University of California. M THK LIBRARY OK DR. FRANCIS LJKBER, I'rnfi-ssor ..f JhV '-,j a College, New York. MICHAEL REESE, N? Fran 1 873. INTRODUCTORY LECTURES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY, PART OF A COURSE DELIVERED IN EASTER TERM, MDCCCXXXL BY RICHARD ^HATELY, D.D. PRINCIPAL OF ST. ALBAN*S HALL ; PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. T/ ovv ; rev Qt*.offo$a> t orstv ft&v o tetr^og **' **>* xetftvovreiiv ri ktyy, etiff%gbv yn Ivtfffai ro7g XiyofAtvots ^umffffeti, ftwrs %v[A$a,D>.iffQoit fttitiiv ; xett oforctv ns reavi'ifAtovg'ycitv, affuvras \ orxv 1 dtxettrrws, YI uv vuv ^ifatioftiv, ovx Ki? seem naturally to have re- ference, respectively, to Wxif and olxo^; the one treating of the affairs and the regulation of a Commonwealth, the other, originally at least, of a private family. And in modern popular use, even much more, Economy is limited, not only to the private concerns of a family, and not only to one, and that not the most dignified part of the regulation of a family, the management of its pecuniary concerns, but to the humblest and most minute portion even of these the regulation of daily expenditure. A man is called a good economist, not for making his fortune by a judicious investment of his capital in some suc- cessful manufactory or branch of commerce, but for making the most of a given income, and prudently regulating, so as to prevent waste, all the details of his household expenses. To those who are habituated to this employ- ment of terms, the title of Political-Economy is likely to suggest very confused and indistinct, and in a great degree incorrect, notions. It may be said, indeed, that if a science be of intrinsic dignity and importance, the appellation by which it is known is of little consequence ; " the rose, " By any other name, would smell as sweet." But this is true only in respect of such as are, if not proficients, at least, students, or inquirers, in each respective branch of knowledge. To all others a name which conveys no clear idea of the nature of the science denoted by it, is not attrac- tive ; and one which conveys an incorrect idea, may even prove repulsive, by exciting groundless prejudice. It is with a view to put you on your guard against prejudices thus created, (and you will meet probably with many instances of persons influenced by them,) that I have stated my ob- jections to the name of Political-Economy. It is now, I conceive, too late to think of changing it. A. Smith, indeed, has designated his work a treatise .on the " Wealth of Nations;" but this supplies a name only for the subject-matter, not for the science itself. The name I should have preferred as the most descriptive, and on the whole least objectionable, is that of CATALLACTICS, or the " Science of Exchanges." Man might be defined, (< An animal that makes Exchanges :" no other, even of those animals which in other points make the nearest approach to rationality, having, to all appearance, the least notion of bartering, or in any way exchanging one thing for another. And it is in this point of view alone that Man is contemplated by Political- Economy. This view does not essentially differ from that of A. Smith ; since in this science the term wealth is limited to exchangeable comma- dities ; and it treats of them so far forth only as they are, or are designed to be, the subjects of exchange. But for this very reason it is perhaps more convenient to describe Political-Economy as the science of Exchanges, rather than as the science of national Wealth. For, the things them- selves of which the science treats, are immediately removed from its province, if we remove the possi- bility, or the intention, of making them the sub- jects of exchange ; and this, though they may conduce, in the highest degree, to happiness, which is the ultimate object for the sake of which wealth is sought. A man, for instance, in a desert island, like Alex. Selkirke, or the personage his ad- ventures are supposed to have suggested, Robinson Crusoe, is in a situation of which Political-Eco- nomy takes no cognizance ; though he might figuratively be called rich, if abundantly pro- vided with food, raiment, and various comforts ; and though he might have many commodities at hand which would become exchangeable, and would constitute him, strictly speaking, rich, as soon as fresh settlers should arrive. In like manner a musical talent, which is wealth to a professional performer who makes the exer- cise of it a subject of exchange, is not so to one 8 of superior rank, who could not without degrada- tion so employ it. It is, in this last case, there- fore, though a source of enjoyment, out of the province of Political-Economy. This limitation of the term wealth to things contemplated as exchangeable, has been objected to on the ground that it makes the same thing to be wealth to one person and not to another. This very circumstance has always appeared to me the chief recommendation of such a use of the term ; since even if we determine to employ the terms Wealth and Value in reference to every kind of possession, we must still admit, that there is at least some very great distinction, between the possession, for instance, of a collection of orna- mental trees, by a nursery-man, who cultivates them for sale, and by a gentleman, who has planted them to adorn his ground. Since however the popular use of the term Wealth is not always very precise, and since it may require, just in the outset, some degree of attention to avoid being confused by contem- plating the very same thing as being, or not being, an article of wealth, according to circum- stances, I think it for this reason more conve- nient on the whole to describe Political-Economy as concerned, universally, and exclusively, about exchanges. It was once proposed indeed to designate it the " Philosophy of Commerce;" but this, though etymological! y quite unexceptionable, being in- deed coincident with the description just given, is open to the objection, that the word Commerce has been, in popular use, arbitrarily limited to one class of exchanges. The only difficulty I can foresee as attendant on the language I have now been using is one which vanishes so readily on a moment's reflec- tion as to be hardly worth mentioning. In many cases, where an exchange really takes place, the fact is liable (till the attention is called to it) to be overlooked, in consequence of our not seeing any actual transfer from hand to hand of a material object. For instance, when the copy-right of a book is sold to a bookseller, the article trans- ferred is not the mere paper covered with writ- ing, but the exclusive privilege of printing and publishing ; it is plain however, on a moment's thought, that the transaction is as real an ex- change, as that which takes place between the bookseller and his customers who buy copies of 10 the work. The payment of rent for land is a transaction of a similar kind. Having settled then what it is that Political- Economy is concerned about, it might seem natural to proceed immediately to the develop- ment of the principles of the science, and the application of them to the various questions to be discussed. But such is the existing state of feeling on the subject so numerous are the misapprehensions that prevail respecting it and so strong is the prejudice in many minds against the study a prejudice, partly the effect, and partly the cause, of these misapprehensions, that I am compelled, however reluctantly, to occupy some of your time in removing objections and mistakes which stand in the very threshold of our inquiries. I find myself somewhat in the condition of settlers in a country but newly occupied by civilized man; who have to clear land overgrown with thickets to extirpate wild beasts and to secure themselves from the incursions of savages, before they can proceed to the cultivation of the soil. It might seem indeed an insult to your under- standing, to enter upon a formal apology for 11 treating of a science, for the cultivation of which you have accepted the endowment of a Professor- ship, whose duties you have done me the honour to entrust to my hands. I have no such inten- tion : nor do I mean to imply, that those who now hear me are likely to be imbued with those vulgar prejudices to which I have alluded. But you should be prepared to expect and to en- counter them. Both in the conversation and in the writings, not only of such as are universally mere empty pretenders, but of some who on other subjects shew themselves not destitute of good sense, of candour, or of information, you will be likely to meet with such assertions and (intended) arguments, on this subject, as the very same persons would treat with scorn, in any other case. If, therefore, I should appear to any of you to bestow, either now or hereafter, more attention than is requisite, on mistakes and absurdities which may be thought to carry their own refu- tation with them, I shall intreat you to reflect how much importance the circumstances of the case may attach to objections and errors, in themselves unworthy of notice. It may be well worth while to suggest popular answers to pre- 12 vailing fallacies, which could never mislead a man of moderate intelligence, attention, and candour, applied to the question ; because the number is so considerable of those who are deficient in one or other of these qualities, or in the exercise of them in a field of inquiry that may be new to their minds. A mixture of in- dolence and self-conceit inclines many a one to flatter himself, that there can be nothing worth studying in a subject with which he is un- acquainted. Many a one is overawed by a blind veneration for antiquity, into a conviction that whatever is true must have been long since dis- covered ; or by a mistaken view of the design of Scripture, into an expectation of finding revealed there, every thing relative to human concerns. And many again are prone to mistake declama- tion for argument, and to accept confident asser- tion and vehement vituperation as a substitute for _ logical refutation. In fact, the number of those who are not only qualified to appreciate justly the force of arguments, but who are also accustomed to this employment of their faculties, is probably $ less than is supposed. When a man maintains, ]3 on several points, opinions which are true, \ and assigns good and sufficient reasons for them, both he himself, and others, are apt to conclude at once that he is convinced by those reasons : whereas the truth will often be, that he has taken upon trust both the premises and the conclusion, as well as the connexion between them ; that he is indolently repeating what he has heard, without performing any process of reason- ing in his own mind ; and that if he had not i been early trained or predisposed, to admit the conclusion, and it had been presented to him as a novelty, the arguments which support it, though in themselves perfectly valid, would have had little or no weight with him. If such a man then enters on any new field of inquiry, his deficiencies at once become apparent. He is in a situation analogous to that of children taught by a negligent or unskilful master, who are often found able apparently to read with great fluency, in a book they have been accustomed to; though in reality they are not so much reading, as re- peating by rote the sentences they have often gone over ; and if tried in a new book are at a loss to put two syllables together. 14 Causes such as I have alluded to, and many others, operate more or less to produce indiffer- ence, prejudice, or error, as to the subject now before us, in the minds of great numbers, whom you cannot either in prudence or in charity pass by with disdain, as unworthy of attention. There are indeed degrees of intellectual or of moral deficiency, such as to preclude all hope of effecting rational conviction ; but there are also minor degrees of these obstacles which may be surmounted by patient assiduity, though not without. And it should be remembered, that a cause would be in no very flourishing condition which should be opposed by all except those who are pre-eminent at once in acuteness, in industry, and in candour. Nay, some may be brought to deserve even this very description, who were at first of a very different character; even as the illustrious authors of our Reformation, who listened and replied with unwearied patience to every objection, found some most zealous and able coadjutors in men who had for a time been strenuous upholders of popery. And there is the more encouragement to labour t perseveringly in the removal of prejudices and the 15 inculcation of just principles, inasmuch as the great * majority of those whom you will find assenting to the most absurd arguments, and perfectly unmoved by the strongest, have no such natural incapacity for reasoning as some might thence infer ; but possess powers which lie dormant for want of exercise ; and these they may be roused to exert, when once they are brought to perceive that they have been accustomed to imagine themselves following a course of reasoning, when in fact they were not. The puerile fallacies which you may sometimes hear a man adduce on some subjects, are perhaps in reality no more his own, than the sound arguments he employs on others ; he may have given an indolent unthinking acquiescence to each ; and if he can be excited to exertion of thought, he may be very capable of distinguishing the sound from the unsound. Not that after all you must expect even the clearest explanations and the most unanswerable arguments, to prove universally successful. Those who have been too long and willingly enthralled in the fetters of presumptuous ignorance and bigotted prejudice, even if driven out of the house of bondage, which they love, will continue 16 wanderers in a wilderness ; but there may be a rising generation of more docile mind, who may be led forward with fairer hopes of ultimate success. As for the vehement vituperation lavished on the study of Political-Economy which you will be prepared to hear, though, of course, not to answer, I will only remark, that I think it on the whole no unfavourable sign. Invective is the natural resort either of those who are incapable of sound reasoning altogether, or are at a loss for arguments to suit their present purpose : supposing, that is, of course, in each case, as far as they are not withheld by gentlemanly or Christian feeling. In proportion therefore as any branch of study leads to important and useful results in proportion as it gains ground in public estima- tion in proportion as it tends to overthrow prevailing errors in the same degree, it may be expected to call forth angry declamation from those who are trying to despise what they will not learn, and wedded to prejudices which they cannot defend. Galileo probably would have escaped persecution, if his discoveries could have been disproved, and his reasonings refuted. The same spirit which formerly consigned the 17 too powerful disputant to the dungeon or the stake, is now, thank heaven, compelled to vent itself in railing ; which you need not more regard than the hiss of a serpent which has been de- prived of its fangs. Having premised, then, that I shall notice misapprehensions and objections in proportion not so much to their intrinsic weight, as, to their prevalence, and the probability of your being called on to refute them, you will perhaps be surprised at my mentioning in the first place, a complaint urged against waiters on Political- Economy for confining their attention to the subject of Wealth. This sounds very much like a complaint against mathematicians for treating merely of quantities ; or against grammarians for investigating no subject but language. Yet I can assure you that I have seen the complaint urged with apparent seriousness, by writers not generally held in contempt. I believe what is really meant by some of those who make the complaint, is, that some writers (A. Smith in particular has been charged with this) have recommended this or that measure to be at once adopted, on the c 18 ground of its conducing to national wealth ; or have measured the whole benefit of each institu- tionthe absolute desirableness of each ob- ject by this standard alone. I am inclined to think that in many cases this has been the fault of the reader more than of the writer. When an author is avowedly treating, exclusively, of questions of profit and loss, the fair mode of interpretation seems to be, to under- stand what he says, in reference to the subject in hand exclusively. If therefore I find a writer on Political-Economy treating, for instance, of the comparative merits of different modes that have been proposed for the attainment of some national good, and deciding in favour of one of them, I should think myself bound in candour to understand him as speaking (unless he expressly referred to some other consideration) of the superiority of that one in reference to national wealth alone ; and as not giving any decision as to its absolute ex- pediency. If this mode of interpretation be not adhered to, any one who writes or speaks on any subject whatever, will be perpetually liable to be misunderstood ; and that, the more, in propor- tion to the precision and accuracy with which he 19 confines himself to the question before him. For instance, a man who is employed to measure two portions of land, delivers in a statement of the number of acres in each, and represents correctly, (if he has done his work well,) which is the larger. But if, when he has confined himself to his own proper business, to the exclusion of all irrelevant considerations, he is mistakenly supposed to have been expressing an opinion as to the comparative fertility of soil, healthiness of situation, or pic- turesque beauty, of the two estates, the statement he has made will be likely to mislead in pro- portion to its real accuracy. In like manner, when a geometrician states the ratios of cubes or spheres to each other, though one may be of lead and the other of wood, he is supposed to be taking into consideration, not their substance and weight, but their magnitude alone. And so also, if a writer on Political- Economy is speaking of two articles of wealth as equal or unequal, he ought reasonably to be understood as speaking of their exchangeable value, without touching on their greater or less desirableness in other respects. Though one thou- sand pound's worth of jewels be of the same value c 2 20 as one thousand pound's worth of instructive books, which must as surely be the case as that a pound of feathers and a pound of lead are equal in weight, it does not follow that each must con- tribute equally to public and private happiness. If, however, any writer does maintain this, or in any way asserts or implies that wealth consti- tutes the sole ground of preference of one thing over another r and that happiness is best promoted by sacrificing on each occasion all other con- siderations to that of profit, he is then deserving of censure for the doctrine he inculcates ; but it is remarkable that this censure will be incurred by a procedure the very opposite of the one complained of. His fault will have been his not confining himself to questions relating merely to wealth, but travelling out of his record, as it is called, to decide, and decide erroneously, as to what conduces to public happiness. His proper inquiry was, as to the means by which wealth may be preserved or increased ; to inquire how far wealth is desirable, is to go out of his proper province ; to represent it as the only thing de- sirable, is an error, not in Political-Economy, but apart from it ; and arises, not from his toa 21 close adherence to his own subject, but from his wandering into extraneous discussions. I could wish, therefore, that the complaint against Political-Economists of confining them- selves to the considerations of wealth were better founded than it is; for there is nothing thaf tends more to perplexity and error than the practice of treating of several different subjects at the same time, and confusedly, so as to be perpetually sliding from one inquiry to another, of -different kinds. Not, however, that I mean at all to object to the incidental notice by writers on Political- Economy of matters closely allied to, yet forming no part of, the inquiries properly belonging to this science. In questions appertaining to any other branch of politics, or of the philosophy of the human mind, they may be right, or they may be wrong, in their conclusions themselves, yet without introducing any indistinctness and con- fusion into their own proper course of inquiry, provided they are but careful to keep the dif- ferent subjects apart. A digressive discussion, in short, of any point, is not necessarily objection- 22 able, if it be so introduced as not to lose sight of the circumstance that it is a digression. The same sort of complaint, which I have been speaking of as having been urged against the writers who have treated of this science, has sometimes been brought against the study itself. Since wealth, it is urged, is not happiness, and since it is only one out of the many subjects which lawgivers or governors have to consider, a science which has wealth for its subject, is unworthy of so dignified a title, and beneath the attention of a philosophical mind : especially, it is added, since men are in general prone rather to an excess than a deficiency in the pursuit of gain. To the former part of this objection it may be sufficient to reply, that we are more likely to advance in knowledge, by treating of one subject at a time, than by blending together several dis- tinct inquiries ; though all may centre in the one common ultimate end, of human happiness. Even the building and fitting up of a house is a work entrusted to a number of distinct artisans, though their labours all tend to one common end, the 23 comfort of the inhabitant. Much more may it be expected, that in the pursuit of so complex an object as human good, universally, our in- quiries will be as vague and unprofitable as those of the Platonists after their aM rayaflov, unless we divide them according to the different branches of the subject, and keep steadily in view not merely the general end of them all, but the immediate end of each. This remark, in sub- stance, was expressed several years ago, in rela- tion to another subject, by one of our most illustrious professors, with a neatness and pre- cision which cannot be surpassed : " omnium haec " est laus artium ut hominum utilitatibus inser- " viant atqui non nobis inquirendum est, <{ quid omnibus sit commune, sed quid cuique " proprium." Whether we choose, after the example of the Greek philosophers, to speak of the Political science as having for its object Human Good universally, or whether we understand Politics in the more limited sense which is now the mbre usual, as relating to public affairs contradistin- guished from those of individuals; in either case, Political-Economy will be one branch of Political* 24 science ; of which all branches are worthy of at- tention, and each demands a separate attention. And as there is no department of knowledge con- nected with the public welfare, that is undeserv- ing of attentive study, so, the one now before us is perhaps the more suitable for an academical course of instruction in an endowed University, from the circumstance that it is not, like Law or the Military art, &c. the subject of a strictly pro- fessional education. Many of the arts most essen- ' tial to society, need no artificial stimulus to their cultivation, because they are such that the success in life of individuals is clearly connected with their (real or supposed) proficiency in those branches of knowledge, by the exercise of which they are to be maintained. But the regulation of public affairs, in which most of the higher and a large proportion of the middle and lower classes in this country have a greater or less share, is not an art learned in any course of regular professional education, but is too often exercised by those who have to learn it (if they learn it at all) in practice, from a series of ex- periments, of which the nation must abide the peril. Now it is precisely those branches of 25 study, the cultivation of which is expedient for the public, but to which the self-interest of individuals would not lead them it is these, I say, that most demand the attention of a Univer- sity ; unless at least we suppose them the gift of nature, or of inspiration. As for the latter part of the objection above noticed, that men are already too eager in the pursuit of wealth, and ought not to be encouraged to make it an object of attention, the mistake on which it proceeds is one which you will meet with only in the young, (I mean, either in years, or in character,) and which you will readily re- move in the case of those who are even moderately intelligent and attentive. You may easily explain to them that Political-Economy is not the art of enriching an individual, but relates to Wealth generally ; to that of a nation, and not to that of an individual, except in those cases where his acquisition of it goes to enrich the community. You may point out to them that wealth has no more necessary connexion with the vice of covet- ousness, than with the virtue of charity ; since it merely forms the subject-matter about which the one as well as the other of these is concerned : 26 and that investigations relative to the nature, production, and distribution of wealth, have no greater connexion with sordid selfishness, than the inquiries of the chemist and the physiologist respecting the organs and the process of diges- tion and absorption of nutriment, have with gluttonous excess. And you may add, that in- dividuals the most destitute of systematic know- ledge, and nations not only ignorant but compara- tively poor, are at least as prone to avarice as any others. The Arabs are among the poorest, and the most covetous, of nations ; and most of those savage tribes, who have not even the use of money, are addicted to pilfering and plunder of every thing that is wealth to them. The mistake, however, which I have now been noticing is evidently the result of such com- plete thoughtlessness, that you will not probably find it necessary to bestow much pains on its refutation. As for the degree and the manner in which Wealth is connected with national happiness this, as well as the points of contact between a knowledge of this subject, and our moral and 27 religious duties the relation again in which it stands to Natural-theology and again, the sources from which our knowledge of it is to be derived all these are points respecting which more serious misapprehensions prevail ; and which therefore, requiring to be dwelt on at some- what greater length, must be reserved for future Lectures. LECTURE II. IN adverting, as I did in my last Lecture, to the mistake respecting the branch of knowledge we are considering, of supposing, that because it relates to wealth, it must have a tendency to encourage avarice, I fear I may have appeared to bestow undue attention on an error too palpable to be of importance. But I must claim your indulgence for occupying yet a little more of your time in suggesting refutations of ob- jections, which at first sight might seem not worth refuting, but w r hich you will find by experience are too prevalent to be in prudence passed by. That Political-Economy should have been com- plained of as hostile to Religion, will probably be regarded a century hence (should the fact be then on record) with the same wonder, almost approaching to incredulity, with which we of 30 the present day hear of men sincerely opposing, on religious grounds, the Copernican system. But till the advocates of Christianity shall have become universally much better acquainted with the true character of their religion, than, univer- sally, they have ever yet been, we must always expect that every branch of study, every scien- tific theory, that is brought into notice, will be assailed on religious grounds, by those who either have not studied the subject, or who are in- competent judges of it ; or again, who are addressing themselves to such persons as are so circumstanced, and wish to excite and to take advantage of the passions of the ignorant. " Flectere si nequeo Superos, Acheronta movebo." Some there are who sincerely believe that the Scriptures contain revelations of truths the most distinct from religion. Such persons procured ac- cordingly a formal condemnation (very lately re- scinded) of the theory of the earth's motion, as at variance with Scripture. In Protestant countries, and now, it seems, even in Popish, this point has been conceded ; but that the erroneous principle that of appealing to Revelation on questions of physical science has not yet been entirely cleared away, is evident from the ob- jections, which most of you probably may have heard, to the researches of Geology. The objections against Astronomy have been aban- doned, rather, perhaps, from its having been made to appear that the Scripture accounts of the phenomena of the heavens may be reconciled with the conclusions of Science, than from its being understood that Scripture is not the test by which the conclusions of Science are to be tried. And accordingly when attention was first called to the researches of Geology, many who were startled at the novelty of some of the conclusions drawn, and yet were averse to enter on a new field of study, or found themselves incapable of maintaining many notions they had been accustomed to acquiesce in, betook them- selves at once to Scripture, and reviled the students of Geology as hostile to Revelation ; in the same manner as, in Pagan and Popish countries, any one who is conscious of crime or of debt, flies at once to the altar, and shelters himself in the sanctuary. It is true, doctrines may be maintained on" subjects indeed distinct from religion, but which 32 'nevertheless would, if admitted, go to invalidate Scripture. If, for instance, it could be demon- strated, that mankind could not possibly have descended from a single pair, such a conclusion, no doubt, would go far to shake the foundation of our religion. But even in such cases, I would utterly protest against an appeal to Scrip- ture, as Scripture I mean, as a series of inspired writings with a view to the refutation of such theories ; not even though we might begin by establishing generally the claim of these writings to our belief. Still, we ought to employ them for their own proper purpose ; which is to reveal to us religious and moral truths. Histo- rical or physical truths may be established by their own proper evidence ; and this, therefore, is the course we are bound to pursue. A Christian will indeed feel antecedently a strong persuasion that such conclusions as I have been speaking of, or any others which are really inconsistent with the Bible, never will be established ; that any theory seemingly at variance with it, will either be found deficient in evidence, or else reconcile- able with the Scriptures. But it is not a sign of Faith on the contrary, it indicates rather a 33 want of faith, or else a culpable indolence, to decline meeting any theorist on his own ground, and to cut short the controversy by an appeal to the authority of Scripture. For if we really are convinced of the truth of Scripture, and consequently of the falsity of any theory, (of the earth, for instance,) which is really at variance with it, we must needs believe that that theory is also at variance with observable phenomena ; and we ought not therefore to shrink from trying that question by an appeal to these. The success of such an appeal will then add to the evidence for the truth of the Scriptures, instead of burdening them with the weight of defending every point which they incidentally imply. It is for us to ' ' behave ourselves valiantly for our country and for the cities of our God," instead of bringing the Ark of God into the field of battle to fight for us. He will, at all events, we may be sure, defend his own cause, and finally lay prostrate the Dagon of infidelity; but we, his professed defenders, more zealous in reality for our own honour than for his, shall deserve to be smitten before the Philistines. I have said, that the object of the Scriptures is 34 to reveal to us religious and moral truths ; but even this, as far as regards the latter, must be admitted with some modification God has not revealed to us a system of morality such as would have been needed for a Being, who had no other means of distinguishing right and wrong. On the contrary, the inculcation of virtue and repro- bation of vice in Scripture are in such a tone as seem to presuppose a natural power, or a capa- city for acquiring the power, to distinguish them. And if a man denying or renouncing all claims of natural conscience, should practise without scruple every thing he did not find expressly for- bidden in Scripture, and think himself not bound to do any thing that is not there expressly en- joined, exclaiming at every turn, " Is it so written in the Bond?" he would be leading a life very unlike what a Christian's should be. There is no moral formula more frequently cited, and with more deserved admiration, than that maxim of doing to others as we would have them do to us : and, as Paley observes, no one probably ever was in practice led astray by it. Yet if we imagine this maxim 35 placed before a Being destitute of all moral faculty, and attempting to learn, from this, what morality is, he would evidently interpret it as implying, that we are to do whatever we should wish for, if in another's place ; which would lead to innumerable absurdities, and in many cases to absolute impossibilities ; since, in many cases, our conduct will affect two or more parties, whose wishes are at variance with each other. A judge, for instance, before whom there might be a cause to be tried, would feel that both parties wished, each, for a decision in his own favour ; which would be manifestly impossible. But in practice, every one feels, that what he is bound to do, is, not necessarily what would be agreeable to his inclinations, were he in the other's place, but what he would think he might justly and reason- ably expect. Now this very circumstance implies his having already a notion of what is just and reasonable. The use he is to make of the for- mula, is, not for the acquiring of these general principles, but for the application of them, in those cases where self-interest would be the most likely to blind him. Since then we are bound to use our own D2 36 natural faculties in the search after all truth that is within the reach of those faculties, most espe- cially ought we to try by their own proper evidence, questions which form no part of Reve- lation properly so called, but which are inci- dentally alluded to in the sacred writings. If we appeal to the Scriptures on any such points, it should be merely as to an ancient book, not in reference to their sacred character ; in short, not as Scripture \ And this, as I have said, holds good even in respect of such physical or other theories as would, if received, clearly militate against re- ligion. They may be, and they therefore should be, refuted on other grounds. Much less should we resort to Scripture, as Scripture, in the dis- cussion of questions not involving the truth of Christianity. So far however are many persons from acting on this principle, that the course they habitually adopt, whenever any opinion is broached in which they do not concur, is that of attempting to prove, or still oftener by assuming, that it is adverse to religion ; thus endeavouring 11 See Hinds on Inspiration, p. 152. 37 to create an odious association with whatever they dislike. What I have said of the Bible's not having been designed to give such full instruction in morals as should supersede all other, will not be thought irrelevant to the present subject, by those who are aware that Political-Economy has been actually censured by some, as being connected with human conduct, and yet not professing to be drawn from Scripture. In physical science, (it has been said,) we are to trust our own natural powers ; but in the regulation of our conduct, the Bible is the only sure guide ; and a system which professes an independence of this guide, in human affairs, is to be regarded as something unholy. To such objectors (and, however strange it may seem, you may meet with such) you may easily explain, if they can be brought candidly to ex- amine the character and design of Revelation, that its object is to furnish principles motives encouragement means of assistance in the per- formance of duty ; but no such detailed directions, even in cases where moral right and wrong are concerned, as shall supersede the exercise of reflection, observation, and discretion. You may 38 point out to them, for instance, that the Scriptures enjoin Charity to the poor ; but give no directions as to the best mode of administering our charity ; now it is evident that all different modes of attempt- ing to relieve distress are not equally effectual ; and that those which are altogether injudicious may even lead to more suffering than they remedy. Again, Justice is inculcated in Scripture, as well as by natural conscience ; but in public affairs it often happens, that it is public expediency that determines what particular course is just. It is just, for instance, that all the individuals of a com- munity should bear their share of the burden of contributing to any object essential to the public good ; but if the object were one beneficial to a small portion only of the community, it would be unjust that, these should be benefited at the expense of all the rest : here therefore the ques- tion of just and unjust, turns upon that of public expediency. And on this point errors may easily arise, by mistaking the interest of a few for that of the State. " Qui autem (says Cicero) parti C civium consulunt, partem negligunt, rem per- " niciosissirnam in civitatem inducunt, seditionem " atque discordiam." No legislator indeed whose 39 intention was upright, would knowingly and de- signedly sacrifice the public good to that of a particular party or class of men ; but he may do so unknowingly, even with the best intentions, from not perceiving in what way this or that enact- ment affects the community ; and thus, without any unjust design, may sanction an unjust mea- sure. And it may be added, that though free from the guilt of wilful injustice, he will be much to blame for doing ignorantly what is in itself unjust, if that ignorance be the result of careless- ness or of obstinate prejudice : *#* y*% In at/rf TS ayvoslv xoXa^oixnv, lav ctirws slvou oxjj Ty$ ayvo/af b . To speak then comprehensively, it is a Chris- tian duty to do good to our fellow-creatures, both in their spiritual and in their temporal con- cerns : and if so, it must be also a duty to study, to the best of our ability, to understand in what their good consists, and how it is to be promoted. To represent therefore any branch of such study as inconsistent with Christianity, is to make Chris- tianity inconsistent with itself. He who should acknowledge himself bound to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and visit the sick and u Arist. Eth. b. iii. c. 5. 40 prisoners, would not be acting consistently with his profession, if he should, through inatten- tion or prejudice, or any other cause, sanc- tion any measure that tended to increase those sufferings ; or oppose, or neglect to support, any that tended to diminish them. The goods of this world are by no means a trifling concern to Christians considered as Christians. Whether indeed we ourselves shall have enjoyed a large or a small share of them, will be of no import- ance to us a hundred years hence ; but it will be of the greatest importance, whether we shall have employed the faculties and opportunities, granted to us, in the increase and diffusion of those benefits among others. You will hear it said indeed, with undeniable truth, that wealth is not necessarily a benefit to the possessor. No more is liberty, or health, or strength, or learning. But again you will also meet with some who contend, that a poor country is more favourably situated for virtue than a rich one ; and with others who, without going this length, maintain, that as with indi- viduals, so with nations, a certain degree of wealth is desirable, but an excess, dangerous to 41 the moral character. Either or both of these points, you may concede for the present ; i. e. waive the discussion of them, as far as regards the question concerning the importance of the study we are speaking of. For if it be granted that we are to dread as an evil the too great increase of national wealth, or, that wealth is altogether an evil; still, it is not the less ne- cessary to study the nature of wealth, its pro- duction, the causes that promote or impede its increase, and the laws which regulate its dis- tribution. We should go to the fountain-head of the waters, whether we wish to spread them abundantly over our land, or to drain them en- tirely away, or to moderate and direct the irriga- tion. If wealth, or great wealth, be regarded as a disease, we should remember that bodily diseases are made the subject of laborious and minute inquiry by physicians, as necessary with a view to their prevention and cure. Formerly, nearly all practitioners recommended inoculation with small-pox ; though the practice had been much opposed at its first introduction ; now, they are almost unanimous in preferring vacci- nation ; but in any stage of either of the con- 42 troversies which arose respecting these modes of practice, a man would have been thought insane, who should have questioned the import- ance of studying the nature, symptoms, and effects of small-pox. As for the doctrine itself, that national wealth is morally mischievous as introducing luxury, (in the worst sense of the word,) effeminacy, pro- fligacy of manners, and depravation of principle, it has been inculcated in a loose declamatory way, by a great number of moralists, who have depicted in glowing colours the amiable simpli- city of character, the manly firmness, and the purity of conduct, to be met with in nations that continue in primitive poverty ; and the degeneracy that has ensued in those which have emerged from this state into one of comparative wealth. Almost all these writers furnish a strong confirmation of what has been just advanced ; viz. that whether wealth be a good or an evil, or each, according to the amount of it on any supposition, it is still no less a matter of im- portance to examine and carefully arrange the facts relating to the subject, and to reason ac- curately upon it, if we would avoid self-contra- 43 diction. For you will often find men declaiming on the evils consequent on wealth, and yet, in the next breath, condemning or applauding this or that measure, according to its supposed tendency to impoverish or to enrich the country. You will find them not only readily accepting wealth themselves from any honourable source, and anxious to secure from poverty their children and all most dear to them ; (for this might be referred to the prevalence of passion over prin- ciple;) but even offering up solemn prayers to heaven for the prosperity of their native country; and contemplating with joy a flourishing condition of her agriculture, manufactures, or commerce; in short, of the sources of her Wealth. Nor is even this the utmost point to which you will find some carry their inconsistency ; for you will meet with objections to Political-Economy, (meaning thereby either some particular doctrines maintained by this or that writer, or else, all systematic attention to the subject,) on the ground that it has for its object the increase of wealth, which is hurtful; and again, that a country which is governed according to its prin- ciples, is likely to be impoverished by them. 44 Now the most erroneous doctrines in Political - Economy that ever were promulgated, (and very erroneous ones certainly have prevailed,) can hardly be chargeable with loth these conse- quences. The same system cannot at once tend to make us rich, and also to make us poor. Such inconsistencies as these do not shew so much an incapacity for correct reasoning, as (what I believe is much more common) an unthinking carelessness, and a habit of stringing together well- sounding sentences, and readily listening to them, without taking the trouble to reflect on their meaning. Eloquent declamation is, to the generality, easier, either to compose, or to follow, than close argument. Seneca's discourses in praise of poverty would, I have no doubt, be rivalled by many writers of this Island, if one half of the revenue he drew from the then inhabitants of it, by lending them money at high interest, were proposed as a prize. I have said that most of the moralists who have represented wealth as unfavourable to vir- tue, have been guilty of the inconsistency of also advocating every measure or institution that tends to the increase of wealtH. There is one 45 remarkable exception, in an author now little known except by name, but whose writings attracted great attention in their day; Dr. Man- deville ; whose Fable of the Bees, or " Private Vices public benefits," was received by the world as a most alarming novelty. The novelty however was more in the form and tone of the work, than in the matter of it. He was indeed a man of an acute and original, though not very systematic or comprehensive, turn of mind ; but his originality was shewn chiefly in bringing into juxtaposition, notions which, separately, had long been current, (and indeed are not yet quite obsolete,) but whose inconsistency had escaped detection. He is usually believed to have deliberately designed to recommend vice. In his second volume, (which is rather a scarce book, but very well worth reading,) he most solemnly disclaims any such intention, and protests, (I must say with an air of great sincerity,) that his object was to refute those against whom he was writing, by a reductio ad absurdum. Of his intentions, however, we have no means of forming a de- cisive judgment ; nor if we had, would that 46 question be to the purpose. It is sufficient to remark, that he is arguing all along on an hypothesis, and on one not framed gratuitously by himself, but furnished him by others ; and on that hypothesis he is certainly triumphant. That if such and such things are respectively vices and virtues, as had been represented, and if national wealth and greatness are desirable, and if such and such means are conducive to this object, then, private vices must be public bene- fits, is proved to be not only an undeniable, but almost an identical, proposition. His argu- ment does not go to shew categorically that vice ought to be encouraged, but hypothetically, that, if the notions which were afloat were admitted, respecting the character of virtue and vice, and respecting the causes and consequences of wealth, then national virtue and national wealth must be irreconcilable ; or, as he expresses it, " Fools only strive " To make a great, an honest hive:' 7 and consequently, that of two incompatible ob- jects, we must be content to take one, or the other. Which of the two is to be preferred, he 47 no where decides in his first volume ; in his second, he solemnly declares his opinion, that wealth ought to be renounced, as incompatible with virtue. Adam Smith, in his Theory of Moral Senti- ments, gives an account of this system, contain- ing some very just remarks, though I do not think he fully understood Mandeville, partly, per- haps, from having, as it appears, never met with this second volume. I will read an extract from the section, the whole of which is well worth atten- tive study. It exposes very well many of the fallacies which are to be found in the book, though they are not the author's own, but bor- rowed from his opponents. " Dr. Mandeville considers whatever is done from a sense of propriety, from a regard to what is commendable and praiseworthy, as being done from a love of praise and commendation, or as he calls it from vanity. Man, he observes, is naturally much more interested in his own hap- piness than in that of others, and it is impossible that in his heart he can ever really prefer their prosperity to his own. Whenever he appears to do so, we may be assured that he imposes upon 48 us, and that he is then acting from the same selfish motives as at all other times. Among his other selfish passions, vanity is one of the strongest, and he is always easily flattered and greatly delighted with the applauses of those about him. When he appears to sacrifice his own interest to that of his companions, he knows that this conduct will be highly agreeable to their self-love, and that they will not fail to express their satisfaction by bestowing upon him the most extravagant praises. The pleasure which he expects from this, over-balances, in his opinion, the interest which he abandons in order to procure it. His conduct, therefore, upon this occasion, is in reality just as selfish, and arises from just as mean a motive as upon any other. He is flattered, however, and he flatters himself with the belief that it is entirely disinterested ; since, unless this was supposed, it would not seem to merit any commendation either in his own eyes or in those of others. All public spirit, therefore, all preference of public to private interest, is, according to him, a mere cheat and imposition upon mankind ; and that human virtue which is so much boasted of, and 49 which is the occasion of so much emulation among men, is the mere offspring of flattery begot upon pride." " Whether the most generous and public- spirited actions may not, in some sense, be regarded as proceeding from self-love, I shall not at present examine. The decision of this question is not, I apprehend, of any importance towards establishing the reality of virtue, since self-love may frequently be a virtuous motive of action. I shall only endeavour to shew, that the desire of doing what is honourable and noble, of rendering ourselves the proper objects of esteem and approbation, cannot with any pro- priety be called vanity." *######****##::* 44 It is the great fallacy of Dr. Mandeville's book to represent every passion as wholly vicious, which is so in any degree and in any direction. It is thus that he treats every thing as vanity, which has any reference either to what are, or to what ought to be, the sentiments of others : and it is by means of this sophistry, that he establishes his favourite conclusion, that pri- vate vices are public benefits. If the love of E 50 magnificence, a taste for the elegant arts and improvements of human life, for whatever is agreeable in dress, furniture, or equipage, for architecture, statuary, painting, and music, is to be regarded as luxury, sensuality, and ostenta- tion, even in those whose situation allows, with- out any inconveniency, -the indulgence of those passions, it is certain that luxury, sensuality, and ostentation are public benefits : since with- out the qualities upon which he thinks proper to bestow such opprobrious names, the arts of refinement could never find encouragement, and must languish for want of employment. Some popular ascetic doctrines which had been current before his time, and which placed virtue in the entire extirpation and annihilation of all our passions, were the real foundation of this licentious system. It was easy for Dr. Man- deville to prove, first, that this entire conquest never actually took place among men ; and secondly, that if it was to take place universally, it would be pernicious to society, by putting an end to all industry and commerce, and in a manner to the whole business of human life. By the first of these propositions, he seemed 51 to prove that there was no real virtue, and that what pretended to be such, was a mere cheat and imposition upon mankind ; and by the second, that private vices were public benefits, since without them no society could prosper or flourish. " Such is the system of Dr. Mandeville, which once made so much noise in the world, and which, though, perhaps, it never gave occasion to more vice than what would have been without it, at least taught that vice, w r hich arose from other causes, to appear with more effrontery, and to avow the corruption of its motives with a profligate audaciousness which had never been heard of before a ." The conclusion, however, that private vices are public benefits, is maintained, as I have said, by Mandeville, only hypothetically ; viz. on the assumption, that national wealth is unfavourable to virtue, and poverty the best security against corruption of morals. This assumption is the great principle of his work ; which, I wish to be remembered, in order that I may be clearly " Vol. i. p. 545547, and 553555. K 2 52 understood, whenever I may employ, as I probably shall have occasion to do, for brevity's sake, the word " Mandevillians," to denote those who' em- brace this principle. I do not mean to confine it to such as assent to every-thing contained in the book ; nor indeed to such as have read it, or even heard of it ; much less, to those (if there be any such) who seriously profess to advocate vice ; since there is no ground for asserting that this was even the author's own design ; but I apply the term (for the sake of avoiding circum- locution) to those who have adopted, from whatever quarter, the fundamental doctrine on which the whole argument rests the incom- patibility or discordancy of national Wealth, and Virtue. In discussing any question that may arise respecting this doctrine, it is important in the first place, steadily to keep in mind, what has been already remarked, that it does not at all affect the question as to the utility of the studies we are now considering ; since, whether wealth be a good, or an evil, or partly both, the knowledge of all that relates to it is not the less important. This, self-evident as it is, is usually 53 lost sight of by the Mandevillians of the present day; who are accustomed to disparage Political- Economy, on the ground that an increase of wealth is rather to be deprecated than sought for. This, if admitted, is so far from proving that the subject is unworthy of systematic attention, that it proves the very contrary. It would indeed follow, that those particular writers are erroneous, who recommend any measure to be adopted on the ground of its conducing to wealth ; but what is to be shunned, is not less important than what is to be sought a . If they were to maintain that wealth is a thing altogether indifferent, which can produce neither good nor evil results of any magnitude, then, and then only, they might infer, that it is too insignificant to deserve notice. In fact, the whole question respecting the desirableness and ultimate advantages or dis- advantages of wealth, is, as I formerly remarked, only obliquely and incidentally connected with Political-Economy ; whose strict object is to inquire only into the nature, production, and d Kflw yg TO, xotx.cc, xott TotyotQci, #|<# olofAidot, G-TTOV^<; ilvoct, noil rot yrVVTllVOVTCt 9T0$ TOWTCt,' VTOt, ^2 ^JJ^gV, 9} TTciw fAMgCt,, 6V$lV6g #f<6 . Arist Rhet. ii. 3. 54 distribution of wealth ; not, its connexion with virtue or with happiness. In a treatise, for in- stance, on ship-building, or on navigation, it would be a digression, (though not a trifling and imper- tinent one,) if the author should inquire concerning the advantages and disadvantages of a communi- cation between countries separated by the sea ; and how far we should adopt as a maxim the expression of the poet, " Deus abscidit " Prudens, Oceano dissociabili " Terras." This, I say, would not be an absurd or im- proper digression, if the author were but careful to point out, that his own proper subject was, the construction or management, not the utility, t)f a ship. Taking care then not to lose sight of the inci- dental and digressive character of the inquiry, you may next turn the objector 's attention to the distinction between an individual aud a community, when viewed as possessing a remarkable share of wealth. The two cases differ immensely, as far as the moral effects of wealth are concerned. For, first, 55 the most besetting probably of all temptations, to which a rich man, as such, is exposed, is that of pride an arrogant disdain of those poorer than himself. Now, as all our ideas of great and small, in respect of wealth, and of every thing else, are comparative, and as each man is disposed to compare himself with those around him, it is plain, the danger of priding one's self on wealth affects exclusively, or nearly so, an individual who is rich, compared with his own countrymen ; and especially one who is richer than most of others in his own walk of life, and who reside in his own neighbourhood. Some degree of national pride there may be, connected with national wealth ; but this is not in general near so much the foundation of national pride, as a supposed superiority in valour, or in mental cultivation: and at any rate it seldom comes into play. An Englishman who is poor, compared with other Englishmen, is not likely to be much puffed up with pride at the thought of belonging to a wealthy community. Nay, even though he should actually possess property, which among the people of Timbuctoo, or the aboriginal Britons, would be reckoned great wealth, he will be more 56 likely to complain of his poverty than to be filled with self-congratulation at his wealth, if most of those of his own class are as rich or richer than himself. And even one who travels or resides abroad, does not usually regard with disdain (on the score of w r ealth at least) those foreigners who are individually as well off in that respect as himself, though their nation may be poorer than his. And, on the other hand, those individuals who, in a poor country, are comparatively rich, are quite as much exposed as any to the tempt- ation of pride. As for what may be said respecting avarice, selfishness, worldly-mindedness, &c. it may suf- fice to reply, that not only (as I have already remarked) these vices are found as commonly in poor countries as in rich, but even in the same country, the poor are not at all less liable to them than the rich. Those in affluent circum- stances may be absorbed in the pursuit of gain ; but they may also, and sometimes do, devote themselves altogether to Literature, or Science, or other pursuits, altogether remote from this: those, on the other hand, who must maintain themselves by labour or attention to business, are at least not less liable to the temptation of too anxiously taking thought for the morrow. Luxury again is one of the evils represented as consequent on wealth. The word is used in so many senses, and so often without attaching any precise meaning to it, that great confusion is apt to be introduced into any discussion in which it occurs. Without however entering prema- turely on any such discussion, it may be sufficient, as far as the present question is concerned, to point out, that the terms Luxury, and Luxurious, are considerably modified as to their force, ac- cording as they are applied to individuals or to nations. An individual man is called luxurious, in comparison with other men, of the same com- munity and in the same walk of life with him- self: a nation is called luxurious, in reference to other nations. The same style of living which would be reckoned moderate and frugal, or even penurious among the higher orders, would be censured as extravagant luxury in a day-labourer: and the labourer again, if he lives in a cottage with glass windows and a chimney, and wears shoes and stockings, and a linen or cotton shirt, is not said to live in luxury, though he possesses what 58 would be thought luxuries to a negro-prince. A rich nation therefore does not necessarily contain more individuals who live in luxury (according to the received use of the word) than a poor one ; but it possesses more of such things as would be luxuries in the poor country, while in the rich one, they are not. The inclination for self- indulgence and ostentation, is not necessarily less strong in poor than in rich nations ; the chief difference is, that their luxury is of a coarser description, and generally has more connection with gross sensuality. Barbarians are almost in- variably intemperate, As for the effeminizing effects that have been .attributed to national luxury, which has been charged with causing a decay of national energy, mental and bodily, no such results appear trace- able to any such cause. Xenophon indeed attributes the degeneracy of the Persians to the inroads of luxury, which was carried, he says, to such a pitch of effeminacy, that they even adopted the use of gloves to protect their hands. We probably have gone as much beyond them, in respect of the common style of living among us, as they, beyond their rude forefathers ; yet 59 it will hardly be maintained that this nation dis- plays, in the employments either of war or peace, less bodily or mental energy than our Anglo- Saxon ancestors. In bodily strength, it has been ascertained by accurate and repeated ex- periments, that civilized men are decidedly supe- rior to savages, and that the more barbarous, and those who lead a harder life, are generally in- ferior in this point to those who have made more approaches to civilization. There is indeed, in such a country as this, a larger proportion of feeble and sickly individuals ; but this is because the hardship and exposure of a savage life speedily destroys those who are not of a robust constitution. Some there are, no doubt, whose health is impaired by an over-indulgent and tender mode of life ; but as a general rule, it may safely be maintained, that the greater part of that over-proportion of infirm persons among us as compared, for instance, with the North American Indians, owe, not their infirmity, but their life, to the difference between our habits and theirs. Lastly, one of the most important points of distinction between individuals and nations in 60 respect of wealth, is that which relates to in- dustry and idleness. Rich men are indeed often most laboriously and honourably active ; but they may, and sometimes do, spend their lives in such idleness as cannot be found among the poor, excepting in the class of beggars. A rich nation, on the contrary, is always an industrious nation ; and almost always more industrious than poor ones. Without entering therefore prematurely into the consideration of the manner and degree in which wealth and industry mutually promote each other, you may be satisfied with simply pointing out their connexion; so as to remove all apprehensions that may be entertained, on that score, of the demoralizing effects of national wealth. Since then the dangers, you may add, at- tendant on the acquisition or possession of wealth, have reference chiefly, if not entirely, to the case of individuals, and to them, not less in a poor than in a rich community, while national wealth has little or nothing of such dangers to counterbalance its advantages ; and since almost every one thinks himself even 61 bound, in the case of a private friend, notwith- standing the dangers thus incurred, to enrich him, by honourable means, if he has the oppor- tunity; much more, in the case of that collection of friends which we call our Country, will a patriotic spirit lead us to promote national wealth when it does not interfere with more important objects. But is there (it may be asked) any one that ever seriously doubted this ? Judging from men's conduct, I should say, No. Many measures indeed have been advocated, which really tend to impoverish the country many opposed, which tend to enrich it ; but never, on those grounds. It has been always from their tendency being, at least professedly, understood to be the reverse. Much lavish expenditure again has often been recommended for inadequate objects ; but always on the ground that the object was adequate. I never heard of any one, even of those who in theory deprecate the increase of national wealth as an evil, being consistent enough in practice to advocate any measure on the ground that it tends to destroy wealth, and for that express purpose ; or to oppose a measure on the 62 ground that it will too much enrich the country. The fact is, the declaimers against wealth are, by their own shewing, mere declaimers, and nothing more ; who, rather than say nothing, will say what militates against their own con- clusions. They recommend or oppose measures, as conducive, or as adverse, to national wealth : and then if their arguments are tried by the test of well-established principles, and they are ex- horted systematically to study these principles, and, before they attempt to discuss questions connected with wealth, to bestow a regular at- tention on the subject, they turn round and inveigh against such a study because it has wealth for its subject, and wealth is a pernicious thing : which would not lessen the importance of such studies, if it were true ; and which they them- selves have practically admitted, is not true. They resemble the Harpies of Virgil, seeking to excite disgust at the banquet, of which they are nevertheless eager to partake. And as soon as one set of objections are refuted, the same as- sailants are ready to renew their clamorous attack from an opposite and unexpected quarter : 63 " Rursuiu ex diverso cvteli, caecisque latebris, " Turba sonans, pedibus praedam circumvolat unoisj " Polluit ore dapes." I can suggest no argument by which you can 1 either convince those who care nothing for self- contradiction, or silence those who are bent on the , display of mere eloquence. " Neque vim plumis ullam, nee vulnera tergo * Adcipiunt." But for the sake of others, I have endeavoured to \ point out how you may clear away some of the fal- lacies thus scattered at random ; and which, though mutually destructive of each other, may cause impediments in the student's path to knowledge : even as the wreaths of snow tossed about for-^ tuitously by the blind fury of the winds, may form serious obstructions in the roads. On these grounds it may not be beneath your attention to explain fully some of the most obvious truths, which have thus become accidentally obscured ; -to bestow some pains in distinctly setting forth even a proposition in itself so simple, as, that national wealth, which, even if it were a serious evil, would demand serious attention, is 64 universally, and even by those who declaim against it, considered as a good. After all, indeed, in regard to wealth, as well as all those objects which the great moralist of antiquity places in the class of things good in themselves, (dn^s ayafla,) more depends, as he himself remarks, on the use we make of these bounties of Providence than on the advantages themselves. But they are in themselves food ; and it is our part, instead of affecting ungratefully to slight or to complain of God's gifts, to en- deavour to make them goods to us, (falv ayafla,) by studying to use them aright, and to promote, through them, the best interests of ourselves and our fellow-creatures. I shall hereafter, w T hen I come to treat of Political-Economy as connected with Natural- Theology, enter rather more fully into the con- sideration of the effects on society which have been produced, and of those which we may con- clude were designed to be produced, by the progress of wealth ; and also of the causes by which that progress, as well as the several effects of it, have been modified, promoted, or im- peded. 65 In my next Lecture, however, I shall be com- pelled to occupy your time with the notice of some of the mistakes that prevail respecting the study itself of Political- Economy, distinct from those relating to wealth which is the subject of it; and to the objections that have in consequence been raised, not against the pursuit of national wealth, but against the scientific contemplation of the subject. LECTURE III. SUPPOSING Wealth to be naturally, and con- sequently to have always been, an object of suffi- ciently strong desire to mankind, what need can there be, it may be said, to construct a Science, and an Art founded on that Science, relative to the subject? In a matter about which daily practice and daily observation are concerned, and have been, for so many ages, must not the common sense of judicious men, and the experi- ence of practical men, be preferable to the subtle systems of theoretical speculators ? Some again there are, who are far from re- garding with disdain the systematic study of the theory of wealth, who yet have no idea of reckoning it an important part of general educa- tion ; but as one necessary, perhaps, or useful, to those at the head of public affairs ; and to any others, a matter of mere curious speculation. F2 68 With respect to the prevailing fallacies con- nected with the term Common-sense, I have elsewhere remarked, that all who employ it with any distinct meaning, intend to denote by it " an exercise of the judgment unaided by any art or system of rules ; such as we must neces- sarily employ in numberless cases of daily oc- currence ; in which, having no established prin- ciples to guide us no line of procedure, as it were, distinctly chalked out we must needs act on the best extemporaneous conjectures we can form. He who is eminently skilful in doing this, is said to possess a superior degree of common- sense. But that common-sense is only our second-best guide that the rules of art, if judiciously framed, are always desirable when they can be had, is an assertion, for the truth of which I may appeal to the testimony of man- kind in general ; which is so much the more valuable, inasmuch as it may be accounted the testimony of adversaries. For the generality have a strong predilection in favour of common- sense, except in those points in which they, respectively, possess the knowledge of a system of rules ; but in these points they deride any 69 one who trusts to unaided common-sense. A sailor, for instance, will, perhaps, despise the pretensions of medical men, and prefer treating a disease by common-sense : but he would ri- dicule the proposal of navigating a ship by common-sense, without regard to the maxims of nautical art. A physician, again, will per- haps contemn systems of Political-Economy, of Logic, or Metaphysics, and insist on the superior wisdom of trusting to common-sense in such matters ; but he would never approve of trusting to common-sense in the treatment of diseases. Neither, again, would the architect recommend a reliance on common-sense alone in building, nor the musician in music, to the neglect of those systems of rules, which, in their respective arts, have been deduced from scientific reasoning aided by experience. And the induction might be extended to every department of practice. Since, therefore, each gives the preference to unassisted common-sense only in those cases where he himself has nothing else to trust to, and invariably resorts to the rules of art, where- ever he possesses the knowledge of them, it is plain that mankind universally bear their testi- mony, though unconsciously and often unwill- 70 ingly, to the preferableness of systematic know- ledge to conjectural judgments. 66 There is, however, abundant room for the employment of common-sense in the application of the systemV It may be added, that what was said in respect of Logic, holds good no less in the present subject, and indeed in most others; viz. that in the practical application of scientific principles there is abundant room for the employment of common-sense . There is no fear that we shall ever in practice have too little call for deliberation too little need of judicious conjecture. Science does not enable us to dispense with common-sense, but only to employ it more profitably ; nor does the best-instructed man necessarily deliberate the less ; only he exercises his deliberation on dif- ferent points from those that occupy the less- instructed ; and to better purpose ; he does not waste his mental powers in conjectures as to his road, when he has a correct map in his hand; b Logic, p. xiv xvi. v, says Aristotle, 7rtt rq 71 but he still has abundance of other inquiries to ? make as he travels over it. The adoption of the Arabic numerals and of the Algebraic symbols does not supersede calculation, but extends its, sphere. With respect to Experience again, which has been made the occasion of so much fallacy, by a careless and inaccurate mode of appealing to it, I have elsewhere remarked, that " in its original and strict sense, Experience is applicable to the premises from which we argue, not to the in- ference we draw. Strictly speaking, we know by experience only the past, and what has passed under our own observation ; thus, we know by experience that the tides have daily ebbed and flowed, during such a time ; and from the tes- timony of others as to their own experience, that they have formerly done so ; and from this experi- ence, we conclude, by induction, that the same phenomenon will continue ." And I have remarked, in another place, " that men are apt not to consider with sufficient at- tention, what it is that constitutes experience in each point ; so that frequently one man shall c Rhetoric, p. 73. 72 have credit for much experience, in what relates to the matter in hand, and another, who, per- haps, possesses as much, or more, shall be underrated as wanting it. The vulgar, of all ranks, need to be warned, first, that time alone does not constitute experience ; so that many years may have passed over a man's head, with- out his even having had the same opportunities of acquiring it, as another, much younger : secondly, that the longest practice in conducting any business in one way, does not necessarily confer any experience in conducting it in a different way ; for instance, an experienced husbandman, or minister of state, in Persia, would be much at a loss in Europe ; and if they had some things less to learn than an entire novice, on the other hand they would have much to unlearn : and, thirdly, that merely being conversant about a certain class of subjects, does not confer experi- ence in a case where the operations, and the end proposed, are different. It is said that there was an Amsterdam merchant, who had dealt largely in corn all his life, who had never seen a field of wheat growing; this man had doubtless acquired, by experience, an accurate judgment of the quali- 73 ties of each description of corn, of the best methods of storing it, of the arts of buying and selling it at proper times, &c.; but he would have been greatly at a loss in its cultivation ; though he had been, in a certain way, long con- versant about corn. Nearly similar is the ex- perience of a practised lawyer, (supposing him to be nothing more,) in a case of legislation; because he has been long conversant about law, the unreflecting attribute great weight to his judgment ; whereas his constant habits of fixing his thoughts on what the law is, and withdraw- ing it from the irrelevant question of what the law ought to be ; his careful observance of a multitude of rules, (which afford the more scope for the display of his skill, in proportion as they are arbitrary, unreasonable, and unaccountable,) with a studied indifference as to, that which is foreign from his business, the convenience or in- convenience of those rules, may be expected to operate unfavourably on his judgment in ques- tions of legislation : and are likely to counter- balance the advantages of his superior know- ledge, even in such points as do bear on the question. 74 "In matters connected with Political-Economy, the eooperience of practical men is often appealed to in opposition to those who are called theorists; even though the latter perhaps are deducing conclusions from a wide induction of facts, while the experience of the others will often be found only to amount to their having been long con- versant with the details of office, and having all that time gone on in a certain beaten track, from which they never tried, or witnessed, or even imagined, a deviation. " So also the authority derived from expe- rience of a practical miner, i. e. one who has wrought all his life in one mine, will sometimes delude a speculator into a vain search for metal or coal, against the opinion perhaps of theorists, i. e. persons of extensive geological observation d ." It may be added, that there is a proverbial r maxim which bears witness to the advantage sometimes possessed by an observant by-stander over those actually engaged in any transaction. "The looker-on often sees more of the game than the players." Now the looker-on is pre- cisely (in Greek ggo$) the theorist. d Rhetoric, part ii. ch. iii. . 5. 75 When then you find any one contrasting, in/ this and in other subjects, what he calls experi- ence, with theory, you will usually perceive on attentive examination that he is in reality com- paring the results of a confined, with that of a wider, experience ; a more imperfect and crude theory, with one more cautiously framed, and based on a more copious induction. It has been remarked by physicians, that no patient or nurse, however conscious of ignorance in medicine, and disavowing all design to theo- rize, can ever be brought to give such a descrip- tion of any case of sickness as shall involve no theory, but shall consist merely of a statement of what has actually presented itself to their senses. They will say, for instance, that the patient was disordered in consequence of this or that ; that he obtained relief from such and such an application, &c. all which is, in reality, theory. And hence medical writers very prudently inculcate a caution to the practitioner, to ascertain what are the habi- tual notions of his informant, in order that he may interpret aright the descriptions given. The fact is, that (not in what relates to medicine alone, but in all subjects) men are so formed 76 as (often unconsciously) to reason, whether well or ill, on the phenomena they observe, and to mix up their inferences with their statements of those phenomena, so as in fact to theorize (however scantily and crudely) without knowing it. If you will be at the pains carefully to analyze the simplest descriptions you hear of any transaction or state of things, you will find, that the process which almost invariably takes place is, in logical language, this ; that each individual has in his mind certain major-premises or principles, relative to the subject in question ; that observation of what actually presents itself to the senses, sup- plies minor-premises; and that the statement given (and which is reported as a thing expe- rienced) consists in fact of the conclusions drawn from the combinations of those premises. Hence it is that several different men, who have all had equal, or even the very same, ex- perience, i. e. have been witnesses or agents in the same transactions, will often be found to re- semble so many different men looking at the same book ; one perhaps, though he distinctly sees black marks on white paper, has never learned his letters ; another can read, but is a 77 stranger to the language in which the book is ! written ; another has an acquaintance with the language, but understands it imperfectly; another is familiar with the language, but is a stranger to the subject of the book, and wants power, or previous instruction, to enable him fully to take in the author's drift ; while another again per- fectly comprehends the whole. The object that strikes the eye is to all of 1 these persons the same ; the difference of the im- pressions produced on the mind of each is refer- able to the differences in their minds. And this explains the fact, that we find so much discrepancy in the results of what are called Experience and Common-sense, as contra- distinguished from theory. In former times men knew by experience, that the earth stands still, and the sun rises and sets. Common-sense taught them that there could be no antipodes, since men could not stand with their heads down- wards, like flies on the cieling. Experience taught the King of Bantum that water could not become solid. And (to come to the consideration of human affairs) the experience and common- sense of one of the most observant and intelligent 78 of historians, Tacitus, convinced him, that for a mixed government to be so framed as to combine the elements of Royalty, Aristocracy, and De- mocracy, must be next to impossible, and that if such a one could be framed, it must inevitably be very speedily dissolved. " Sed quid sequar ? aut quern ?" In points wherein all men agree, they may possibly be all in the right ; but where they are utterly at variance, some at least must be mis- taken. The illustrations, however, which I have given from other subjects are extremely inadequate ; for I know of none in which so much theory, and that, most paradoxical theory, has been in- corporated with experience, and passed off as a part of it, as in matters concerning Political-Eco- nomy. There is no other in which the most subtle refinements of a system (to waive, for the present, the question as to its soundness) have been, not merely admitted, but admitted as the dictates of common-sense. Many such para- doxes, as I allude to, (whether true or false, we will not now consider,) you may meet with in a 79 variety of authors of the present, but much more of the last and preceding centuries ; and may not unfrequently hear in conversation. That a state of war is favourable to national prosperity that it is advantageous to a nation to export goods of more value than it receives in return that we are losers by purchasing articles where we can get them cheapest that it is wise for a people to pay, on behalf of a foreign consumer, part of the price for which he purchases their com- modities that it is better to obtain the same results by much labour than by little that a man is a benefactor to the community by building himself a splendid palace and many other doc- trines that are afloat, may be truths, but they are at least paradoxical truths ; they may be abstruse and recondite wisdom ; at any rate, they are abstruse and recondite ; they may be sense, but at least they are not common-sense. And again, many conclusions maintained by men who have had much experience, of one kind or other, though they may be just conclusions, yet cannot be said to have been brought to the test of experience. For instance, that a country would be enriched, by having, what is called, a favour- 80 able balance of trade with all the world, i. e. by continually exporting more in value than the goods it imports, and consequently receiving the overplus year by year in money, and exporting none of that money this has been held by a great number of men, long conversant with public affairs, and so far, men of experience. But the doctrine itself, whether true or false, cannot be said to have been established by experience, because the experiment has never been tried. Many, indeed, have tried, for ages together, to bring about such a state of things ; but as it is noto- rious, that they have never succeeded that no country ever has been so circumstanced the experiment cannot be said to have ever been tried what would be the consequences of attaining such an object; nor can they therefore be said, (however right they may be as to the desirable- ness of the object,) to know by experience that it is conducive to prosperity. Such experiments, therefore, are like those of the Alchemists, who did indeed try innumerable, with a view to discover the philosopher's stone ; but cannot be said to have tried the experiment, whether that stone which converts all things into gold, 81 is, or is not, a universal medicine. That it is possible to find a method of transmuting metals, and that it would be connected with the art of healing, has never been disproved ; but one who believes this, however rightly, cannot be said to found his belief on experience. If, again, you should be told, that those who have long been conversant about any subject are likely to have exhausted it to have ascer- tained all that can be ascertained in it, and to have introduced every practicable improvement and if you are called on to produce instances to the contrary, you cannot perhaps employ better than the introduction of so seemingly obvious and simple a contrivance as that of the Arabic numerals, after so many ages during which in- genious men had been devoting their lives to the search after improvements in calculation. This is an instance of an Invention : a similar one of a Discovery, is that of the circulation of the blood, by Hervey; who came after such a multi- tude of physicians, occupied all their lives with the study of the animal frame, and in the daily habit of feeling the pulse. Neither of these novelties were struck out, like the improvements 82 in some sciences, through the aid of new instru- ments, or the casual discovery of new substances. Both lay, as it were, under our feet ; and yet for how many ages were they missed by common- sense, and experience, and science, both separate and united ! I have dwelt at greater length than perhaps may have appeared necessary, on some of the topics which you may have occasion to employ against the vague notions that are afloat respect- ing common-sense and experience; and by which you may shew the preferableness of systematic study, to judgments either founded on extem- poraneous conjecture, or distorted by popular prejudice; topics by which (to recur to a former illustration) men may be incited to learn to read the great book of human transactions which is before them, and to read it according to its true sense, not perverted by a blind acquiescence in the interpretation of unskilful commentators. But you must not expect that reason will univer- sally make its way: " remedia," says the medical aphorism, ct non agunt in cadaver:" those in whom indolence is combined with pride, will be induced, by the one, to remain in their position, 83 and, by the other, to fortify it as well as they can. I shall proceed to offer a few remarks on that very prevailing idea, that Political -Economy is a subject which may be studied by any one whose taste particularly leads him to it, but which (with the exception perhaps of a few who take a leading part in public affairs) may safely be disregarded by the generality, as by no means necessary to make up the character of a well-educated man. It may perhaps be conceded, that each should regulate his studies according to his own judg- ment and inclination, provided he will consent to refrain from taking a part in matters to which he has not directed his attention : but this at least seems an equitable condition: u H2 100 from overlooking or depreciating the advantages of the social union ; which yet they agreed in representing as not formed by men with a view to those advantages, but from an instinctive propensity : the one insisting, that if a philo- sopher could be furnished with a magic wand which would command all the necessaries and luxuries of life, he would still crave companions ; the other, that without society, though a man should possess all other goods, life would be not worth having a ; and that to be independent of associates, one must be either more or less than man : yj bio$ !j tyg. Yet the opinion to which they were opposed, has, in part, always found some advocates, even down to the present day. When I say, < in part," I mean, that though there are perhaps few or none who deny man to be by nature a social Being, incapable, except in a community, of exercising or developing his most important and most characteristic faculties, yet various parts of man's conduct as a member of society are often attributed to human fore- Eth. Nicom. book viii. 101 thought and design, which might with greater truth be referred to a kind of instinct, or some- thing analogous to it; which leads him, while pursuing some immediate personal gratification, to further an object not contemplated by him. In many cases we are liable to mistake for the wisdom of Man what is in truth the wisdom of God. In nothing, perhaps, will an attentive and can- did inquirer perceive more of this divine wisdom than in the provisions made for the progress of society. But in nothing is it more liable to be overlooked. In the bodily structure of Man we plainly perceive innumerable marks of wise con- trivance, in which it is plain that Man himself can have had no share. And again, in the results of instinct in brutes, although the animals them- selves are, in some sort, agents, we are sure that they not only could not originally have designed the effects they produce, but even afterwards have no notion of the contrivance by which these were brought about. But when human conduct tends to some desirable end, and we are compe- tent to perceive that the end is desirable, and the means well adapted to it, we are apt to forget, 102 that in the great majority of instances, those means were not devised, nor those ends proposed, by the persons who were the actual agents. Those who build and who navigate a ship, have usually, I conceive, no more thought about the national wealth and power, the natural refine- ments and comforts, dependent on the interchange of commodities, and the other results of com- merce, than they have of the purification of the blood in the lungs by the act of respiration, or than the bee has of the process of constructing a honeycomb. Most useful indeed to Society, and much to be honoured, are those who possess the rare moral and intellectual endowment of an enlightened public-spirit ; but if none did service to the Public except in proportion as they possessed this, Society I fear would fare but ill. Public- spirit, either in the form of Patriotism which looks to the good of a community, or in that of Philanthropy which seeks the good of the whole human race, implies, not merely benevolent feelings stronger than, in fact, we commonly meet with, but also powers of abstraction beyond what the mass of mankind can possess. As it is, many of 103 the most important objects are accomplished by the joint agency of persons who never think of them, nor have any idea of acting in concert ; and that, with a certainty, completeness, and regularity, which probably the most diligent be- nevolence under the guidance of the greatest human wisdom could never have attained. For instance, let any one propose to himself the problem of supplying with daily provisions of all kinds such a city as our metropolis, containing above a million of inhabitants. Let him imagine himself a head-commissary, entrusted with the office of furnishing to this enormous host their daily rations. Any considerable failure in the supply even for a single day, might produce the most frightful distress ; since the spot on which they are cantoned produces absolutely nothing. Some indeed of the articles consumed admit of being reserved in public or private stores, for a con- siderable time ; but many, including most articles of animal food, and many of vegetable, are of the most perishable nature. As a deficient supply of these even for a few days, would occasion great inconvenience, so, a redundancy of them would produce a corresponding waste. Moreover, in a district of such vast extent, as this (as it 104 has been aptly called) " province covered with houses," it is essential that the supplies should be so distributed among the different quarters, as to be brought almost to the doors of the in- habitants ; at least within such a distance, that they may, without an inconvenient waste of time and labour, procure their daily shares. Moreover, w r hereas the supply of provisions for an army or garrison is comparatively uniform in kind : here, the greatest possible variety is re- quired, suitable to the wants of various classes of consumers. Again, this immense population is extremely fluctuating in numbers ; and the increase or diminution depends on causes, of which, though some may, others can not, be distinctly foreseen. The difference of several weeks in the arrival, for instance, of one of the great commercial fleets, or in the assembly or dissolution of a parliament, which cause a great variation in the population, it is often impossible to foresee. Lastly, and above all, the daily supplies of each article must be so nicely adjusted to the stock from which it is drawn to the scanty, or more or less abundant, harvest importation or other source of supply to the interval which is to elapse before 105 a fresh stock can be furnished, and to the pro- bable abundance of the new supply, that as little distress as possible may be undergone ; that on the one hand the population may not unneces- sarily be put upon short allowance of any article, and that on the other hand they may be pre- served from the more dreadful risk of famine, which would ensue from their continuing a free consumption when the store was insufficient to hold out. Now let any one consider this problem in all its bearings, reflecting on the enormous and fluctu- ating number of persons to be fed the immense quantity, and the variety, of the provisions to be furnished, the importance of a convenient dis- tribution of them, and the necessity of husband- ing them discreetly ; and then let him reflect on the anxious toil which such a task would impose on a board of the most experienced and intelli- gent commissaries ; who after all would be able to discharge their office but very inadequately. Yet this object is accomplished far better than it could be by any effort of human wisdom, through the agency of men, who think each of nothing beyond his own immediate interest, 106 who, with that object in view, perform their re- spective parts with cheerful zeal, and combine unconsciously to employ the wisest means for effecting an object, the vastness of which it would bewilder them even to contemplate. Early and long familiarity is apt to generate a careless, I might almost say, a stupid, indiffer- ence, to many objects, which, if new to us, would excite a great and a just admiration; and many are inclined even to hold cheap a stranger, who expresses wonder at what seems to us very natural and simple, merely because we have been used to it ; while in fact perhaps our apathy is a more just subject of contempt than his asto- nishment. Moyhanger, a New-Zealander who was brought to England, was struck with especial wonder, in his visit to London, at the mystery, as it appeared to him, how such an immense population could be fed, as he saw neither cattle nor crops. Many of the Londoners, who would perhaps have laughed at the savage's admiration, would probably have been found never to have even thought of the mechanism which is here at work. It is really wonderful to consider with what 107 ease ancT regularity this important end is accom- plished, day after day, and year after year, through the sagacity and vigilance of private interest operating on the numerous class, of wholesale, and more especially retail, dealers. Each of these watches attentively the demands of his neighbourhood, or of the market he fre- quents, for such commodities as he deals in. The apprehension, on the one hand, of not realizing all the profit he might, and, on the other hand, of having his goods left on his hands, either by his laying in too large a stock, or by his rivals 5 underselling him, these, acting like antagonist muscles, regulate the extent of his dealings, and the prices at which he buys and sells. An abundant supply causes him to lower his prices, and thus enables the public to enjoy that abundance ; while he is guided only by the apprehension of being undersold ; and, on the other hand, an actual or apprehended scarcity causes him to demand a higher price, or to keep back his goods in expectation of a rise. For doing this, corn-dealers in particular are often exposed to odium, as if they were the cause of the scarcity; while in reality they are per- 108 forming the important service of husbanding the supply in proportion to its deficiency, and thus warding off the calamity of famine ; in the same manner as the commander of a garrison or a ship, regulates the allowances according to the stock and the time it is to last. But the dealers deserve neither censure for the scarcity which they are ignorantly supposed to produce, nor credit for the important public service which they in reality perform. They are merely occu- pied in gaining a fair livelihood. And in the pursuit of this object, without any comprehensive wisdom, or any need of it, they cooperate, un- knowingly, in conducting a system which, we may safely say, no human wisdom directed to that end could have conducted so well : the system by which this enormous population is fed from day to day. I have said, " no human wisdom;" for wisdom there surely is, in this adaptation of the means to the result actually produced. In this instance, as well as in a multitude of others, from which I selected it for illustration's sake, there are the same marks of contrivance and design, with a view to a beneficial end, as 109 we are accustomed to admire (when our attention is drawn to them by the study of Natural-Theo- logy) in the anatomical structure of the body, and in the instincts of the brute-creation. The pulsations of the heart, the ramifications of vessels in the lungs the direction of the ar- teries and of the veins the valves which pre- vent the retrograde motion of the blood all these, exhibit a wonderful combination of me- chanical means towards the end manifestly de- signed, the circulating system. But I know not whether it does not even still more excite our admiration of the beneficent wisdom of Pro- vidence, to contemplate, not corporeal particles, but rational free agents, cooperating in systems no less manifestly indicating design, yet no de- sign of theirs ; and though acted on, not by gravitation and impulse, like inert matter, but by motives addressed to the will, yet advancing as regularly and as effectually the accomplish- ment of an object they never contemplated, as if they were merely the passive wheels of a ma- chine. If one may without presumption speak of a more or a less in reference to the works of infinite Wisdom, I would say, that the branch of 110 Natural Theology with which we are now con- cerned, presents to the reflective mind views even more striking than any other. The heavens do indeed " declare the glory of God;" and the human body is " fearfully and wonder- fully made ;" but Man, considered not merely as an organized Being, but as a rational agent, and as a member of society, is perhaps the most wonderfully contrived, and to us the most interesting, specimen of divine Wisdom that we have any knowledge of. HoAXa ra Seiva, xa< ou&ev avfl^ooTTOti Seivoregov Tretei. The phenomena which can be exhibited directly to the senses, afford perhaps, for the youthful mind, the best introduction to the study of natural theology ; but even greater admiration will arise as the philosophical inquirer proceeds to trace the marks of divine Wisdom in the various contrivances for the well-being of man, exhibited in the com- plicated structure of society. The investigation is indeed one of more intricacy and difficulty, from various causes ; especially, from the more frequent frustration of the apparent designs of Providence through human faults and follies ; in the same manner as, in a less degree, the pro- Ill visions of Nature for the growth, and strength, and health, of the body are often defeated by man's intemperance or imprudence. But still I am inclined to think, that if the time should ever arrive, when the structure of Human Society and all the phenomena connected with it, shall be as well understood as Astronomy and Physiology, it will be regarded as exhibiting even more strik- ing marks of divine Wisdom. I shall probably take occasion from time to time to advert incidentally to this view of the subject, as the matter which may happen to be before us may suggest. But the point to which I wish at present more particularly to call your attention is, the one in which man, and more especially man considered as a social Being, stands contrasted both with inanimate bodies, and with the lower animals ; I mean, the pro- visions made for the progress of society. A capacity of improvement seems to be characteristic of the Human Species, both as individuals, and as existing in a community. The mechanical and chemical laws of matter are not only un- varying, but seem calculated to preserve all things either in an unvarying state, or in a 112 regular rotation of changes, except where human agency interferes. The instincts of brutes, as has been often remarked, lead them to no im- provement. But in man, not only the faculties are susceptible of much cultivation, (in which point he does indeed stand far above the brutes, but which yet is not peculiar to our species,) but besides this, what may be called the instincts of man lead to the advancement of society. I mean, that (as in such cases as those just alluded to) he is led to further this object when he has another in view. And this procedure is, as far as regards the object which the agent did not contemplate, precisely analogous, at least, to that of instinct. The workman, for instance, who is employed in casting printing types, is usually thinking only of producing a commodity by the sale of which he may support himself; with reference to this object, he is acting, not from any impulse that is at all of the character of instinct, but from a rational and deliberate choice : but he is also in the very same act, contributing most powerfully to the diffusion of knowledge ; about which perhaps he has no anxiety or thought : 113 in reference to this latter object therefore his procedure corresponds to those operations of various animals which we attribute to instinct ; since they doubtless derive some immediate gra- tification from what they are doing. So Man is, in the same act, doing one thing, by choice, for his own benefit, and another, undesignedly, under the guidance of Providence, for the service of the community. The branch of Natural Theology to which I have now been alluding the contemplation of the divine Wisdom as displayed in provisions for the existence, the well-being, and the progress, of society, comprises a great number of distinct heads, several of them only partially and incident- ally connected with the subject of these Lectures. Our proper business at present is to consider the subject so far only as it is connected with natural wealth ; and more immediately the connection of that, with the advancement of civilization. And here I must take occasion to remark, that I do not profess to explain why things were so ordered, that any advancement at all should be needful ; why mankind were not placed at once in a state of society as highly civilized as i 114 it was destined ever to be *. The reasons for this are probably unfathomable by us in this world. It is sufficient for our present purpose merely to remark the fact, that the apparent design of Providence evidently is, the advance- ment of mankind, not only as Individuals, but as Communities. Nor again do I profess to explain, why in so many particular instances causes have been permitted to operate, more or less, towards the frustration of this general design, and the retardation, or even reversal, of the course of improvement. The difficulty in fact is one which belongs, not to this alone, but to every branch of Natural-Theology. In every part of the universe we see marks of wise and benevolent design ; and yet we see in many instances apparent frustra- tions of this design ; we see the productiveness of the earth interrupted by unfavourable seasons a The present Bishop of Chester has treated at large of the subjects here considered, in the third part of his c< Records of the Creation;" to which I have much pleasure in referring the reader, though I do not entirely coincide with every thing that the author has there said. In the Notes and Appendix to Archbishop King's Discourse I have stated my own view of some of the most important of the questions now alluded to. 115 the structure of the animal frame enfeebled, and its functions impaired, by diseaseand vast multitudes of living Beings, exposed, from various causes, to suffering, and to premature destruction. In the moral and political world, wars, and civil dissention tyrannical governments, unwise laws, and all evils of this class, correspond to the inundations the droughts the tornados, and the earthquakes, of the natural world. We cannot give a satisfactory account of either ; we cannot, in short, explain the great difficulty, which, in proportion as we reflect attentively, we shall more and more perceive to be the only difficulty in theology, the existence of evil in the Universe. But two things we can accomplish ; which are very important, and which are probably all that our present faculties and extent of knowledge can attain to ; one is, to perceive clearly that the difficulty in question is of no unequal pressure, but bears equally heavy on Deism and on Chris- tianity, and on various different interpretations of the Christian scheme ; and consequently can furnish no valid objection to any one scheme of religion in particular. Another point which is attainable is, to perceive, amidst all the admixture i 2 116' of evil, and all the seeming disorder of conflicting agencies, a general tendency nevertheless towards the accomplishment of wise and beneficent de- signs. As in contemplating an ebbing tide, we are sometimes in doubt, on a short inspection, whether the sea is really receding, because from time to time a wave will dash further up the shore than those which had preceded it, but, if we continue our observation long enough, we see plainly, that the boundary of the land is on the whole ad- vancing; so here, by extending our view over many countries and through several ages, we may distinctly perceive the tendencies which would have escaped a more confined research. In respect of the point now most particularly before us, the provisions made for the advance- ment of society, so far as they are connected with the progress of national wealth, I shall proceed to offer a few remarks, after premising some ob- servations as to the state of society from which it is, I conceive, that improvement must date its commencement. That this is not (as several writers on Political -Economy have appeared to suppose) what is properly called the savage state 117 that we have no reason to believe that any com- munity ever did, or ever can, emerge, unassisted by external helps, from a state of utter barbarism, into any thing that can be called civilization is a point which I think can be very satisfactorily established. And I shall afterwards direct your attention to some of the principal steps by which nations have advanced, and may be expected to advance, from a comparatively barbarous, to a more civilized, condition. And I shall enter on these subjects in the next and following Lec- tures. LECTURE V. IT was observed in the last Lecture, that civil- ized Man has not emerged from the savage state; that the progress of any community in civil- ization, by its own internal means, must always have begun from a condition removed from that of complete barbarism ; out of which it does not appear that men ever did or can raise them- selves. This assertion is at variance with the hypo- thesis apparently laid down by several writers on Political-Economy; who have described the case of a supposed race of savages, subsisting on the spontaneous productions of the earth, and the precarious supplies of hunting and fishing ; and have then traced the steps by which the various arts of life would gradually have arisen, and advanced more and more towards perfection. One man, it is supposed, having acquired more 120 skill than his neighbours in the making of bows and arrows, or darts, would find it advantageous both for them and for himself, to devote himself to this manufacture, and to exchange these im- plements for the food procured by others, instead of employing himself in the pursuit of game. Another, from a similar cause, would occupy himself exclusively in the construction of huts, or of canoes ; another, in the preparing of skins for clothing, &c. and the division of labour having thus begun, the advantages of it would be so apparent, that it would rapidly be extended, and would occasion each person to introduce improvements into the art to which he would have chiefly confined his attention. Those who had studied the haunts and the habits of certain kinds of wild animals, and had made a trade of supplying the community with them, would be led to domesticate such species as were adapted for it, in order to secure a supply of provisions, when the chase might prove insufficient. Those who had especially studied the places of growth, and times of ripening, of such wild fruits, or other vegetable productions, as were in request, would be induced to secure themselves a readier supply, by cultivating them in suitable spots. And thus the Society being divided into Hus- bandmen, Shepherds, and Artificers of various kinds, exchanging the produce of their various labours, would advance, with more or less steadi- ness and rapidity, towards the higher stages of civilization. I have spoken of this description as being conformable to the views apparently entertained by some writers, and I have said, " apparently," because I doubt whether it is fair to conclude, that all, or any of them, have designed to main- tain that this, or something similar, is a correct account of a matter of fact; -that mankind universally, or some portions of them, have ac- tually emerged, by such a process, from a state of complete barbarism. Some may have be- lieved this ; but others may have meant merely that it is possible, without contending that it has ever in fact occurred ; and others again may have not even gone so far as this, but may have intended merely to describe the steps by which such a change must take place, supposing it ever could occur. Be this as it may, when we dismiss for a moment all antecedent conjectures, and look around us for instances, we find, I think I may confidently affirm, no one recorded, of a tribe of savages, properly so styled, rising into a civil- ized state, without instruction and assistance from people already civilized. And we have, on the other hand, accounts of various savage tribes, in different parts of the globe, who have been visited from time to time at considerable in- tervals, but have had no settled intercourse with civilized people, and who appear to continue, as far as can be ascertained, in the same unculti- vated condition. It will probably have occurred to most of you, that the earliest historical records that exist, represent mankind as originally existing in a state far superior to that of our supposed savages. The Book of Genesis describes Man as not hav- ing been, like the brutes, created, and then left to provide for himself by his innate bodily and mental faculties, but as having received, in the first instance, immediate divine instructions and communications : and so early, according to this account, was the division of labour, that of the first two men who were born of woman, the 123 one was a keeper of cattle, and the other a tiller of the ground. If this account be received, it must be ad- mitted, that all savages must originally have de- generated from a more civilized state of existence. But I am particularly anxious to point out, that, in a question of this kind, I think it best that the Scriptures should not be appealed to, in the first instance, as a work of inspiration, but (if at all) simply as an historical record of acknow- ledged antiquity: and in the present instance I am the more desirous of observing this caution, because I think that the inquiry now before us, if conducted with a reference to no authority but those of reason and experience, will lead to a result which furnishes a very powerful confirm- ation of the truth of our religion : and it is plain that this evidence would be destroyed by an appeal to the authority of Scripture in the outset, which would of course be a petitio principii. It should be observed, moreover, that the hy- pothesis above alluded to is not necessarily at variance with the historical records of the creation and earliest condition of mankind. These do indeed declare, that mankind did not begin to 124 exist in the savage state; but it would not thence follow, that a nation which had subsequently sunk into that state, might not raise itself again out of this barbarism. Such, however, does not appear to be the fact. On looking around us and examining all history, ancient and modern, we find, as I have said, that no savage tribe appears to have risen into civil- ization, except through the aid of others who were civilized. We have, I think, in this case all the historical evidence that a negative is suscep- tible of; viz. we have the knowledge of numerous cases in which such a change has not taken place, and of none where it has ; while we have every reason to expect, that, if it had occurred, it would have been recorded. On this subject I will take the liberty of citing a passage from a very well- written and instruc- tive book, the account of the New Zealanders, in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge ; a passage, which is the more valuable to our present purpose, inasmuch as the writer is not treating of the subject with any view whatever to the evidences of religion, and is apparently quite unconscious of the argument which (as I 125 shall presently shew) may be deduced from what he says. " The especial distinction of the savage, and that which, more than any other thing, keeps him a savage, is his ignorance of letters. This places the community almost in the same situa- tion with a herd of the lower animals, in so far as the accumulation of knowledge, or, in other words, any kind of movement forward, is con- cerned ; for it is only by means of the art of writing, that the knowledge acquired by the ex- perience of one generation can be properly stored up, so that none of it shall be lost, for the use of all that are to follow. Among savages, for want of this admirable method of preservation, there is reason to believe the fund of knowledge possessed by the community instead of growing, generally diminishes with time. If we except the abso- lutely necessary arts of life, which are in daily use and cannot be forgotten, the existing gene- ration seldom seems to possess any thing derived from the past. Hence, the oldest man of the tribe is always looked up to as the wisest ; simply because he has lived the longest ; it being felt that an individual has scarcely a chance of 126 knowing any thing more than his own experience has taught him. Accordingly the New Zea- Janders, for example, seem to have been in quite as advanced a state when Tasman discovered the country in 1642, as they were when Cook visited it, 127 years after." It may be remarked, however, with reference to this statement, that the absence of written records is, though a very important, rather a secondary than a primary obstacle. It is one branch of that general characteristic of the savage, improvidence. If you suppose the case of a savage taught to read and write, but allowed to remain, in all other respects, the same careless, thoughtless kind of Being, and afterwards left to himself, he would most likely forget his ac- quisition ; and would certainly, by neglecting to teach it to his children, suffer it to be lost in the next generation. On the other hand, if you conceive such a case (which certainly is conceivable, and I am disposed to think it a real one) as that of a people ignorant of this art, but acquiring in some degree a thoughtful and pro- vident character, I have little doubt that their desire, thence 'arising, to record permanently 127 their laws, practical maxims, and discoveries, would gradually lead them, first to the use of memorial- verses, and afterwards to some kind of material symbols, such as picture-writing, and then hieroglyphics ; which might gradually be still further improved into writing properly so called. There are several circumstances which have conduced to keep out of sight the important fact I have been alluding to. The chief of these probably is, the vagueness with which the term " Savage" is applied. I do not profess, and indeed it is evidently not possible, to draw a line by which we may determine precisely to whom that title is, and is not, applicable ; since there is a series of almost insensible gradations between the highest and the lowest state of human society. Nor is any such exact boundary line needed for our present purpose. It is sufficient if we admit, what is probably very far short of the truth, that those who are in as low a state as some tribes with which we are acquainted, are in- capable of emerging from it, by their own un- assisted efforts. But many probably are misled by the language of the Greeks and Romans, who 128 called all men barbarians except themselves. Many, and perhaps all other nations, fell short of them in civilization : but several nations, even among the least cultivated of the ancient bar- barians, were very far removed from what we should be understood to mean by the savage state, and which is to be found among many tribes at the present day. For instance, the ancient Germans were probably as much elevated above that state, as we are above theirs. A people who cultivated corn, though their agri- culture was probably in a very rude state who not only had numerous herds of cattle, but em- ployed the labour of brutes, and even made use of cavalry in their wars, and who also were accustomed to the working of metals, though their supply of them, according to Tacitus, was but scanty these cannot with propriety be reckoned savages. Or if they are to be so called, (for it is not worth while to dispute about a word,) then I would admit, that, in this sense, men may advance, and in fact have advanced, by their own unassisted efforts, from the savage to the civilized state. Again, we are liable to be misled by loose 129 and inaccurate descriptions of extensive districts in- habited by distinct tribes of people, differing widely from each other in their degrees of cultivation. Some, for instance, are accustomed to speak of the ancient Britons, in the mass ; without considering, that in all probability some of these tribes were nearly as much behind others in civilization, as the Children of the Mist described by Sir W. Scott in the Legend of Montrose, if compared with the inhabitants of Edinburgh at the same period. And thus it is probable that travellers have represented some nation as in the condition of mere savages, from having viewed only some part of it, or perhaps even some different nation, inhabiting some one district of the country. When due allowance has been made for these and other sources of inaccuracy, there will be no reason I think for believing, that there is any exception to the positions I have here laid down : the impossibility of men's emerging unaided from a completely savage state ; and, consequently, the descent of such as are in that state (supposing mankind to have sprung from a single pair) from ancestors less barbarous, and from whom they have degenerated. K 130 Records of this descent, and of this degeneracy, it is, from the nature of the case, not likely we should possess ; but several indications of the fact may often be found among savage nations. Some have even traditions to that effect ; and almost all possess some one or two arts not of a piece with their general rudeness, and which plainly appear to be remnants of a different state of things ; being such, that the first invention of them implies a degree of ingenuity beyond what the savages who retain those arts now possess. It is very interesting to look over the many copious accounts we possess of various savage tribes, with a view to this point. You will find, I think, in the course of such an in- quiry, that each savage tribe having retained such arts as are most essential to their subsistence in the particular country in which they are placed, there is accordingly, generally speaking, somewhat less of degeneracy in many points, in the colder climates, because these will not admit of the same degree of that characteristic of sa- vages, improvidence. Such negligence in pro- viding clothing and habitations, and in laying up stores of provisions, as in warm and fertile 131 countries is not incompatible with subsistence in a very rude state, would, in more inhospitable regions, destroy the whole race in the course of a single winter. As to the causes which have occasioned any portions of mankind thus to degenerate, we are, of course, in most instances, left to mere con- jecture : but there seems little reason to doubt, that the principal cause has been War. A people perpetually harassed by predatory hostile in- cursions, and still more, one compelled to fly leir country and take refuge in mountains or forests f , or to wander to some distant un- occupied region, (and this we know to have been anciently a common occurrence) must of course be likely to sink in point of civilization ; they must, amidst a series of painful struggles for mere existence, have their attention drawn off from all other subjects ; they must be de- prived of the materials and the opportunities for practising many of the arts, till the know- ledge of them is lost ; and their children must grow up, in each successive generation, more and more uninstructed, and disposed to be sa- * Whence the name " Savage," Silvagio. K2 132 tisfied with a life approaching to that of the brutes. A melancholy picture of the operation of these causes is presented in the kingdom of Abyssinia ; which seems to have been for a considerable time verging more and more from a state of comparative civilization towards barbarism, through the in- cessant hostile incursions of its Pagan neighbours, the Galla. But whatever may have been the causes w r hich in each instance have tended to barba- rize each nation, of this we may, I think, be well assured, that, though if it have not sunk below a certain point, it may, under favourable circum- stances, be expected to rise again, and gradually even more than recover the lost ground ; on the other hand, there is a stage of degradation from which it cannot emerge, but through the means of intercourse with some more civilized people. The turbulent and unrestrained passions the in- dolence and, above all, the want of forethought, which are characteristic of savages, naturally tend to prevent, and, as experience seems to shew, always have prevented, that process of gradual advancement from taking place, which was sketched out in the opening of this Lecture ; 133 except when the savage is stimulated by the example, and supported by the guidance and in- struction, of men superior to himself. Now if this be the case, when, and how, did civilization first begin ? If Man when first created was left, like the brutes, to the unaided exercise of his natural powers of body and mind those powers which are common to the European and to the New-Hollander how comes it that the European is not now in the condition of the New-Hollander ? As the soil itself and the climate of New-Holland are excellently adapted to the growth of corn, and yet (as corn is not indigenous there) could never have borne any, to the end of the world, if it had not been brought thither from another country, and sown; so, the savage himself, though he may be, as it were, a soil capable of receiving the seeds of civilization, can never, in the first instance, produce it, as of spontaneous growth ; and unless those seeds be introduced from some other quarter, must remain for ever in the sterility of barbarism. And from what quarter then could this first beginning of civilization have been supplied, to the earliest race of mankind? According to the present 134 course of nature, the first introducer of cultiva- tion among savages, is, and must be, Man, in a more improved state : in the beginning therefore of the human race, this, since there was no man to effect it, must have been the work of another Being. There must have been, in short, a Revela- tion made to the first, or to some subsequent generation, of our species. And this miracle (for such it is, as being an impossibility according to the present course of nature) is attested, inde- pendently of the authority of Scripture, and con- sequently in confirmation of the Scripture-ac- counts, by the fact, that civilized Man exists at the present day. Taking this view of the subject, we have no need to dwell on the utility the importance the antecedent probability -of a Revelation : it is established as a fact, of which a monument is existing before our eyes. Divine instruction is proved to be necessary, not merely for an end which we think desirable, or which we think agreeable to Divine wisdom and goodness, but, for an end which we know has been attained. That Man could not have made himself, is ap- pealed to as a proof of the agency of a divine Creator : and that Mankind could not in the first 135 instance have civilized themselves, is a proof, exactly of the same kind, and of equal strength, of the agency of a divine Instructor. Such is the evidence which an attentive survey of human transactions will supply, to those who do not, in their too hasty zeal, begin by appeal- ing to the authority of Scripture in matters which we are competent to investigate. The full development of this branch of evi- dence, which I have slightly noticed, but which it would be unsuitable to the character of these Lectures to enlarge on, will be found, I think, to lead to very interesting and important views. Mankind then having, as Scripture informs us, been favoured from the first with an immediate intercourse with the Creator, and having been placed in a condition, as keepers of domestic animals, and cultivators of the earth, more fa- vourable to the development of the rational faculties, than, we have every reason to think, they could ever have reached by the mere exer- cise of their natural powers; it is probable they were thenceforth left to themselves in all that relates to the invention and improvement of the arts of life. If we judge from the analogy of the 136 other parts of revelation, we find it agreeable to the general -designs of Providence, that such knowledge, and such only, should be imparted to Man super naturally, as he could not otherwise have attained ; and that whatever he is capable of discovering by the exercise of his natural faculties, (however important the knowledge of it may be,) he should be left so to discover for himself: in short, that no further miraculous interference should take place, than is absolutely indispensable. And if again we judge from ob- servation, we know that a knowledge of all the arts of life was not divinely communicated. The first race of Mankind seem to have been placed merely in such a state as might enable and incite them to commence, and continue, a course of advancement. And to place Man in such a state, seems in fact no more than analogous to what was done for the lower animals in the mere act of creation, considering how much more completely they are furnished with instincts than we are. To have left man (as the brutes are left) in, what some choose to call, a state of nature, i. e. in the condition of an adult who should have grown up 137 totally without cultivation, would have been to leave him with his principal faculties not only undeveloped, but without a chance of ever being developed; which is not the case with the brutes. Such a procedure therefore would in reality not have been analogous to what takes place in re- spect of the lower animals, but would have been disproportionately disadvantageous to man. In fact, there is no good reason for calling the con- dition of the rudest savages " a state of nature/ 5 On the contrary, such language is as much at variance with sound philosophy, as the dreams of those who imagine this state to resemble the golden age of the poets, are, with well ascertained facts. The peaceful life and gentle disposition, the freedom from oppression, the exemption from selfishness and from evil passions, and the sim- plicity of character, of savages, have no existence but in the fictions of poets, and the fancies of vain speculators : nor can their mode of life be called, with any propriety, the natural state of man. A plant would not be said to be in its natural state, which was growing in a soil or climate that precluded it from putting forth the flowers and the fruit for which its organization 138 was destined. No one who saw the pine grow- ing near the boundary of perpetual snow on the Alps, stunted to the height of two or three feet, and struggling to exist amidst rocks and glaciers, would describe that as the natural state of a tree, which in a more genial soil and climate, a little lower down, was found capable of rising to the height of fifty or sixty yards. In like manner, the natural state of man must, according to all fair analogy, be reckoned not that in which his intellectual and moral growth are as it were stunted, and permanently repressed, but one in which his original endowments are, I do not say, brought to perfection, but enabled to exercise themselves, and to expand, like the flowers of a plant ; and, especially, in which that character- istic of our species, the tendency towards pro- gressive improvement, is permitted to come into play. Such then, I say, seems to have been the state in which the earliest race of mankind were placed by the Creator. What were their earliest inventions and dis- coveries, and in what order the several arts originated, we have no means of ascertaining. 139 The brief and scanty record of Genesis furnishes only a slight notice of two ; the working of metals, and the construction of musical instru- ments. The knowledge of fire must have been earlier ; but this was in all probability (agreeably to the tradition of the Heathen respecting Pro- metheus] no human discovery, but a gift of Pro- vidence". It does not seem likely, that man could have discovered (at least till after a very long series of years) I do not say fire, but the uses of fire. A volcanic eruption, or a conflagration by lightning, might have exhibited fire itself; but the untaught savage would have been more likely to fly from so tremendous an agent, than to attempt making it his servant. A conjectural history of the probable origin of the various arts which are the most universal among mankind, would suggest much interest- ing speculation. It is not of course my design 5 The Heathen Mythology contains, among a chaos of wild fables, broken and scattered fragments, as it were, of true history ; like the organic remains of an ancient world found dispersed, and often hard to be ascertained, in the midst of the strata formed from the deposits of a deluge. 140 to enter on an inquiry which would be in a great degree foreign to the subject before us. I will merely remark, that the more you speculate on this curious subject, the more you will be struck with this consideration ; that many of the com- monest arts, and which appear the simplest, and require but a very humble degree of intelligence for their exercise, are yet such, that we must suppose various accidents to have occurred, and to have been noted many observations to have been made and combined and many experiments to have been tried in order to their being ori- ginally invented. And the difficulty must have been much greater, before the invention, and the familiar use, of writing, had enabled each gene- ration to record for the use of the next, not only its discoveries, but its observations and incom- plete experiments. It has often occurred to me, that the longevity of the antediluvians was pro- bably a special provision to meet this difficulty, in those early ages which most needed such a help. Even now that writing is in use, a single individual, if he live long enough to follow up a train of experiments, has a great advantage in respect of discoveries, over a succession of indi- 141 viduals ; because he will remember, when the occasion arises, many of his former observations, and of the ideas that had occurred to his mind, which, at the time, he had not thought worth recording. But previous to the use of writing, the advantage of being able to combine in one's own person the experience of several centuries, must have been of immense importance : and it was an advantage which the circumstances of the case seemed to require. On the whole, then, it appears, that as soon, and only as soon, as Society has taken a certain step, and is enabled to start, as it were, from a certain point, viz. from such a condition nearly, as that in which the first generation appears to have been actually placed, then, and thenceforward, the tendency towards advance- ment comes into operation, so far as it is not checked by external impediments. The causes which tend to the gradual increase of wealth in a ratio even greater than the increase of popu- lation, and to the growth of all that we call by the collective name C Civilization," are thence- forth at work ; with more or less certainty and rapidity, according as the obstacles are less or 142 more powerful : and no boundary to the effects of these causes seems assignable. Some remarks on the principal steps of this progress will occupy the next Lecture. LECTURE VI. THERE is, as we have seen, a certain stage of civilization, though it may be difficult to deter- mine precisely where it lies, which is necessary to the commencement of a course of improve- ment. A community placed in a condition short of this, and not aided from without, must, as experience has fully shewn, either remain sta- tionary, or even sink deeper into barbarism. And when this point is once passed, the progress towards a higher state of civilization, will, as far as it is not prevented by accidental obstacles, begin, and gradually continue. Society may be compared to those combustible substances which will never take fire spontaneously, but when once ignited will generate heat sufficient not only to keep up the combustion, but to burn with still increasing force. A human community re- quires, as it were, to be kindled, and requires no more. 144 Let a Nation, though still in a rude state, possess the knowledge of some of the simplest and most essential arts a certain degree of division of labour and above all a recognition, and tolerable security, of property ; and it will not fail, unless very grievously harassed by wars, inundations, or some such calamities, to increase its wealth, and to advance more or less in civil- ization. I have spoken of security of property as the most essential point, because, though no progress can be made wdthout a division of labour, this could neither exist without security of pro- perty, nor could fail to arise with it. No man, it is plain, could subsist by devoting himself either wholly or partially to the production of one kind of commodity, trusting to the supply of his other wants by exchanging part of that com- modity with his neighbours, unless he were allowed to keep it, and to dispose of it, as his own. On the other hand, let property be but established and secured, and the division of labour, even if it had not previously existed, would be the infallible result ; because the ad- vantages of it to each individual, in each par- ticular instance, would catch the attention of 145 every one who possessed but a moderate degree of forethought. A. Smith, in treating of the advantages of the division of labour, has entirely omitted one, which is, in all respects, one of the most im- portant, and, in giving rise to the practice, clearly the most important of all. He dwells chiefly on the superior skill which a man acquires, in an occupation to which he has confined him- self. This is undoubtedly a very great advan- tage ; but it is evidently such an effect of the division of labour, as could not be known but by experience ; and indeed could not exist till some time had elapsed for the increased expertness to be acquired : it could not consequently, in any instance, lead to the division of labour, till the practice had been generally established, and the improvement in skill thence resulting become matter of common observation. But the ad- vantage I am alluding to (and which is in itself as important as any) is one which would readily be anticipated, and would be obtained immediately, previous to any advancement in skill. The advantage I mean is, that in a great variety of cases, nearly the same time and labour are L 146 required to perform the same operation on a larger or on a smaller scale to produce many things, or one, of the same kind. The most familiar instance of this, and the one most frequently adduced, is the carriage of letters. It makes very little difference of trouble, and none, of time, to carry one letter, or a whole parcel of letters, from one town to another ; and accordingly, though there is no particular skill requisite in this business, there is perhaps no one instance that more strikingly displays the benefit of the division of labour than the establishment of the Post-office ; but for which, each person would have to dispatch a special messenger whenever he wanted to communicate with his friend at a distance. But the circumstance to which I am now particularly calling your attention, is, that this kind of advantage is one which would be imme- diate, and readily anticipated. In fact, a division of labour, with a view to it, is almost imme- diately adopted for the present occasion on any emergency that arises, even when there is no peculiar fitness in each person for his own de- partment, and no thought of making the arrange- 147 ment permanent. For instance, suppose a num- ber of travellers proceeding through some nearly desert country, such as many parts of America, and journeying together in a kind of cafila or caravan for the sake of mutual security : when they came to a halting-place for the night, they would not fail to make some kind of extem- poraneous arrangement, that some should unlade and fodder the cattle, while others should fetch fire- wood from the nearest thicket, and others, water from the spring : some in the mean time would be occupied in pitching the tents, or erect- ing sheds of boughs ; others in preparing food for the whole party ; while some again, with their arms in readiness, would be posted as sentinels in suitable spots, to watch that the rest might not be surprised by bands of robbers. It would be evident to them that but for such an arrangement, each man would have to go both to the spring for water, and to the wood for fuel would have to prepare his own meal with almost as much trouble as it costs to dress food for the whole and would have to perform all these tasks encumbered with his arms, and on the watch against a hostile attack. Of course, 148 if some of our supposed party chanced to be by nature or by practice peculiarly qualified for some particular task, and others for another, these would be respectively allotted to them in preference ; but if there were no such inequality, the division would still take place, and the chief advantage of it would still be felt. Such a case as this exhibits an instance of what may be called a temporary Community, containing a distribution of labourers into several departments, which have a considerable corre- spondence with the different trades and occupations that are permanently established. One portion of the members of a community are employed to protect the rest from violence ; another, to pro- vide them with food ; another, to construct their habitations ; and so of the rest. But in order to the existence of such a state of things, it is necessary (as I have said) that property should be recognised, and should be tolerably well secured. " It is this main spring," (says Bp. Sumner, in the second volume of the Records of the Creation,)