most necessary for them,

to hear, will be marked out for assassination."






Whatever may be the abstract recommendations of the system of equality,

we must not allow ourselves any such partiality upon a subject in which the

welfare of the species is involved, as should induce us to shrink from a

due attention to the ideas here exhibited. Massacre is the too possible attendant

upon revolution, and massacre is perhaps the most hateful scene, allowing

for its momentary duration, that any imagination can suggest. The fearful,

hopeless expectation of the defeated, and the bloodhound fury of their conquerors,

is a complication of mischief that all which has been told of infernal regions

can scarcely surpass. The cold blooded massacres that are perpetrated under

the name of criminal justice, fall short of these in some of their most frightful

aggravations. The ministers and instruments of law, have by custom reconciled

their minds to the dreadful task they perform, and often bear their parts

in the most shocking enormities without being sensible to the passions allied

to these enormities. They do not always accompany their murders with the

rudeness of an insulting triumph; and, as they conduct themselves, in a certain

sort, by known principles of injustice, the evil we have reason to apprehend,

has its limits. But the instruments of massacre are discharged from every

restraint. Whatever their caprice dictates, their hands are instantly employed

to perpetrate. Their eyes emit flashes of cruelty and rage. They pursue their

victims from street to street and from house to house. They tear them from

the arms of their fathers and their wives. They glut themselves with barbarity,

and utter shouts of horrid joy at the spectacle of tortures.






In answer to this representation it has sometimes been alleged by the

friends of reform, "that the advantages possessed by a system of liberty

are so great, as to be worth purchasing at any price; that the evils of the

most sanguinary revolution are temporary; that the vises of despotism, which

few pens indeed have ventured to record in all their demerits, are scarcely

less atrocious in the hour of their commission, and infinitely more terrible

by their extent and duration; and finally, that the crimes perpetrated in

a revolutionary movement, can in no just estimate be imputed to the innovators;

that they were engendered by the preceding oppression, and ought to be regarded

as the last struggles of expiring tyranny."






But, not to repeat arguments that have already been fully exhibited,(1*)

it must be recollected, that "the benefits which innovation may seem

to promise are not to be regarded as certain. After all, it may not be utterly

impossible, that the nature of man will always remain, for the most part,

unaltered, and that he will be found incapable of that degree of knowledge

and constancy, which seems essential to a liberal democracy or a pure equality.

However cogent may be the arguments for the practicability of human improvement,

is it then justifiable, upon the mere credit of predictions, to expose mankind

to the greatest calamities? Who that has a just conception of the nature

of human understanding will vindicate such a proceeding? A careful enquirer

is always detecting his past errors; each year of his life produces a severe

comment upon the opinions of the last; he suspects all his judgments, and

is certain of none. We wander in the midst of appearances; and plausible

appearances are to be found on all sides. The wisest men perhaps have generally

proved the most confirmed skeptics. Speculations therefore upon the new modes

in which human affairs may be combined, different from any that occur in

the history of past ages, may seem fitter to amuse men of acuteness and leisure,

than to be depended on in deciding the dearest interests of mankind. Proceedings,

the effects of which have been verified by experience, furnish a surer ground

of dependence, than the most labored reason can afford us in regard to schemes

as yet untried."






Undoubtedly in the views here detailed there is considerable force; and

it would be well if persons, who are eager to effect abrupt changes in human

society, would give them an attentive consideration. They do not however

sufficiently apply to the question proposed to be examined. Our inquiry was

not respecting revolution, but disquisition. We are not concerned to vindicate

any species of violence; we do not assume that leveling principles are to

be acted upon through the medium of force; we have simply affirmed that he

who is persuaded of their truth, ought to endeavor to render them a subject

of attention. To be convinced of this we have only to consider the enormous

and unquestionable political evils that are daily before our eyes, and the

probability there is that, by temperate investigation, these evils may be

undermined, with little or no tumultuary concussion.(2*) In every affair

of human life we are obliged to act upon a simple probability; and therefore,

while it is highly worthy of a conscientious philanthropist to recollect

the universal uncertainty of opinion, he is bound not to abstain from acting,

with caution and sobriety, upon the judgments of his understanding, from

a fear left, at the time that he intends to produce benefit, he should unintentionally

be the occasion of evil.






But there is another consideration worthy of serious attention in this

place. Granting, for a moment, the utmost weight to the objections of those

who remind us of the mischief of political experiments, it is proper to ask,

Can we suppress discussion? Can we arrest the progress of the inquiring mind?

If we can, it must be by the most unmitigated despotism. Intellect has a

perpetual tendency to proceed. It cannot be held back, but by a power that

counteracts its genuine tendency, through every moment of its existence.

Tyrannical and sanguinary must be the measures employed for this purpose.

Miserable and disgustful must be the scene they produce. Their result will

be barbarism, ignorance, superstition, servility, hypocrisy. This is the

alternative, so far as there is any alternative in their choice, to which

those who are impowered to consult for the general welfare must inevitably

resort, if the suppression of inquiry be the genuine dictate of public interest.






Such has been, for the most part, the policy of governments through every

age of the world. Have we slaves? We assiduously retain them in ignorance.

Have we colonies and dependencies? The great effort of our care is to keep

them from being populous and prosperous. Have we subjects? It is "by

impotence and misery that we endeavor to render them supple: plenty is fit

only to make them unmanageable, disobedient and mutinous."(3*) If this

were the true philosophy of social institutions, well might we shrink from

it with horror. How tremendous an abortion would the human species be, if

all that tended to invigorate their understandings, tended to make them unprincipled

and profligate!






In the meantime it ought not to be forgotten, that to say that a knowledge

of political truth can be injurious to the true interests of mankind, is

to affirm and express contradiction. Political truth is that science which

teaches us to weigh in the balance of an accurate judgment, the different

proceedings that may be adopted, for the purpose of giving welfare and prosperity

to communities of men. The only way in which discussion can be a reasonable

object of terror, is by its power of giving to falsehood, under certain circumstances,

the speciousness of truth, or by that partial propagation, the tendency of

which is to intoxicate and mislead those understandings that, by an adequate

instruction, would have been sobered and enlightened.






These considerations will scarcely permit us to doubt, that it is the

duty of governments to maintain the most inflexible neutrality, and of individuals

to publish the truths with which they appear to be acquainted. The more truth

is discovered, the more it is known in its true dimensions, and not in its

parts, the less is it possible that it should coalesce with, or leave room

for the effects of, error. The true philanthropist, instead of suppressing

discussion, will be eager to take a share in the scene, to exert the full

strength of his faculties in investigation, and to contribute by his exertions

to render the operation of inquiry at once perspicuous and profound.






The condition of the human species at the present hour is critical and

alarming. We are not without grounds of reasonable hope that the issue will

be uncommonly beneficial. There is however much to apprehend, from the narrow

views, and angry passions, of the contending parties. Every interval that

can be gained, provided it is not an interval of torpor and indifference,

is perhaps to be considered in the light of an advantage.






Meanwhile, in proportion as the just apprehensions of explosion shall

increase, there are high duties incumbent upon every branch of the community.






First, upon those who are fitted to be precursor to their fellows in the

discovery of truth.






They are bound to be active, indefatigable and disinterested. It is incumbent

upon them to abstain from inflammatory language, and expressions of acrimony

and resentment. It is absurd in any government to erect itself into a court

of criticism in this respect, and to establish a criterion of liberality

and decorum;(4*) but, for that very reason, it is doubly incumbent on those

who communicate their thoughts to the public, to exercise a rigid censure

over themselves. The lessons of liberty and equality are lessons of good

will to all orders of men. They free the peasant from the iniquity that depresses

his mind, and the privileged from the luxury and despotism by which he is

corrupted. It is disgraceful to those who teach these lessons, if they stain

their benignity, by showing that that benignity has not become the inmate

of their hearts.






Nor is it less necessary that they should express themselves with explicitness

and sincerity. No maxim can be more suspicious than that which teaches us

to consult the temper of the times, and tell only as much as we imagine our

contemporaries will be able to bear.(5*) This practice is at present almost

universal, and it will perhaps not be difficult to observe its pernicious

effects. We retail and mangle truth. We impart it to our fellows, not with

the liberal measure with which we have received it, but with such parsimony

as our own miserable prudence may chance to prescribe. That we may deceive

others with a tranquil conscience, we begin with deceiving ourselves. We

put shackles upon our minds, and dare not trust ourselves at large in the

pursuit of truth. This practice seems to have been greatly promoted by the

machinations of party, and the desire of one wise and adventurous leader

to lead a troop of weak, timid and selfish adherents in his train. There

can scarcely be a sufficient reason why I should not declare in any assembly

upon the face of the earth "that I am a republican." There is no

more reason to apprehend that, being a republican under a monarchical government,

I shall enter into a desperate faction to invade the public tranquility,

than if I were monarchical under a republic. Every community of men, as well

as every individual, must govern itself according to its ideas of justice.(6*)

What I should desire is, not by violence to change its institutions, but

by discussion to change its ideas. I have no concern, if I would study merely

the public good, with factions or intrigue; but simply to promulgate the

truth, and to wait the tranquil progress of conviction. If there be any assembly

that cannot bear this, of such an assembly I ought to be no member. It probably

happens, much oftener than we are willing to imagine, that "the post

of honor," or, which is better, the post of utility, "is a private

station."(7*)






The dissimulation here censured, beside its ill effects upon him who practices

it, and, by degrading and unnerving his character, upon society at large,

has a particular ill consequence with respect to the point we are considering.

It lays a mine, and prepares an explosion. This is the tendency of all unnatural

restraint. The unfettered progress of investigation is perhaps always salutary.

Its advances are gradual, and each step prepares the general mind for that

which is to follow. They are sudden and unprepared, and therefore necessarily

partial, emanations of truth that have the greatest tendency to deprive men

of their sobriety and self-command. Reserve in this respect is calculated,

at once, to give a rugged and angry tone to the multitude, whenever they

shall happen to discover what is thus concealed, and to mislead the depositaries

of political power. It soothes them into false security, and prompts them

to maintain an inauspicious obstinacy.






Having considered what it is that belongs in such a crisis to the enlightened

and wise, let us next turn our attention to a very different class of society,

the rich and great. And here, in the first place, it may be remarked that

it is a false calculation that leads us universally to despair of having

these for the advocates of political justice. Mankind are not so miserably

selfish, as satirists and courtiers have supposed. We perhaps never engage

in any action of moment without having inquired what is the decision of justice

respecting it. We are at all times anxious to satisfy ourselves that what

our inclinations lead us to do, is innocent and right to be done.(8*) Since

therefore justice occupies so large a share in the contemplations of the

human mind, it cannot reasonably be doubted that a strong and commanding

view of justice, would prove a powerful motive to influence the choice of

that description of men we are now considering. But that virtue which, for

whatever reason, we have chosen, soon becomes recommended to us by a thousand

other reasons. We find in it reputation, honor, and self-complacence, in

addition to the recommendations it derives from impartial justice.






The rich and great are far from callous to views of general felicity,

when such views are brought before them with that evidence and attraction

of which they are susceptible. From one dreadful disadvantage their minds

are free. They have not been soured with unrelenting tyranny, or narrowed

by the perpetual pressure of distress. They are peculiarly qualified to judge

of the emptiness of that pomp and those gratification, which are always most

admired, when they are seen from a distance. They will frequently be found

considerably indifferent to these things, unless confirmed by habit and rendered

inveterate by age. If you show them the attractions of gallantry and magnanimity

in resigning them, they will often be resigned without reluctance. Wherever

accident of any sort has introduced an active mind, there enterprise is a

necessary consequence; and there are few persons so inactive, as to sit down

for ever in the supine enjoyment of the indulgences to which they were born.

The same spirit that has led forth the young nobility of successive ages

to encounter the hardships of a camp, might render them the champions of

the cause of equality: nor is it to be believed that the consideration of

superior virtue in this latter exertion, will be without its effect.






But let us suppose a considerable party of the rich and great to be actuated

by no view but to their emolument and ease. It is not difficult to show them

that their interest in this sense will admit of no more than a temperate

and yielding resistance. To such we may say: "It is in vain for you

to fight against truth. It is like endeavoring with the human hand to stop

the inroad of the ocean. Be wise betimes. Seek your safety in concession.

If you will not come over to the standard of political justice, temporize

at least with an enemy whom you cannot of overcome. Much, inexpressibly much

depends upon you. If your proceedings be moderate and judicious, it is not

probable that you will suffer the privation, even of that injurious indulgence

and accommodation to which you are so strongly attached. The genuine progress

of political improvement is kind and attentive to the sentiments of all.

It changes the opinions of men by insensible degrees; produces nothing by

shock and abruptness; and is far from requiring the calamity of any. Confiscation,

and the proscription of bodies of men, form no branch of its story. These

evils, which by wise and sober men will always be regretted, will in all

probability never occur, unless brought on by your indiscretion and obstinacy.

Even in the very tempest and fury of explosion, if such an event shall arise,

it may perhaps still be in your power to make advantageous conditions, and

to be little or nothing sufferers by the change.






"Above all, do not be lulled into a rash and headlong security. Do

not imagine that innovation is not at hand; or that the spirit of innovation

can be defeated. We have already seen(9*) how much the hypocrisy and instability

of the wise and enlightened of the present day, those who confess much, and

have a confused view of still more, but dare not examine the whole with a

steady and unshrinking eye, are calculated to increase this security. But

there is a danger still more palpable. Do not be misled by the unthinking

and seemingly general cry of those who have no fixed principles. Addresses

have been found in every age a very uncertain criterion of the future conduct

of a people. Do not count upon the numerous train of your adherents, retainers

and servants. They afford a feeble dependence. They are men, and cannot be

unconcerned as to the interests and claims of mankind. Some them will adhere

to you, as long as a sordid interest seems to draw them in that direction.

But the moment yours shall appear to be the losing cause, the same interest

will carry them over to the enemy's standard. They will disappear like the

morning's mist.






"Can it be supposed that you are incapable of receiving impression

from another argument? Will you feel no compunction at the thought of resisting

the greatest of all benefits? Are you content to be regarded by your impartial

contemporaries, and to be recollected, as long as your memory shall endure,

as the obstinate adversaries of philanthropy and justice? Can you reconcile

it to your own minds that, for a sordid interest, for the cause of general

corruption and abuse, you should be found active in stifling truth, and strangling

the new-born happiness of mankind?" Would it were possible to take this

argument felt by the enlightened and accomplished advocates of aristocracy!

that they could be persuaded to consult neither passion, nor prejudice, nor

the reveries of imagination, in deciding so momentous a question! "We

know," I would say, "that truth will be triumphant, even though

you refuse to be her ally. We do not fear your enmity. But our hearts bleed

to see such gallantry, talents and virtue employed by the calamities of mankind.

We recollect with grief that, when the luster of your merits shall fill distant

generations with astonishment, they will not be less astonished that you

could be made the dupes of prejudice, and deliberately surrender the larger

portion of the good you might have achieved, and the unqualified affection

that might have pursued your memory."(10*) To the general mass of the

adherents of equality, it may be proper to address a few words. "If

there be any force in the arguments of this work, we seem authorized to deduce

thus much from them, that truth is irresistible. Let then this axiom be the

rudder of our undertakings. Let us not precipitately endeavor to accomplish

that to-day which the dissemination of truth will make unavoidable to-morrow.

Let us not over-anxiously watch for occasions and events: of particular events

the ascendancy of truth is independent. Let us anxiously refrain from violence:

force is not a conviction, and is extremely unworthy of the cause of justice.

Let us admit into our bosoms neither contempt, animosity, resentment nor

revenge. The cause of justice is the cause of humanity. Its advocates should

be penetrated with universal good-will. We should love this cause; for it

conduces to the general happiness of mankind. We should love it; for there

is not a man that lives, who, in the natural and tranquil progress of things,

will not be made happier by its approach. The most powerful circumstance

by which it has been retarded, is the mistake of its adherents, the air of

ruggedness, brutishness and inflexibility which they have given to that which,

in itself, is all benignity. Nothing less than this could have prevented

the great masses of enquirers from bestowing upon it a patient examination.

Be it the care of the now increasing advocates of equality, to remove this

obstacle to the success of their cause. We have but two plain duties, which,

if we set out right, it is not easy to mistake. The first is an unwearied

attention to the great instrument of justice, reason. We should communicate

our sentiments with the utmost frankness. We should endeavor to press them

upon the attention of others. In this we should give way to no discouragement.

We should sharpen our intellectual weapons; add to the stock of our knowledge;

be pervaded with a sense of the magnitude of our cause; and perpetually add

to that calm presence of mind and self-possession which must enable us to

do justice to our principles. Our second duty is tranquility."






It will not be right to pass over a question that will inevitably suggest

itself to the mind of the reader. "If an equalization of conditions

be to take place, not by law, regulation or public institution, but only

through the private conviction of individuals, in what manner shall it begin?"

In answering this question it is not necessary to prove so simple a proposition,

as that all republicanism, all reduction of ranks and immunities, strongly

tends towards an equalization of conditions. If men go on to improve in discernment,

and this they will with peculiar rapidity, when the ill-constructed governments

which now retard their progress are removed, the same arguments which showed

them the injustice of ranks, will show them the injustice of one man's wanting

that which, while it is in the possession of another, conduces in no respect

to his well being.






It is a common error to imagine "that this injustice will be felt

only by the lower orders who suffer from it;" and from thence to conclude

"that it can only be corrected by violence." But in answer to this

it may, in the first place, be observed that all suffer from it, the rich

who engross, as well as the poor who want. Secondly, it has been endeavored

to be shown in the course of the present work(11*) that men are not so entirely

governed by self-interest as has frequently been supposed. It appears, if

possible, still more clearly that the selfish are not governed solely by

sensual gratification or the love of gain, but that the desire of eminence

and distinction is, in different forms, an universal passion.(12*) Thirdly

and principally, the progress of truth is the most powerful of all causes.

Nothing can be more improbable than to imagine, that theory, in the best

sense of the word, is not essentially connected with practice. That which

we can be persuaded clearly and distinctly to approve, will inevitably modify

our conduct. When men shall habitually perceive the folly of individual splendor,

and when their neighbors are impressed with a similar disdain, it will be

impossible they should pursue the means of it with the same avidity as before.






It will not be difficult to trace, in the progress of modern Europe from

barbarism to refinement, a tendency towards the equalization of conditions.

In the feudal times, as now in India and other parts of the world, men were

born to a certain station, and it was nearly impossible for a peasant to

rise to the rank of a noble. Except the nobles, there were no men that were

rich; for commerce, either external or internal, had scarcely an existence.

Commerce was one engine for throwing down this seemingly impregnable barrier,

and shocking the prejudices of nobles, who were sufficiently willing to believe

that their retainers were a different species of beings from themselves.

Learning was another, and more powerful engine. In all ages of the church

we see men of the basest origin rising to the highest eminence. Commerce

proved that others could rise to wealth beside those who were cased in mail;

but learning proved that the low-born were capable of surpassing their lords.

The progressive effect of these ideas may easily be traced. Long after learning

began to unfold its powers, its votaries still submitted to those obsequious

manners and servile dedications, which no man reviews at the present day

without astonishment. It is but lately that men have known that intellectual

excellence can accomplish its purposes without a patron. At present, among

the civilized and well informed, a man of slender income, but of great intellectual

powers and a firm and virtuous mind, is constantly received with attention

and deference; and his purse-proud neighbor who should attempt to treat

him superciliously, is sure to encounter a general disapprobation. The inhabitants

of distant villages, where long established prejudices are slowly destroyed,

would be astonished to see how comparatively small a share wealth has, in

determining the degree of attention with which men are treated in enlightened

circles.






These no doubt are but slight indications. It is with morality in this

respect as it is with politics. The progress is at first so slow as, for

the most part, to elude the observation of mankind; nor can it be adequately

perceived but by the contemplation and comparison of events during a considerable

portion of time. After a certain interval, the scene is more fully unfolded,

and the advances appear more rapid and decisive. While wealth was every thing,

it was to be expected that men would acquire it, though at the expense of

conscience and integrity. The abstract ideas of justice had not yet been

so concentered, as to be able to overpower what dazzles the eye, or promises

a momentary gratification. In proportion as the monopolies of rank and corporation

are abolished, the value of superfluities will decline. In proportion as

republicanism gains ground, men will be estimated for what they are, and

not for their accidental appendages.






Let us reflect on the gradual consequences of this revolution of opinion.

Liberality of dealing will be among its earliest results" and, of consequence,

accumulation will become less frequent and enormous. Men will not be disposed,

as now, to take advantage of each other's distresses. They will not consider

how much they can extort, but how much it is reasonable to require. The master-tradesman

who employs laborers under him, will be disposed to give a more ample reward

to their industry" which he is at present enabled to tax, chiefly by

the accidental advantage of possessing a capital. Liberality on the part

of his employer will complete in the mind of the artisan, what ideas of political

justice will probably have begun. He will no longer spend the surplus of

his earnings in that dissipation, which is one of the principal of those

causes that at present subject him to the arbitrary pleasure of a superior.

He will escape from the irresolution of slavery and the fetters of despair,

and perceive that independence and ease are scarcely less within his reach

than that of any other member of the community. This is an obvious step towards

the still further progression, in which the laborer will receive entire

whatever the consumer may be required to pay, without having a capitalist,

an idle and useless monopolizer, as he will then be found, to fatten upon

his spoils.






The same sentiments that lead to liberality of dealing will also lead

to liberality of distribution. The trader, who is unwilling to grow rich

by extorting from his customers or his workmen, will also refuse to become

rich by the not inferior injustice, of withholding from his indigent neighbor

the gratuitous supply of which he stands in need. The habit which was created

in the former case of being contented with moderate gains, is closely connected

with the habit of being contented with slender accumulation. He that is not

anxious to add to his heap, will not be reluctant by a benevolent distribution

to prevent its increase. Wealth was at one period almost the single object

of pursuit that presented itself to the gross and uncultivated mind. Various

objects will hereafter divide men's attention, the love of liberty, the love

of equality, the pursuits of art and the desire of knowledge. These objects

will not, as now, be confined to a few, but will gradually be laid open to

all. The love of liberty obviously leads to a sentiment of union, and a disposition

to sympathize in the concerns of others. The general diffusion of truth will

be productive of general improvement; and men will daily approximate towards

those views according to which every object will be appreciated at its true

value. Add to which, that the improvement of which we speak is public, and

not individual. The progress is the progress of all. Each man will find his

sentiments of justice and rectitude echoed by the sentiments of his neighbors.

Apostasy will be made eminently improbable, because the apostate will incur,

not only his own censure, but the censure of every beholder.






One objection may perhaps be inferred from these considerations. "If

the inevitable progress of improvement insensibly lead towards equality,

what need was there of proposing it as a specific object to men's consideration?"

The answer to this objection is easy. The improvement in question consists

in a knowledge of truth. But our knowledge will be very imperfect, so long

as this great branch of universal justice fails to constitute a part of it.

All truth is useful; can this truth, which is perhaps the most fundamental

of all moral principles, be without its benefit? Whatever be the object towards

which mind irresistibly advances, it is of no mean importance to us to have

a distinct view of that object. Our advances will thus become accelerated.

It is a well known principle of morality "that he who proposes perfection

to himself, though he will inevitably fall short of what he pursues, will

make a more rapid progress, than he contented to aim only at what is imperfect."

The benefits to be derived in the interval from a view of equality as one

of the great objects to which we are tending, are exceedingly conspicuous.

Such a view will strongly conduce to make us disinterested now. It will teach

us to look with contempt upon mercantile speculations, commercial prosperity,

and the cares of gain. It will impress us with a just apprehension of what

it is of which man is capable, and in which his perfection consists; and

will fix our ambition and activity upon the worthiest objects. Intellect

cannot arrive at any great and illustrious attainment, however much the nature

of intellect may carry us towards it, without feeling some presages of its

approach; and it is reasonable to believe that, the earlier these presages

are introduced, and the more distinct they are made, the more auspicious

will be the event.






NOTES:






1. Book IV, Chap. I, II.






2. Book IV, Chap. II.






3. Book V, Chap. III.






4. Book VI, Chap. VI.






5. Book III, Chap. VII.






6. Book III, Chap. VII; Book IV, Chap I.






7. Addison's Cato, Act IV.






8. Book I, Chap. V.






9. Book VIII, Chap. X.






10. Whilst this sheet is in the press for the third impression, I receive

the intelligence of the death of Burke, who was principally in the author's

mind, while he penned the preceding sentences. In all that is most exalted

in talents, I regard him as the inferior of no man that ever adorned the

face of earth; and, in the long record of human genius, I can find for him

very few equals. In subtlety of discrimination, in magnitude of conception,

in sagacity and profoundness of judgment, he was never surpassed. But his

characteristic excellencies were vividness and justness of painting, and

that boundless wealth of imagination that adorned the most ungrateful subjects,

and heightened the most interesting. Of this wealth he was too lavish; and,

though it is impossible for the man of taste not to derive gratification

from almost every one of his images and metaphors while it passes before

him, yet their exuberance subtracts, in no considerable degree, from that

irresistibleness and rapidity of general effect, which is the highest excellence

of composition. No impartial man can recall Burke to his mind, without confessing

the grandeur and integrity of his feelings of morality, and being convinced

that he was eminently both the patriot and the philanthropist. His excellencies

however were somewhat tinctured with a vein of dark and saturnine temper;

so that the same man strangely united a degree of the rude character of his

native island, with an urbanity and a susceptibility of the tinder affections,

that have rarely been paralleled. But his principal defect consisted in this;

that the false estimate as to the things entitled to our deference and admiration,

which could alone tender aristocracy with whom he lived, unjust to his worth,

in some degree infected his own mind. He therefore sought wealth and plunged

in expense, instead of cultivating the simplicity of independence; and he

entangled himself with a petty combination of political men, instead of reserving

his illustrious talents unwarped, for the advancement of intellect, and the

service of mankind. He unfortunately has left us a memorable example, of

the power of a corrupt system of government, to undermine and divert from

their genuine purposes, the noblest faculties that have yet been exhibited

to the observation of the world.






11. Book IV, Chap. X.






12. Book VIII, Chap. I.


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