PRINCIPLES 
 
 SOCIAL SCIENCE. 
 
-PRINCIPLES 
 
 SOCIAL SCIENCE-. 
 
 BY 
 
 H. C. CAEEY. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO 
 
 LONDON: TRUBNER & CO. 
 
 PAKIS: GUILLAUMIN & CO. 
 
 1858. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, "by 
 
 II. C. CAREY, 
 
 in the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of 
 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE work now offered for consideration, will speak for 
 itself; but its readers will, perhaps, excuse its author, if, 
 for a few moments, he asks their attention to matters of 
 little interest to any but himself. 
 
 Of the principles here enunciated, some now make their 
 appearance for the first time ; whereas, others were first 
 published, twenty years ago.* Since then, the latter have 
 reappeared in another work, by a distinguished French 
 economist,! which its circulation having been extensive 
 
 has been read by thousands, who have never seen the 
 volumes, in which the same ideas had previously been 
 published. Finding, here, a repetition of what they had 
 read elsewhere, and given without acknowledgment, 
 those persons would, most naturally, be disposed to sus 
 pect the present author of having wrongfully appro 
 priated the property of another; when, in point of fact, 
 he was, himself, the real owner. This would be an un 
 pleasant state of things ; and, as the only mode by which 
 it can be avoided, he deems it well to make, on this 
 occasion, a brief statement of the order of discovery, of 
 the various new ideas contained in the following pages. 
 
 The theory of value, as now given, was first published 
 in 1837. Being very simple, it was very comprehensive 
 
 embracing every commodity, or thing, in reference to 
 which the jiiea of value could exist whether land, labor, 
 or their products. This was one step towards establish- 
 
 * CAREY: Principles of Political Economy. Philad., 1887-1840. " 
 f BASTIAT: Humaines Economiques. Paris, 1850. 
 
 (iii) 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 ing the universality of natural laws the value of land 
 having been ascribed, by all previous economists, to 
 causes widely different from those which gave value to 
 its products.* 
 
 Consequent upon this, was the discovery of a general 
 law of distribution embracing all the products of labor, 
 whether that applied to cultivation or conversion to 
 change of place or form. According to the theories then 
 most generally received, the profit of one, was always 
 attended with loss to another rents rising, as labor 
 became less productive, and profits advancing, as wages 
 retrograded a doctrine that, if true, tended to the pro 
 duction of universal discord; and that, too, as the natural 
 consequence of a great law, instituted by the Deity for 
 man s government, f 
 
 \ * "Carey, and after him Bastiat, have introduced a formula, & posteriori, 
 that I believe destined to be universally adopted ; and it is greatly to be 
 regretted that the latter should have limited himself to occasional indica 
 tions of it, instead of giving to it the importance so justly given by the 
 former. In estimating the equilibrium between the cost to one s self and 
 the utility to others, a thousand circumstances may intervene ; and it is 
 desirable to know if there be not among men a law, a principle of universal 
 application. Supply and demand, rarity, abundance, etc., are all insuffi 
 cient, and liable to perpetual exceptions. Carey has remarked, and with 
 great sagacity, that this law is the labor saved, the cost of reproduction 
 an idea that is, as I think, most felicitous. It appears to me that there 
 cannot arise a case, in which a man shall determine to make an exchange, 
 in which this law will not be found to apply. I will not give a quantity 
 of labor or pains, unless offered in exchange an utility equivalent; and I 
 will not regard it as equivalent, unless I see that it will come to me at less 
 cost of labor than would be necessary for its reproduction. I regard this 
 formula as most felicitous ; because, while on one side it retains the idea 
 of cost, which is constantly referred to in the mind, on the other it avoids 
 the absurdity to which we are led by the theory, which pretends to see 
 ; everywhere a value equivalent to the cost of production ; and, finally, it 
 shows more perfectly the essential justice that governs us in our exchanges." 
 .TT-FERR.ARA: Biblioteca degV JSconomista, vol. xii. p. 117. 
 
 } " Low wages, as a consequence of competition for the sale of Labor, 
 reduce the prices of the things to the production of which that labor is 
 applied ; and it is the consumers of those products, the whole society, that 
 reap the profit. If, then, as a consequence of low wages, the latter find 
 themselves obliged to contribute to the support of the poor workman, they 
 are indemnified therefor by the reduced prices at which they obtain his 
 products." J. B. SAY: Traite d Economie Politigue, t. 11, p. 292. 
 
 It is here supposed that society profits by a state of things, that impove 
 rishes the workman, and sends him to the hospital. The interests of the 
 employer and his workmen being the same, such a state of things could not 
 exist. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Directly the reverse of this, however, was the law that 
 was then published, and now is reproduced proving, as 
 it did, that both capitalist and laborer profited by every 
 measure tending to render labor more, while losing by 
 every one that tended to render it less, productive and 
 thus establishing a perfect harmony of interests. 
 
 Thoroughly persuaded of the truth of the laws then 
 presented for consideration, the author felt not less cer 
 tain, that the really fundamental law remained yet to be 
 discovered ; and that, until it could be brought to light, 
 many of the phenomena of society must continue unex 
 plained. In what direction, however, to seek it, he could 
 not tell. He had already satisfied himself, that the theory 
 presented for consideration by Mr. Ricardo not being 
 universally true had no claim to be so considered; but, 
 it was not until ten years later, that he was led to remark 
 the fact, that it was universally false. The real law, as 
 he then saw, was directly the reverse of that propounded 
 by that gentleman the work of cultivation having, and 
 that invariably, been commenced on the poorer soils, and 
 having passed to the richer ones, as wealth had grown, 
 and population had increased. Here was the great fun 
 damental truth, of which he before had thought, and the 
 one, too, that was needed for the perfect demonstration 
 of the truth of those he previously had published. Here, 
 too, was further proof of the universality of natural laws 
 the course of man, in reference to the earth itself, 
 being thus found to have been the same that we see it 
 to have been, in reference to all the instruments into 
 which he fashions parts of the great machine itself. 
 Always commencing with the poorest axes, he proceeds 
 onward to those of steel : always commencing with the 
 poorer soils, he proceeds onward to those richer ones 
 which yield the largest return to labor the increase of 
 numbers being, thus, proved to be essential to in 
 crease in the supply of food. Here was a harmony of * 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 interests, directly opposed to the discords taught by Mr. 
 Malthus. 
 
 This great law was first announced now ten years 
 since.* While engaged in its demonstration, the author 
 found himself constantly impelled to the use of physical 
 facts, in illustration of social phenomena, and hence was 
 led to remark the close affinity of physical and social 
 laws. Reflecting upon this, he soon was brought to the 
 expression of the belief, that closer examination would 
 lead to the development of the great fact, that there 
 existed but a single system of laws those instituted for 
 the government of matter, in the form of clay and sand, 
 proving to be the same by which that matter was 
 governed, when it took the form of man, or of commu 
 nities of men. 
 
 In the work then published, the discoveries of modern 
 science, proving the indestructibility of matter, were, for 
 the first time, rendered available to social science the 
 difference between agriculture and all other of the pur 
 suits of man, having then been exhibited in the fact, that 
 the farmer was always employed in making a machine, 
 whose powers increased from year to year ; whereas, the 
 shipmaster, and the wagoner, were always using ma 
 chines, whose powers as regularly diminished. The whole 
 business of the former, as there was shown, consisted in 
 making* and improving soils his powers of improvement 
 growing with the growth of wealth and population. To 
 fully develop the law of the perpetuity of matter, in its 
 bearing upon the law of population, was, however, re 
 served for the author s friend, Mr. E. Peshine Smith, 
 numerous extracts from whose excellent little Manual, 
 will be found in the present volume. 
 
 The great and really fundamental law of the science 
 the one required for the demonstration of the identity of 
 physical and social laws, still, however, remained to be 
 
 * The Past, the Present, and the Future. Philad., 1848. 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 discovered ; but, it is now, as the author thinks, given in 
 the second chapter of the present volume. In the third, 
 will be found the law developed by Mr. Smith. The 
 fourth gives that of the occupation of the earth, as pub 
 lished ten years since those of value and distribution, 
 published ten years earlier, following, in chapters five 
 and six. The order here required for their proper exhi 
 bition, is thus, as the reader sees, precisely the inverse 
 one of their discovery thus proving the truth of the 
 idea, that first principles are always last to be discovered. 
 It remains now to say a few words, in regard to the 
 course of investigation hitherto pursued by the author, 
 and here continued. The most cursory glance at the 
 several portions of the world, enables us to see, that all 
 the stages of civilization in the past, may be found exist 
 ing in the present; and that, if we would understand the 
 former, we can do so only by studying the latter thus 
 following in the path that has so long been trodden by 
 the teachers of physical science. Doing this, it has, of 
 course, been necessary to examine carefully the move 
 ments of various leading European communities, and 
 especially those of France arid England the first being 
 the one in which originated the doctrine of over-popula 
 tion, and the last, that of the European nations by which 
 the peace of the world has most frequently been disturbed. 
 As a consequence of this, it has been, that he has been 
 charged with hostility to both his motives being thus 
 impugned, by those who have found it inconvenient to 
 undertake to show, that his facts could not be received 
 as true, or, that his reasoning was not warranted by the 
 facts. The charge, however, carries with itself its re 
 futation. Had he been so injudicious, as to permit 
 himself to be led to misstate the facts, or to draw from 
 them inferences they did not warrant, he would thereby 
 have laid himself so entirely at the mercy of his re 
 viewers, as wholly to free the latter from any necessity 
 
Vlii PREFACE. 
 
 for inquiring into the motives by which he had been 
 actuated. 
 
 If he knows himself at all, he has been prompted by a 
 single motive, the desire to find the truth ; and that he 
 really has been so, would seem to be proved by the fact, 
 that, not only has he never been charged with any mis 
 representation of the arguments of his opponents, but, 
 on the contrary, has, on more than one occasion, been 
 complimented, on the perfect accuracy with which they 
 have been given. Widely different, he regrets to say, 
 has been the course pursued by those to whom he has 
 been opposed his views having, most generally, been 
 first misstated, as preparation for their refutation. In 
 future, however, he hopes that a different course will be 
 pursued, and that his reviewers will bear in mind, that, 
 " notwithstanding the pretensions so frequently put for 
 ward by politicians and economists, some of the most 
 interesting portions of the sciences they profess, are still 
 imperfectly understood ;" while " the important art of ap 
 plying them to the affairs of mankind, so as to produce the 
 greatest amount of permanent good, has made but little 
 progress, and is hardly, indeed, in its infancy."* 
 
 Doubting the accuracy of the view that is thus pre 
 sented, of the present state of economical science, let them 
 next turn to the work of one of the most eminent of 
 modern economists, to find him asking, if it is matter 
 for surprise that, "amid such conflicting claims, such 
 opposing exigencies, such an inextricable mass of truth 
 and error, the science has halted that it has only felt 
 its way that its gait has been tottering and doubtful ?"f 
 To him, it was not. Seeing the mists in which the science 
 was enveloped, he declared his determination to try "not 
 to add darkness" to the exceeding darkness that, as he 
 declared, so obviously existed. These are the acknow- 
 
 * McCuLLOCH : Principles. Preface. Third edition, 
 f Rossi : Cours cTticonomie Politique, t. ii, p. 14. 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 ledgments of men who have earned high positions among 
 the teachers of social science ; and yet, among their fol 
 lowers, there are men of comparatively small experience, 
 who treat with supreme contempt the suggestion of any 
 new idea !* 
 
 To all such persons, the author would desire to suggest 
 consideration of the fact, that, in every department of 
 knowledge, the orthodoxy of the existing generation is 
 but the heresy of that which is past most of the ideas 
 now held by themselves, and regarded as undeniably true, 
 having been, and that but recently, treated as most 
 absurd. f The disciples of Ptolemy seeing the sun 
 revolve around the earth, and finding in the Scriptures 
 proof that such was the fact had the strongest reason 
 for believing that the accuracy of his doctrines was 
 beyond the reach of question. Copernicus was, there 
 fore, regarded as a heretic, and Galileo was compelled to 
 recantation ; and yet, it is now the established doctrine 
 of the schools, that "the earth it is, that moves." Such 
 having been the case in the past, it may be so in the 
 present the economical doctrines now most generally 
 believed, passing into oblivion, there to take their places 
 by the side of the Ptolemaic system. 
 
 It has been well said, by an eminent writer of our time, 
 that "every one must of course think his own opinions 
 
 * That, in this respect, the present is but a repetition of the past, is 
 proved by Newton s declaration, "that a man must either resolve to put 
 out nothing new, or to become a slave to defend it." 
 
 f " So strong has been the belief that the sun cannot be a habitable 
 world, that a scientific gentleman was pronounced by his medical attendant 
 to be insane, because he had sent a paper to the Royal Society, in which 
 he maintained that the light of the sun proceeds from a dense and universal 
 aurora, which may afford ample light to the inhabitants of the surface 
 beneath, and yet be at such a distance aloft as not to be among them ; 
 that there may be water and dry 1-and there, hills and dales, rain and fair 
 weather; and that, as the light and seasons must be eternal, the sun may 
 easily be conceived to be by far the most blissful habitation of the whole 
 system. In less than ten years after this apparently extravagant notion 
 was considered a proof of insanity, it was maintained by Sir William 
 Herschel as a rational and probable opinion, which might be deducible 
 from his own observations on the structure of the sun." SIR DAVID 
 BREWSTER. 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 right ; for, if he thought them wrong, they would no 
 longer be his opinions : but" that "there is a wide differ 
 ence between regarding ourselves as infallible, and being 
 firmly convinced of the truth of our creed. When," he 
 says, "a man reflects on any particular doctrine, he may 
 be impressed with a thorough conviction of the improba 
 bility, or even impossibility of its being false; and so he 
 may feel in regard to all his other opinions, when he 
 makes them objects of separate contemplations. And 
 yet, when he views them in the aggregate; when he re 
 flects that not a single being on the earth holds collect 
 ively the same ; when he looks at the past history and 
 present state of mankind, and observes the various creeds 
 of different ages and nations, the peculiar modes of think 
 ing of sects, and bodies, and individuals, the notions once 
 firmly held which have been exploded, the prejudices once 
 universally prevalent which have been removed, and the 
 endless controversies which have distracted those who 
 have made it the business of their lives to arrive at the 
 truth ; and when he further dwells on the consideration, 
 that many of these his fellow-creatures have had a con 
 viction of the justness of their respective sentiments equal 
 to his own, he cannot help the obvious inference, that in 
 his own opinions it is next to impossible that there is not 
 an admixture of error; that there is an infinitely greater 
 probability of his being wrong in some than right in all." : 
 All that the author of the present work desires, is, that 
 his arguments may be fairly weighed, and that, to that 
 end, the reader will "strengthen himself, by something 
 of an effort and a resolve, for the unprejudiced admission 
 of any conclusion which shall appear to be supported by 
 careful observation and logical argument, even should it 
 prove of a nature adverse to notions he may have pre 
 viously formed for himself, or taken up, without exami 
 nation, on the credit of others. Such an effort is, in 
 
 * Essay on the Publication of Opinions, Section V. 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 fact," says Sir John Herschel. " a commencement of that 
 intellectual discipline which forms one of the most im 
 portant ends of all science. It is the first movement of 
 approach towards that state of mental purity which alone 
 can fit us for a full and steady perception of moral beauty 
 as well as physical adaptation. It is the euphrasy and 
 rue with which we must ( purge our sight, before we 
 can receive and contemplate as they are the lineaments 
 of truth and nature."* 
 
 In the attempt here made, to demonstrate the univer 
 sality of natural laws, the author has profited much ot 
 suggestions by two of his friends the one above referred 
 to, and Dr. Wm. Elder, of this city ; and to both of them, 
 he now desires to return his thanks. 
 
 PHILADKLPHIA, February 10th, 1858. 
 
 * Treatise of Astronomy, p. 1. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 YOL. I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OF SCIENCE AND ITS METHODS. 
 
 PAG 8 
 
 # 1. Positive Knowledge of Natural Phenomena derived from direct obser 
 vation. The earliest abstract conceptions of Nature s Laws, only the Ex 
 pectations of Experience. Logic and Mathematics only instruments Tor 
 facilitating the acquisition of science, and not themselves sciences 9 
 
 2. The Sciences developed, from the Abstract towards the Concrete ; from 
 Masses to Atoms ; from the Complex to the Simple. Particular truths go 
 with their subjects throughout the universe nature s laws being identical 
 everywhere, and in all applications 12 
 
 $ 3. Bacon s Distributions and Partitions of Knowledge. Roots and 
 branches of the tree of knowledge 21 
 
 g 4. The infancy of the sciences merely theoretical : as they mature into 
 positive knowledge, .Laws take the place of Hypotheses. Mathematics in- 
 strumentally regulate their development the Distant being studied by 
 aid of the Near, and the Past and Future by the Present. Method of dis 
 covery the same in all departments of knowledge. Comte, denying this, 
 finds no philosophy in history, and no science of society 23 
 
 $ 5. The British school of Economists recognizes, not the real man of so 
 ciety, but the artificial man of their own system. Their Theory, occupied 
 with the lowest instincts of humanity, treats its noblest interests as mere 
 interpolations in their System 28 
 
 $ 6. All Sciences, and all their Methods, embraced in Sociology. Analysis 
 leads to Synthesis. Science one and indivisible. The Economical rela 
 tions of men require mathematical formulae to render jthem into systematic 
 truths. The Laws of society not settled. Terms of the theorists undefined 
 and equivocal 777 31 
 
 7. Social science, the continent and concrete of all others, waits upon 
 their development for its own. Its impediments. The Metaphysical, must 
 be replaced by the Methodic, study of man. Physical and social laws 
 indivisible in the study of society all the phenomena of this one sub 
 ject constituting but a single science 37 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF MAN THE SUBJECT OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. 
 
 g 1. Association essential to the existence of man. As the Planets gravi 
 tate to each other, Man tends towards his fellow-man. Local centres 
 balance and distribute the masses in order and harmony. Centralization 
 and decentralization analogous, and alike necessary, among planets and 
 societies. Illustrative history of the nations. Freedom of association 
 maintained by the balancing attractions. The welfare of the individual, 
 and of the aggregate, dependent upon their freedom 41 
 
 2. Individuality of man proportioned to the diversity of his endowments 
 and activities. Free association developes individuality. Variety in unity, 
 and peace in diversity. The balance of worlds, and of societies, maintained 
 by counter-balance 52 
 
 g 3. Responsibility of man measured by his individuality. Historic illustra- 
 trations. Association, individuality, and responsibility, grow and decline 
 together 57 
 
 4. Man a being of growth and progress. Progress is motion requiring 
 attraction, depending upon reciprocal action, and implying individuality 
 and association. Progress is in the ratio of these conditions 60 
 
 $ 5. The laws of being the same in matter, man, and communities. In the 
 solar world, attraction and motion in the ratio of the mass and the prox 
 imity ; in the social world, association, individuality, responsibility, deve 
 lopment, and progress, directly proportionate to each other. Definition of 
 social science... . 62 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OP INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OP MANKIND. 
 
 1. Quantity of matter not susceptible of increase. Susceptible of being 
 changed in place and in form. Constantly taking new and higher forms 
 passing from the inorganic to the organic, and ending in man. Man s 
 power limited to the direction of the natural forces. Law of endless cir 
 culation 64 
 
 2. Preparation of the earth for the reception of man 71 
 
 3. Man, in common with other animals, a consumer of food. His mission, 
 on this earth, so to direct the natural forces, as to cause the soil to yield 
 larger supplies of the commodities required for his use. Conditions upon 
 which, alone, those supplies can be augmented. Can be complied with 
 in those countries, only, in which employments are diversified, individu 
 ality is developed, and the power of association is increased ; 79 
 
 4. Law of the relative increase in the numbers of Mankind, and in the 
 supply of food 88 
 
 5. Malthusian law of population. Teaches, that while the tendency of 
 matter to assume the lowest forms, augments in an arithmetical ratio only, 
 when it seeks to attain the highest form, that tendency is found existing in 
 
 a geometrical one .* 91 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 CHAPTER I V. 
 
 ^ 
 
 OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EAUTH. 
 
 1. Limited power of man, in the hunter and the shepherd state. Move 
 ments of the isolated settler. Commences always with the poorer soils. 
 With increase of numbers, he acquires increase of force, and is enabled 
 to command the services of the richer soils thence obtaining larger sup 
 plies of food. Gradual passage from being the slave of nature, towards 
 becoming nature s master 94 
 
 2. Mr. Ricardo s theory. Absence of the simplicity which always cha 
 racterizes the laws of nature. Based upon the assumption of a fact that 
 never has existed. The law, as proved by observation, directly the reverse 
 
 of the theory by him .propounded 104 
 
 3. Course of settlement in the United States 108 
 
 4. Course of settlement in Mexico, the West Indies, and South America... 118 
 
 5. Course of settlement in Great Britain 122 
 
 6. Course of settlement in France, Belgium, and Holland 126 
 
 7. Course of settlement in the Scandinavian Peninsula, Russia, Germany, 
 Italy, the islands of the Mediterranean, Greece, and Egypt 129 
 
 8. Course of settlement in India. Mr. Ricardo s theory that of depopu 
 lation and growing weakness; whereas, the law is that of growing asso 
 ciation, and augmenting power 133 
 
 CHAPTER V." 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 1. Decrease of numbers compels the abandonment of the richer soils, and 
 drives man back to the poorer ones. Causes of the decline of population. 
 The supply of food diminishes in a ratio greater than that of man 139 
 
 2. Real facts directly the reverse of those supposed by Mr. Ricardo. Pro 
 gress of depopulation in Asia, Africa, and various parts of Europe 142 
 
 3. Exhaustion of the soil, and progress of depopulation in the United 
 States. With every step in that direction, man loses value, and nature 
 acquires power at his expense 144 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OF VALUE. 
 
 1. Origin of the idea of Value. Measure of value. Limited by the cost 
 
 of reproduction 147 
 
 2. Idea of comparison inseparably connected with that of value. Com 
 modities and things decline in value, as the power of association and com 
 bination becomes more and more complete 151 
 
 3. Man grows in value, as that of commodities declines 156 
 
 4. Diminution in the proportions charged for the use of commodities and 
 things, a necessary consequence of diminution in the cost of reproduction. 
 Definition of value 157 
 
 5. What are the things to which we attach the idea of value? Why are 
 they valued? How much is their value? 158 
 

 XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 $ 6. Inconsistencies of Adam Smith and other economists, in reference to 
 the cause of value. One only cause for the value of land, and of all its 
 parts and products. Phenomena in relation to value in land, exhibited in 
 
 Great Britain, the United States, and other countries 161 
 
 -_$ 7. Law of distribution. Its universal application 169 
 
 \ $ 8. All values merely the measure of the resistance offered by nature, to the 
 
 < ^_ possession of the things desired 172 
 
 9. All matter susceptible of being rendered useful to man. That it may 
 become so, he must have power for its direction. Utility the measure of 
 the power of man over nature. Value, that of nature s power over man... 176 
 
 f 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 OF WEALTH. 
 
 1. In what does wealth consist ? Commodities, or things, not wealth to 
 those who have not the knowledge how to use them. First steps towards 
 the acquisition of wealth always the most costly and the least productive. 
 Definition of wealth 181 
 
 $ 2. Combination of action essential to the growth of wealth. The less the 
 machinery of exchange required, the greater the power of accumulation. 
 Wealth grows with the decline in the value of commodities, or things, 
 required for man s uses and purposes 186 
 
 3. Of positive and relative wealth. Man s progress in the ratio of the 
 decline in the value of commodities, and the growth in his own 191 
 
 g 4. Material character of the modern political economy. Holds that no 
 values are to be regarded as wealth, but those which take a material 
 form. All employments regarded as unproductive, that do not result in 
 the production of commodities, or things 192 
 
 g 5. Definition of wealth now given, in full accordance with its general sig 
 nification of happiness, prosperity, and power. Grows with the growth of 
 the power of man to associate with his fellow-man 194 
 
 CHAPTER VI I T. 
 
 OP THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 
 
 1. In what society consists. The words society and commerce but dif 
 ferent modes of expressing the same idea. That there may be commerce, 
 there must be differences. Combinations in society subject to the law 
 
 of definite proportions 198 
 
 2. Every act of association an act of motion. Laws of motion those which 
 govern the societary movement. All progress in the direct ratio of the 
 substitution of continued for intermitted motion. No continuity of mo 
 tion, and no power where there exist no differences. The more numerous 
 the latter, the more rapid is the societary movement, and the greater the 
 tendency towards acceleration. The more rapid the motion, the greater is 
 the tendency to diminution in the value of commodities, and increase in 
 that of man 200 
 
 3. Causes of disturbance, tending to the arrest of the societary motion. 
 In the hunter state, brute force constitutes man s only wealth. Trade 
 commences with the traffic in bones, muscles, and blood the trade in man. 205 
 
 I 
 
CONTENTS. XVU 
 
 4. Trade and commerce usually regarded as convertible terms, yet wholly 
 different the latter being the object sought to be accomplished, and the 
 former only the instrument used for its accomplishment. Necessity for 
 employing the trader and transporter, an obstacle standing in the way of 
 commerce. Commerce grows with the decline in the power of the trader. 
 Trade tends towards centralization, and towards disturbance of the public 
 peace. War and trade regard man as the instrument to be used; where 
 as, commerce regards trade as the instrument to be used by man 210 
 
 5. Development of the pursuits of man the same as that of science the 
 passage being from the abstract to the more concrete. War and trade the 
 most abstract, and therefore first developed. Soldiers and traders always 
 
 in alliance with each other 215 
 
 6. Labors required for effecting changes of place, next in the order of 
 development. Diminish in their proportions, as population and wealth 
 increase 218 
 
 7. Labors required for effecting mechanical and chemical changes of form. 
 Require a higher degree of knowledge. With that knowledge conies 
 wealth 219 
 
 8. Vital changes in the forms of matter. Agriculture the great pursuit of 
 man. Requires a large amount of knowledge, and therefore late in its 
 development 220 
 
 9. Commerce last in the order. Grows with the growth of the power of 
 association 222 
 
 10. The more natural the form of society, the greater its tendency to 
 durability. The more perfect the poaver of association, the more does 
 society tend to take a natural form. The more numerous the differences, 
 the greater the power of association 223 
 
 11. Natural history of commerce. Subjects, order, succession, and co 
 ordination of. the classes of producers, transporters, and consumers of 
 industrial products, classified and illustrated. The analogies of natural 
 law universal 224 
 
 12. Erroneous idea that societies tend, naturally, to pass through various 
 forms, ending always in death. No reason why any society should fail to 
 become more prosperous from age to age 236 
 
 13. Theory of Mr. Ricardo leads to results directly the reverse of this 
 proving that man must become more and more the slave of nature, and of 
 
 his fellow -men. Unchristian character of the modern political economy... 231 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OF APPROPRIATION. 
 
 1. War and trade the characteristics of the early periods of society. Ne 
 cessity for the services of the warrior and the trader, diminishes with the 
 growth of wealth and population. Progress of communities towards wealth 
 and power, in the direct ratio of their ability to dispense with both 234 
 
 2. Close connection between war and trade visible in every page of history. 
 Their tendency towards centralization. Their power diminishes with the 
 growth of commerce 236 
 
 3. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Attica 240 
 
 4. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Sparta 245 
 
 5. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Carthage 246 
 
 VOL. I. 2 
 
XV111 CONTENTS. 
 
 G. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Rome 246 
 
 # 7. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Venice, Pisa, and Genoa 248 
 $ 8. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Holland 249 
 
 # 9. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Portugal 249 
 
 $ 10. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of Spain 250 
 
 $ 11. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of France 252 
 
 g 12. Social phenomena exhibited in the history of England and the United 
 
 States 257 
 
 $ 13. The richer soils abandoned in all the countries in which war, or trade, 
 obtains the mastery over commerce. Individual splendor grows in the 
 ratio of the growing weakness of the community. The less the proportion 
 borne by soldiers and traders to the mass of which the society is composed, 
 the greater is its tendency towards strength and durability 257 
 
 g 14. The higher the organization of society, the greater is its vigor, and 
 the better its prospect of life. The more numerous the differences, the 
 higher is the organization, an-d the greater the commerce. Increase in 
 the proportions of soldiers and traders tends towards centralization, and 
 moral, physical, and political death 259 
 
 $ 15. Modern political economists teach the reverse of this. Errors 
 resulting from using the same words, to express ideas that are wholly 
 different .. 260 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 
 
 $ 1. Difficulty, in the early period of society, of effecting changes in the 
 place of matter. The necessity for so doing, the chief obstacle to com 
 merce. Diminishes with the growth of population and of wealth 263 
 
 2. Decline in the proportion of the society required for effecting changes 
 of place. Accompanied by rapid growth of commerce, and corresponding 
 growth of power to obtain better means of transportation 264 
 
 \ 3. The more perfect the commerce among men, the greater is the tendency 
 towards the removal of the remaining obstacles to association. Man s pro 
 gress, in whatsoever direction, one of constant acceleration 267 
 
 $ 4. The first and heaviest tax to be paid by land and labor is that of trans 
 portation. The farmer, near to market, always making a machine, whereas, 
 the one distant therefrom is always destroying one 271 
 
 $ 5. Manure the commodity most needed by man, and the one that least 
 bears transportation 273 
 
 $ 6. The less the quantity of labor given to effecting changes of place, the 
 greater is that which may be given to production. Power to maintain 
 commerce grows with this change of proportions. The trader desires to 
 perpetuate the necessity for effecting changes of place 279 
 
 g 7. Freedom grows with the growth of the power of association. The ob 
 stacle to association being the necessity for effecting changes of place, man 
 becomes more free, as that necessity tends to disappear 283 
 
CONTENTS. xix 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 g 1. Colonial policy of Greece, Spain, and France. That of Britain the first 
 in which we meet with prohibition of association among the colonists. 
 Object of the prohibition, that of producing a necessity for effecting changes 
 in the place of matter. The policy barbaric in its tendencies, and hence it 
 
 is, that it has given rise to the theory of over-population 285 
 
 g 2. British policy looks to the dispersion of man, and to increase in the 
 
 proportion of society engaged in trade and transportation 289 
 
 g 3. Views of Adam Smith in regard to the advantages of commerce 291 
 
 g 4. British colonial system, as exhibited in the West India Islands 295 
 
 g 5. Theory of over-population an effort to account for facts artificially pro 
 duced, by aid of supposed natural laws 305 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 g 1. Phenomena of society, as presented in the history of Portugal 308 
 
 g 2. Phenomena of society, as presented in the history of the Turkish Empire 311 
 
 g 3. Phenomena of society, as presented in the history of Ireland 320 
 
 g 4. Real cause of the decay of Ireland 333 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 g 1. Local action, and local combination, conspicuous throughout the history 
 
 of Hindoostan. Their disappearance under the British rule 338 
 
 g 2. Indian commerce everywhere sacrificed, for the promotion of trade 343 
 
 g 3. Annihilation of Indian manufactures. Its ruinous effects 345 
 
 g 4. Growing necessity for transportation, and consequent waste of labor, 
 
 throughout India 351 
 
 g 5. Waste of capital, and destruction of the power of accumulation 353 
 
 g 6. Diminution in the security of person and property, correspondent with 
 
 the extension of British rule, and with the growing centralization 355 
 
 g 7. Trivial value of private rights in the land of India 358 
 
 g 8. India a paying country, under its native princes. Its steady deterio 
 ration, under the system which looks to increasing the necessity for the 
 
 trader and transporter s services 359 
 
 g 9. Causes of the decline of India 362 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 1. Review of the phenomena observed in the four great communities, 
 above referred to. Differing in all other respects, they are alike in the fact, 
 that they have been deprived of all power to diversify their employments, 
 and have thus been forced to increase their dependence on the transporter 
 and the trader 365 
 
XX CONTENTS. 
 
 # 2. Destructive effects of a growing necessity for the services of the trader. 367 
 $ 3. British policy looks solely to the increase of trade. An enlightened 
 
 selfishness would seek the promotion of commerce 371 
 
 $ 4. Constant waste of capital in all the countries subject to the British 
 
 system 374 
 
 $ 5. Enormous friction, and consequent waste of power, produced by the 
 
 growing necessity for ships 376 
 
 ? 6. Origin of the idea of over-population 379 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES IN THE FORMS OF MATTER. 
 
 2 1. For effecting changes in the forms of matter, a knowledge of the pro 
 perties of matter is required. The work of conversion more concrete and 
 special than that of transportation , and, therefore, later in its develop 
 ment. Its tendency to increase the utility of matter, and to diminish the 
 value of commodities required for man s use 381 
 
 $ 2. Instruments required for obtaining power to command the services of 
 the natural forces. That power constitutes wealth. First steps, in this 
 direction, the most difficult, and the least productive 3S3 
 
 $ 3. Conversion diminishes the labor required for transportation, while 
 increasing that which may be given to production. Consequent change 
 in the proportions of the several classes into which society is divided 384 
 
 $ 4. Economy of human effort resulting from increased facility of conversion 385 
 
 $ 5. Waste of labor where the place of conversion is distant from that of 
 production. The tendency towards development of the treasures of the 
 earth, is in the direct ratio of the proximity of the consumer to the pro 
 ducer 387 
 
 $ 6. Societary motion tends to increase in a geometrical ratio, when per 
 mitted to proceed onward and undisturbed. Frequently, however, arrested. 
 
 Causes of disturbance. Efforts to obtain a monopoly of the control of the 
 natural forces required in the work of conversion 389 
 
 $ 7. Selfishness, among communities as among individuals, generally de 
 feats itself. Better for man, that the natural forces had no existence, than 
 that their services should be monopolized 391 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 g 1. Rude character of English commerce at the opening of the fourteenth 
 century. Phenomena then presented, precisely similar to those exhibited 
 in the agricultural communities of the present day 39J 
 
 $ 2. Change of policy under Edward III., and its effects 39(1 
 
 $ 3. The condition of England, and the needs of its people, in the time of 
 Charles II., as exhibited by Andrew Yarranton 398 
 
 $ 4. Effects of dependence upon the distant market, as shown in England, 
 in the early portion of the eighteenth century. Changes in the condition of 
 the people, consequent upon diminution of that dependence 404 
 
 /} 5. Monopolistic character of the British system. Nothing comparable 
 *vith it, in its power for evil, ever before devised 40" 
 
CONTENTS. XXI 
 
 6. Power for evil, when wrongly directed, exists, everywhere, in the ratio 
 
 of that for good, when guided in the right direction 409 
 
 7. British system looks to diminishing the tax of transportation for the 
 British people, but increasing it for the other nations of the world 410 
 
 8. Enormous power acquired by it, for the taxation of other communities. 412 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 $ 1. Errors of the British system obvious to Adam Smith. His caution to 
 his countrymen, in regard to the dangers necessarily incident to an exclu 
 sive dependence upon trade 414 
 
 $ 2. His advice neglected, and hence the origin of the theory of over 
 population 416 
 
 $ 3. Growth of pauperism, under the British system, coincident with in 
 crease in the power of man to direct the natural forces 418 
 
 g 4. Warlike and monopolistic character of the system 410 
 
 $ 5. Equally injurious to the British people, and to those of other countries.. 421 
 
 g 6. By destroying among other people the power to sell their labor, it de 
 stroys competition for the purchase of British labor. Teaching, that to en 
 able capital to obtain a fair remuneration, labor must be kept down, it tends 
 to the production of slavery everywhere 424 
 
 $ 7. Approximation in the prices of raw materials and finished commodities, 
 the one essential characteristic of civilization. British system looks to the 
 prevention of that approximation. Its tendency towards reduction of other 
 communities to a state of barbarism 427 
 
 g 9. Its effects, as exhibited in the prices of raw materials and finished pro 
 ducts, in the British market 430 
 
 $ 9. Tends to increase the proportions of the various societies engaged in 
 trade and transportation. That increase an evidence of declining civiliza 
 tion ,.. 433 
 
 CHAPT ER XVIII. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 g 1. Stoppage of the circulation a necessary consequence of the predomi 
 nance of the British system. Inconsistencies of British teachers of social 
 
 science 435 
 
 $ 2. Decline of English commerce, consequent upon increase in the power of 
 
 trade. Condition of the agricultural laborer 441 
 
 % 3. Growth of trading centralization exhibited throughout England 444 
 
 $ 4. Increase in the proportions of the product of labor absorbed by the tra 
 ders and transporters. Gulf dividing the higher and lower classes a con 
 stantly widening one 445 
 
 $ 5. Brutalizing tendency of the system 447 
 
 $ 6. Centralization and demoralization always going together 448 
 
 g 7. Failure of the Reform Act to realize the expectations of its friends. Why 
 it failed .. 450 
 
XX11 CONTENTS. 
 
 $ 8. Diminution in the power of self-direction, in the people and the com 
 munity 451 
 
 9. Every measure tending to produce stoppage of the societary motion 
 abroad, tends equally to cause stoppage at home 455 
 
 $ 10. Constant companionship of war and trade 457 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 g 1. Phenomena attendant upon advancing civilization, and growing bar 
 barism T. 459 
 
 g 2. In advancing countries, the tax of transportation diminishes. In de 
 clining ones, it, as steadily, increases 460 
 
 3. Phenomena of society, as presented in the histories of Greece, Italy, 
 Britain, Turkey, Portugal, and the British colonies 461 
 
 g 4. Necessity for careful study of the system under which originated the 
 theory of over-population 463 
 
 5. Laws of nature act always in the same direction. Oscillating motion 
 of the theory of population, presented for consideration by Mr. Mal- 
 thus 465 
 
 g 6. Inevitable tendency of the Ricurdo-Malthusian doctrine, that of making 
 slavery the ultimate condition of the laborer 466 
 
 g 7. The system of the British school a retrograde one. Had its origin in a 
 retrograde policy 467 
 
 \ 8. Differences between Adam Smith and the modern British economists... 470 
 
 9. Law of definite proportions, as exhibited in the gradual changes of the 
 societary distribution 472 
 
PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OF SCIENCE AND ITS METHODS. 
 
 1. THE first man, when he had day after day, even for a single 
 week, witnessed the rising and setting of the sun, and had seen 
 that the former had invariably been accompanied by the presence 
 of light, while the latter had as invariably been followed by its 
 absence, had acquired the first rude elements of positive knowledge, 
 or science. The cause the sun s rising being given, it would 
 have been beyond his power to conceive that the effect should not 
 follow. With further observation he learned to remark that at 
 certain seasons of the year the luminary appeared to traverse par 
 ticular portions of the heavens, and that then it was always 
 warm, and the trees put forth leaves to be followed by fruit ; 
 whereas, at others, it appeared to occupy other portions of the 
 heavens, and then the fruit disappeared and the leaves fell, as a 
 prelude to the winter s cold. Here was a further addition to his, 
 stock of knowledge, and, with it came foresight, and a feeling of 
 the necessity for action. If he would live during the season of 
 cold, he could do so only by preparing for it during the season of 
 heat, a principle as thoroughly understood by the wandering Esqui 
 maux of the shores of the Arctic Ocean, as by the most enlightened 
 and eminent philosopher of Europe or America. 
 
 Earliest among the ideas of such a man would be those of space, 
 quantity, and form. The sun was obviously very remote, while of 
 the trees some were distant and others were close at hand. The 
 moon was single, while the stars were countless. The tree was 
 tall, while the shrub was short. The hills were high, and tending 
 towards a point, while the plains were low and flat. We have. 
 2 
 
10 CHAPTER I. 1. 
 
 here the most abstract, simple, and obvious of all conceptions. 
 The idea of space is the same, whether we regard the distance 
 between the sun and the stars by which he is surrounded, or that 
 between the mountains and ourselves. So, too, with number and 
 form, which apply as readily to the sands of the sea-shore as to 
 the gigantic trees of the forest, or to the various bodies seen to be 
 moving through the heavens. 
 
 Next in order would come the desire, or the necessity, for com 
 paring distances, numbers, and magnitudes, and the means for this 
 would be at hand in machinery supplied by nature, and always at 
 his command. His finger, or his arm, would supply a measure of 
 magnitudes, while his pace would do the same by distance, and the 
 standard with which he would compare the weights would be found 
 in some one among the most ordinary commodities by which he 
 was surrounded. In numerous cases, however, distances, veloci 
 ties, or dimensions, are found to be beyond the reach of direct 
 measurement, and thus is produced a necessity for devising means 
 of comparing distant and unknown quantities with those that being 
 near can be ascertained, and hence arises mathematics, or The 
 Science so denominated by the Greeks, because to its help was 
 due nearly all the positive knowledge of which they were pos 
 sessed. 
 
 The multiplication table enables the ploughman to determine the 
 number of days contained in a given number of weeks, and the 
 merchant to calculate the number of pounds contained in his cargo 
 of cotton. By help of his rule, the carpenter determines the dis 
 tance between the two ends of the plank on which he works. The 
 sounding-line enables the sailor to ascertain the depth of water 
 around his ship, and by help of the barometer the traveller deter 
 mines the height of the mountain on which he stands. All these 
 are instruments for facilitating the acquisition of knowledge, and 
 such, too, are the formula? of mathematics, by help of which the 
 philosopher is enabled to determine the magnitude and weight of 
 bodies distant from him millions of millions of miles, and is thus 
 enabled to solve innumerable questions of the highest interest to 
 man. They are the key to science, but are not to be confounded 
 with science itself, although often included in the list of sciences, , 
 and even so recently as in M. Comte s well-known work. That 
 such should ever have been the case has been due to the fact that 
 
OF SCIENCE AND ITS METHODS. 11 
 
 so much of what is really physics is discussed under the head of 
 mathematics ; as is the case with the great laws for whose discovery 
 we are indebted to Kepler, Galileo, and Newton. That a body 
 impelled by a single force will move in a right line and with a 
 velocity that is invariable, and that action and reaction are equal 
 and opposite, are facts, at the knowledge of which we have 
 arrived in consequence of pursuing a certain mode of investigation ; 
 but when obtained, they are purely physical facts, obtained by 
 help of the instrument to which we apply the term mathematics 
 and which is, to use the words of M. Comte, simply "an immense 
 extension of natural logic to a certain order of deductions."* 
 
 Logic is itself, however, but another of the instruments devised 
 by man for enabling him to obtain a knowledge of nature s laws. 
 To his eyes the earth appears to be a plane, and yet he sees the 
 sun rising daily in the east and setting as regularly in the west, from 
 which he might infer that it would always continue so to do but of 
 this he can feel no certainty until he has satisfied himself why it is 
 that it does so. At one time, he sees the sun to be eclipsed, while 
 at another, the moon ceases to give light, and he desires to know 
 why such things are what is the law governing the movements of 
 those bodies ; having obtained which he is enabled to predict when 
 they will again cease to give light, and to determine when they 
 must have done so in times that are past. At one moment ice 
 or salt melts; at another gas explodes; and at a third, walls are 
 shattered and cities are hurled to the ground; and he seeks to know 
 why these things are what is the relation of cause and effect ? 
 In the effort to obtain answers to all these questions, he observes 
 and records facts, and these he arranges with a view to deduce 
 from them the laws by virtue of which they occur and he invents 
 barometers, thermometers, and other instruments to aid him in his 
 observation but the ultimate object of all is that of obtaining an 
 answer to the questions : Why are all these things ? Why is it 
 that dew falls on one day and not on another ? Why is it that 
 corn grows abundantly in this field and fails altogether in that 
 one ? Why is it that coal burns and granite will not ? What, in 
 a word, are the laws instituted by the Creator for the government 
 of matter ? The answers to these questions constitute science 
 
 * Positive Philosophy, Martineau s Translation, Vol. i. 33. 
 
12 CHAPTER I. 2. 
 
 and mathematics, logic, and all other of the machinery in use are 
 but instruments used by him for the purpose of obtaining them. 
 
 In discussing the subject of rational mechanics, under the head 
 of mathematics, M. Conite informs his readers that we here " en 
 counter a perpetual confusion between the abstract and the con 
 crete points of view ; between the logical and the physical ; 
 between the artificial conceptions necessary to help as to general 
 laws of equilibrium and motion, and the natural facts furnished by 
 observation, which must form the basis of the science."* This, 
 however, is only saying that as " the natural facts," furnished by 
 observation, increase in number, there arises a necessity for en 
 deavoring to perfect the machinery by the help of which they are to 
 be studied, and that this is the case in the instance referred to by 
 M. Comte, is shown in his admission that the science of which he 
 treats is " founded on some general facts, furnished by observa 
 tion, of which we can give no explanation whatever, "f As we pass 
 from gate to gate of science, we pass from simple to compound 
 locks, requiring additional wards in the keys by which they are to 
 be opened; but the key still remains a key, and can never become a 
 lock, even though the wards should become fifty-fold more nume 
 rous than those of any yet constructed by Bramah, Chubb, or 
 Hobbs, and might require years of study before its proper man 
 agement could be acquired. There might then arise what would 
 be called the science of the key, but it would constitute no part of 
 true science. When D Alembert made, to use the words of Comte, 
 " a discovery, by help of which all investigation of the motion of 
 any body or system might be converted at once into a question of 
 equilibrium," he merely opened a new ward in the key by which 
 we were to unlock the cabinet of nature, and thus enlarge the 
 boundaries of that department of knowledge which treats of the 
 properties of matter and the laws by which it is governed, and 
 known as physical science. 
 
 2. The abstract mathematics necessarily took precedence of 
 the more concrete physics, because they were the sole product of 
 logic, and dependent upon those first principles which are in their 
 
 * Positive Philosophy, Martineau s Translation, Vol. i. p. 107. 
 f Ibid. 
 
OF SCIENCE AND ITS METHODS. 13 
 
 elements so nearly intuitive that when the boy commences the 
 study of geometry, he finds that he had already acquired a know 
 ledge of much that is now being given to him as science. Hence, 
 too, it was that moral science, poetry, the fine arts, and metaphysics 
 were so far advanced in Greece, while mechanical science had 
 scarcely an existence. 
 
 In default of observation, men of speculative habits looked 
 inwards to their own minds and invented theories that were given 
 to the world as laws, but, as has well been said: " Man can invent 
 nothing in science or religion but falsehood, and all the truths that 
 he discovers are but facts or laws that have emanated from the 
 Creator." The men of the Middle Ages the philosophers of the 
 schools taught the theories that had been invented by thei 
 Grecian predecessors, and it was left for Bacon to teach the phi- 
 losophy that leads to the search for truth among the facts of nature 
 and not among the speculations of men. From his day to the 
 present there has been a perpetual tendency towards the substitu 
 tion of careful observation and induction for the dreams of theo 
 rists, and as the Cartesian doctrine of Yortices gave way to the 
 discovery of gravitation, so the imaginary phlogiston of Stahl, and 
 the Plutonian and Neptunian cosmogonies have yielded to the dis 
 coveries of modern science. The former was early displaced by 
 the oxygen of Lavoisier, while the latter held their ground until 
 disproved by the observations of geologists, whose branch of science 
 dates its existence but little beyond the present century. 
 
 In physics, as has everywhere been the case, the more abstract 
 and general has, in its development, taken precedence of that 
 which is concrete and special. Astronomy, the science of the laws 
 governing bodies exterior to our own planet, was studied at an 
 Cxirly period, the shepherds of Chaldea having carefully noted the 
 movements of the celestial bodies, and Babylonians having calcu 
 lated eclipses thousands of years before the commencement of the 
 Christian era. From a well of Syene, Eratosthenes obtained the 
 observations required for determining the terrestrial meridian ; and 
 many centuries before Copernicus, Archimedes taught the double 
 motion of the earth around its axis and around the sun. The pre 
 cise length of the solar year was determined by Hipparchus, while 
 Mexican and Etrurian observation led in this respect so nearly to 
 the same result, that the difference between them was but ten 
 minutes. 
 
14 CHAPTER I. 2. 
 
 The motions of the celestial bodies were thus early studied and 
 comprehended, yet was it left to Newton to discover the reason 
 why the apple falls to the earth ; to Franklin to discover the 
 identity of lightning and electricity; to Cavendish to discover the 
 composition of the air we breathe ; to Black to discover the 
 existence of latent heat ; and to philosophers, even of our own 
 day, to discover the laws in virtue of which we see and hear. 
 Laplace s great work of Celestial Mechanics, was the product of 
 the same period that witnessed the birth of a new science, having 
 for its object to determine the composition of the globe on which 
 we live and move, and from which we derive our daily bread. It 
 is thus, that as we approach nearer to man, his uses and purposes, 
 we find the greatest retardation of that positive knowledge so early 
 attained in reference to the method to be pursued in the effort for 
 its attainment. The study of the history of science leads inevitably 
 to an agreement with Buffon in the opinion that, "however great 
 may be our interest in knowing ourselves," we probably " under 
 stand better all that is not ourselves" and with Rousseau in the 
 belief that "much philosophy is required for observing the facts 
 that are very near to us." 
 
 Passing from the more abstract and general laws governing the 
 movements of distant bodies towards those determining the com 
 position of the matter by which we are immediately surrounded, 
 we find new laws, but all subordinate to, and in harmony with, 
 those first obtained. Chemistry, following physics, which deals 
 with masses, deals with the elements of which they are composed, 
 all of which are, however, subject to the same laws by which the 
 masses themselves are governed. The atoms produced by the 
 analysis of Cavendish, were as obedient to the law of gravitation 
 as were the earth, the satellites of Jupiter, and Jupiter himself. 
 " The distinction between physics and chemistry," says M. Comte, 
 " is much less easy to establish" than between chemistry and 
 astronomy, and, as he continues, "it is one more difficult to pro 
 nounce upon from day to day, as new discoveries bring to light 
 closer relations between them."* That such is the case, will 
 readily be seen by the reader who reflects how much of the present 
 great development of physical knowledge has been due to the labors 
 
 * Positive Philosophy, Martineau s Translation, vol. i. p. 216. 
 
OF SCIENCE AND ITS METHODS. 15 
 
 of Cavendish, Priestley, Black, Davy, Lavoisier, Fourcroy, Gay- 
 Lussac, and other eminent chemists. 
 
 On another occasion, in the course of his admirable review of the 
 progress and gradual development of science, M. Comte thus 
 shows the intimate relation between physics on one side of chemis 
 try, and physiology on the other : 
 
 " By the important series of electro-chemical phenomena chemis 
 try becomes, as it were, a prolongation of physics : and at its other 
 extremity, it lays the foundation of physiology by its research into 
 organic combinations. These relations are so real that it has 
 sometimes happened that chemists, untrained in the philosophy of 
 science, have been uncertain whether a particular subject lay within 
 their department, or ought to be referred either to physics or to 
 physiology."* 
 
 As yet, he is of opinion that " the direct dependence of chemis 
 try on astronomy" is very slight, but " when the time shall come 
 for the development of concrete chemistry, that is, the methodical 
 application of chemical knowledge to the natural history of the 
 globe, astronomical considerations will no doubt enter in where 
 now there seems no point of contact between the two sciences. 
 Geology, immature as it is, hints to us such a future necessity, 
 some vague instinct of which was probably in the minds of philoso 
 phers in the theological age, when they were fancifully and yet 
 obstinately bent on uniting astrology and alchemy. It is, in fact, 
 impossible to conceive of the great intestinal operations of the 
 globe as radically independent of its planetary conditions, "f 
 
 Passing thus from the masses of physics through the atoms into 
 which they are resolved by chemistry, we next find those atoms 
 arranging themselves in organized and living forms, and consti 
 tuting the still more special subjects of vegetable, animal, and 
 human physiology, whose connection with chemistry is thus de 
 scribed : 
 
 " Physiology depends upon chemistry both as a point of de 
 parture and as a principal means of investigation. If we separate 
 the phenomena of life, properly so called, from those of animality, 
 it is clear that the first, in the double intestinal movement which 
 
 * Positive Philosophy, Martineau s Translation, vol. i. 298. 
 f Ibid., vol. i. 299. 
 
16 CHAPTER I. 2. 
 
 characterizes them, are essentially chemical. The processes which 
 result from organization have peculiar characteristics ; but apart 
 from such modifications, they are necessarily subjected to the 
 general laws of chemical effects. Even in studying living bodies 
 under a simply statical point of view, chemistry is of indis 
 pensable use in enabling us to distinguish with precision the 
 different anatomical elements of any organism."* 
 
 Again, in treating of biology, he says : 
 
 " It is to chemistry that biology is, by its nature, most directly 
 and completely subordinated. In analyzing the phenomenon of 
 life, we saw that the fundamental acts which, by their perpetuity, 
 characterize that state, consist of a series of compositions and 
 decompositions ; and they are therefore of a chemical nature. 
 Though in the most imperfect organisms, vital reactions are widely 
 separated from common chemical effects, it is not the less true 
 that all the functions of the proper organic life are necessarily 
 controlled by those fundamental laws of composition and decompo 
 sition which constitute the subject of chemical science. If we 
 could conceive throughout the whole scale the same separation of 
 the organic from the animal life that we see in vegetables alone, 
 the vital motion would offer only chemical conceptions, except the 
 essential circumstances which distinguish such an order of molecu 
 lar reactions. The general source of these important differences 
 is, in my opinion, to be looked for in the result of each chemical 
 conflict not depending only on the simple composition of the 
 bodies between which it takes place, but being modified by their 
 proper organization ; that is, by their anatomical structure. Che 
 mistry must clearly furnish the starting-point of every rational 
 theory of nutrition, secretion, and, in short, all the functions of the 
 vegetative life, considered separately ; each of which is controlled 
 by the influence of chemical laws, except for the special modifica 
 tions belonging to organic conditions."! 
 
 It is not, however, with chemistry alone that physiology is con 
 nected. Remote from astronomy as that department of knowledge 
 appears to be, the relation between them " is more important," 
 says M. Comte, "than is usually supposed. I mean," continues he, 
 
 * Positive Philosophy, Martineau s Translation, vol. i. p. 
 f Ibid., vol. i. p. 379. 
 
 300. 
 
OF SCIENCE AND ITS METHODS. 17 
 
 " something more than the impossibility of understanding the theory 
 of weight, and its effects upon the organism, apart from the con 
 sideration of general gravitation. I mean, besides, and more spe 
 cially, that it is impossible to form a scientific conception of the 
 conditions of vital existence without taking into the account the 
 aggregate astronomical elements that characterize the planet which 
 is the home of that vital existence. We shall see more fully, in 
 the next volume, how humanity is affected by these astronomical 
 conditions ; but we must cursorily review these relations in the 
 present connection. 
 
 " The astronomical data proper to our planet are, of course, 
 statical and dynamical. The biological importance of the statical 
 conditions is immediately obvious. No one questions the import 
 ance to vital existence of the mass of our planet in comparison 
 with that of the sun, which determines the intensity of gravity ; 
 or of its form, which regulates the direction of the force ; or of the 
 fundamental equilibrium and the regular oscillations of the fluids 
 which cover the greater part of its surface, and with which the 
 existence of living beings is closely implicated ; or of its dimen 
 sions, which limit the indefinite multiplication of races, and 
 especially the human ; or of its distance from the centre of our 
 system, which chiefly determines its temperature. Any sudden 
 change in one or more of these conditions would largely modify 
 the phenomena of life. But the influence of the dynamical condi 
 tions of astronomy on biological study is yet more important. 
 Without the two conditions of the fixity of the poles as a centre of 
 rotation, and the uniformity of the angular velocity of the earth, 
 there would be a continual perturbation of the organic media which 
 would be incompatible with life. Bichat pointed out that the 
 intermittence of the proper animal life is subordinate in its periods 
 to the diurnal rotation of our planet ; and we may extend the 
 observation to all the periodical phenomena of any organisms, in 
 both the normal and pathological states, allowance being made for 
 secondary and transient influences. Moreover, there is every 
 reason to believe that, in every organism, the total duration of 
 life and of its chief natural phases depends on the angular velocity 
 proper to our planet ; for we are authorized to admit that, other 
 things being equal, the duration of life must be shorter, especially 
 in the animal organism, in proportion as the vital phenomena 
 
18 CHAPTER I. 2. 
 
 succeed each other more rapidly. If the earth were to rotate 
 much faster, the course of physiological phenomena would be 
 accelerated in proportion ; and thence life would be shorter ; so 
 that the duration of life may be regarded as dependent on the 
 duration of the day. If the duration of the year were changed, 
 the life of the organism would again be affected : but a yet more 
 striking consideration is that vital existence is absolutely impli 
 cated with the form of the earth s orbit, as has been observed 
 before. If that ellipse were to become, instead of nearly circular, 
 as eccentric as the orbit of a comet, both the medium and the 
 organism would undergo a change fatal to vital existence. Thus 
 the small eccentricity of the earth s orbit is one of the main condi 
 tions of biological phenomena, almost as necessary as the stability 
 of the earth s rotation : and every other element of the annual 
 motion exercises an influence, more or less marked, on biological 
 conditions, though not so great as the one we have adduced. The 
 inclination of the plane of the orbit, for instance, determines the 
 division of the earth into climates, and, consequently, the geo 
 graphical distribution of living species, animal and vegetable. 
 And again, through the alternation of seasons, it influences the 
 phases of individual existence in all organisms ; and there is no 
 doubt that life would be affected if the revolution of the line of the 
 nodes were accelerated ; so that its being nearly immovable has some 
 biological value. These considerations indicate how necessary it is 
 for biologists to inform themselves accurately, and without any inter 
 vention, of the real elements proper to the astronomical constitu 
 tion of our planet. An inexact knowledge will not suffice. The 
 laws of the limits of variation of the different elements, or, at least, 
 a scientific analysis of the chief grounds of their permanence, are 
 essential to biological investigation ; and these can be obtained 
 only through an acquaintance with astronomical conceptions, both 
 geometrical and mechanical. 
 
 "It may at first appear anomalous, and a breach of the encyclo 
 pedical arrangement of the sciences, that astronomy and biology 
 should be thus immediately and eminently connected, while two 
 other sciences lie between. But, indispensable as are physics and 
 chemistry, astronomy and biology are, by their nature, the two 
 priucipal branches of natural philosophy. They, the complements 
 of each other, include in their rational harmony the general system 
 
OF SCIENCE AND ITS METHODS. 19 
 
 of our fundamental conceptions. The solar system and Man are 
 the extreme terms within which our ideas will forever be included. 
 The system first, and then Man, according to the positive course 
 of our speculative reason : and the reverse in the active process : 
 the laws of the system determining those of Man, and remaining 
 unaffected by them. Between these two poles of natural philoso 
 phy the laws of physics interpose, as a kind of complement of the 
 astronomical laws ; and again, those of chemistry, as an immediate 
 preliminary of the biological. Such being the rational and indis 
 soluble constitution of these sciences, it becomes apparent why I 
 insisted on the subordination of the study of Man to that of the 
 system, as the primary philosophical characteristic of positive 
 biology." 
 
 Passing now towards the more concrete and special department 
 of knowledge treating of the relation of man with his fellow-man 
 and with the earth from which he derives his means of support, 
 we find chemistry laying the foundation for it when " abolishing 
 the idea of destruction and creation,"* and thus establishing the 
 facts that the consumption of food is but a necessary step towards 
 its reproduction that in all the processes of agriculture man is 
 but making a machine which supports him while engaged in 
 making it that the more time and mind he devotes to the develop 
 ment of the powers of the earth, the greater must be his power of 
 consumption, and that the more rapidly the consumption of food 
 follows its production the greater will be the reproduction of the 
 elements required for new supplies thereof. These views of the 
 effect of the principle thus established do not appear to have 
 occurred to M. Comte, but he shows clearly the direct connection 
 of chemical and social science when telling his readers that " before 
 anything was known of gaseous materials and products, many 
 striking appearances must inevitably have inspired the idea of the 
 real annihilation or production of matter in the general system of 
 nature. These ideas could not yield to the true conception of 
 decomposition and composition till we had decomposed air and 
 water, and then analyzed vegetable and animal substances, and 
 then finished with the analysis of alkalies and earths, thus exhibit 
 ing the fundamental principle of the indefinite perpetuity of matter. 
 
 * Positive Philosophy, Martineau s Translation, p. 305. 
 
20 CHAPTER I. 2. 
 
 In vital phenomena, the chemical examination of not only the 
 substances of living bodies, but their functions, imperfect as it 
 yet is, must cast a strong light upon the economy of vital nature 
 by showing that no organic matter radically heterogeneous to 
 inorganic matter can exist, and that vital transformations are 
 subject, like all others, to the universal laws of chemical phe 
 nomena." 
 
 It is scarcely possible to study these facts without arriving at a 
 belief in the universality of the laws governing matter, whatever 
 form that matter may take, whether that of clay, coal, iron, wheat, 
 or man whether aggregated in the form of systems of mountains, 
 or in that of vast communities of men. We can conceive of 
 no body without weight, nor would it be possible to imagine any 
 one not in subjection to the law of the composition of forces. 
 Chemistry and physiology, more concrete and special than physics, 
 furnish additional laws, but always in subordination to those 
 governing the masses from which had been derived the atoms 
 treated of in those departments of human knowledge. Chemistry 
 aids in the development of physics, while the researches of physio 
 logists are steadily making new demands upon, and thereby pro 
 moting the growth of, chemical science. Each helps, and is 
 helped by, the other. 
 
 The root, the stem, the branches, the leaves, and the blossoms 
 of the tree are obedient to the same system of laws. Colored 
 water applied to the root changes the color of the blossom, and 
 stoppage of nourishment to the root destroys the tree. It is but 
 a single tree, and so it is with the tree of science, whose root is 
 found in physics, while its stem branches into those divisions which 
 are based upon observation and experiment, leaving us to find the 
 leaves, the blossoms, and the fruit in the less demonstrable depart 
 ments of knowledge. 
 
 That this is true as regards the more abstract and general portions 
 of science to which reference has thus far been made, can scarcely 
 now be doubted. Wherefore, then, should we doubt that it would 
 be found equally so in relation to those more concrete and special 
 ones treating of man in his relation with the material world 
 of man in his relations with his fellow-man of man as a being 
 capable of acquiring power over the various natural forces pro 
 vided for his use, and responsible, to his fellow-men, and to his 
 
OF SCIENCE AND ITS METHODS. 21 
 
 Creator, for the proper use of the faculties with which he has been 
 so wonderfully endowed ? If the root, the stem, and the branches 
 obey the same laws, should we not find the blossoms and the 
 fruit of the tree of science equally obedient to them, and will not 
 the diagram opposite represent with considerable accuracy the 
 relation of the various departments of knowledge and the order 
 of their development ? 
 
 3. "The distributions and partitions of knowledge," says Lord 
 Bacon in his Novum Organum, " are not like several lines that 
 meet in one angle, and touch but in a point ; but are like branches 
 of a tree that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and quantity 
 of entireness and continuance before it comes to discontinuance 
 and break itself into arms and boughs ; therefore," as he continues, 
 "it is good before we enter into the former distribution, to create 
 and constitute one universal science by the name of Philosophia 
 Prima, or Summary Philosophy, as the main or common way, 
 before we come where the ways part and divide themselves." 
 
 Concerned as he was with the order and division of the sciences, 
 and pledged as he was in the introduction to his work to furnish 
 it, he failed to do so, " the first part of the Introduction which 
 comprehends the division of the sciences" being, says his editor, 
 " wanting." A study, so far as the idea of the text appeared to 
 the latter to require elucidation, rather than an attempt to supply 
 the deficiency, is submitted in its stead. 
 
 The several branches of natural science are commonly spoken of, 
 but the figure has a larger parallelism with the subject, a tree having 
 not only branches but also roots. These latter are properly under 
 ground branches, constituting the structural support, and furnish 
 ing the vital subsistence of the tree, which grows from its roots 
 and with them. Its stem, branches, flowers, and fruits, being con 
 verted aliment supplied by and through the roots, the allusions of 
 the figure are in good keeping with the natural history of the sub 
 ject intended to be illustrated. 
 
 The central or taproot, as the reader sees, represents matter, 
 with its essential properties of inertia, impenetrability, divisibility, 
 and attraction. The lateral ones stand, on one side, for mechani 
 cal and chemical forces, and on the other, for vegetable and animal 
 ones and from these substantive roots of being rises the stem man, 
 
22 CHAPTER I. 3. 
 
 so composed as to his natural constitution. The soul, being the 
 occult life of the structure, is incapable of representation, though 
 manifested by its proper evidence in the flowers and fruits, the 
 emotions and thoughts of his faculties. 
 
 We have now the stem the man " having dimension and 
 quantity of entireness and continuance before it came to discon 
 tinue and break itself," branching off into his diverse activities. 
 These branches are his functions, ramifying into all their specific 
 differences of application. The first branch on the material side 
 is Physics, as represented in the drawing. Its ramifications are 
 into natural philosophy and chemistry masses and atoms and 
 the shoots from these are mechanics and chemical dynamics the 
 one being the action of masses and the other that of atoms. 
 
 The main branch on the vital side of the tree, rising a little 
 above Physics, must necessarily be Organology, branching first into 
 the science of vegetable beings, Phytology, and sending off the 
 shoot, Vegetable Physiology ; and second, into that of animal 
 beings, Zoology, leading to Biology, or the science of life. 
 
 Following the stem in the natural order of rank and successive 
 development, it is seen next giving off Social Science, which divides 
 itself into Jurisprudence and Political Economy, while on the cor 
 responding side the main branch, Psychology, ramifies itself into 
 Ethics and Theology and the tree finally tops out with Intuition 
 as the material branch and Inspiration as the vital one. These 
 highest and last named, are rightly the source of the other science 
 or sciences to which Bacon alludes as standing above Metaphysics, 
 when he says that, "as for the vertical point, the summary law 
 of nature, we know not whether man s inquiry can attain unto it" 
 that is, so as to order and methodize its teachings. 
 
 In this scheme of the sciences of things, there is no place for 
 either Logic or Mathematics, the respective regulative sciences of 
 mind and matter. Neither of these belongs to Natural History, 
 being both alike mere instruments to be used in the study of 
 nature. 
 
 Historically, the top branches of the tree of knowledge, as of all 
 other trees, are first produced, and the branches next below are 
 soon put forth, but mature later, the instincts of religion and 
 reason appearing in their vigor in the childhood of the race. So 
 cial science, necessarily, and metaphysics, spontaneously, extend 
 
OF SCIENCE AND ITS METHODS. 23 
 
 themselves as early as societies take form, and speculation is 
 awakened and they bring forth quickly the flowers and fruits of 
 music, poetry, the fine arts, logic, mathematics, and those generali 
 ties of speculative truth which are the products of imagination and 
 reflection. The correspondence between the figure chosen and the 
 facts to be illustrated would seem to be complete. 
 
 In time, the branches nearer to the earth, more material in their 
 substance and more dependent upon observation, obtain develop 
 ment in their larger diversity of use. The sciences of substance, of 
 natural objects, grow and ramify themselves almost indefinitely 
 physical philosophy and organology, in their dependencies, shoot 
 ing out in every direction of observation and experiment, at first 
 overshadowed by the speculative branches above them, but always 
 vivified by them ; while in their turn repaying this service by afford 
 ing substantive strength and corrective modification as they grow 
 into maturity. 
 
 Such is the history of science, and such the illustration of its 
 orderly divisions, succession, and co-ordination ; it represents the 
 compound nature of man, the sources of his powers, and the order 
 of their development. 
 
 4. Man seeks to obtain power over matter, and therefore is it 
 that he desires to obtain a knowledge of the laws that have been 
 instituted for its government. To become the subject of law it is 
 required that there should be a regular and uniform succession of 
 causes and effects, the nature of which may be expressed in several 
 propositions so that when we observe the former we may be 
 enabled to predict the latter, or when the latter are observed we 
 may safely assume the former to have pre-existed. 
 
 In the early ages of society theories abound, and they do so 
 because, in default of knowledge, almost every occurrence is " re 
 garded as accidental, or is attributed to the direct interposition of 
 mythological powers, whose qualities are so vaguely conceived as 
 to make the idea of the events depending upon their action scarcely 
 one remove from that of its being absolutely fortuitous and irre 
 ducible to order and rule" and thus it was that the Greeks of the 
 days of Homer were seen soliciting the aid of imaginary deities, 
 who were moved to action by the same feelings and passions that 
 influenced their worshippers; precisely as does now the poor Afri- 
 
26 CHAPTER I. 4. 
 
 that development can take place no otherwise than by our forma 
 tion of the science as a whole."* 
 
 " In the organic sciences, the elements are much better known 
 to us than the whole which they constitute : so that in that case we 
 must proceed from the simple t the compound. But the reverse 
 method is necessary in the study of man and of society ; man and 
 society as a whole being better known to us, and more accessible 
 subjects of study, than the parts which constitute them. In 
 exploring the universe, it is as a whole that it is inaccessible to us; 
 whereas, in investigating man or society, our difficulty is in pene 
 trating the details. We have seen, in our survey of biology, that 
 the general idea of animal nature is more distinct to our minds 
 than the simpler notion of vegetable nature ; and that man is the 
 biological unity ; the idea of man being at once the most com 
 pound, and the starting-point of speculation in regard to vital 
 existence. Thus, if we compare the two halves of natural philoso 
 phy, we shall find that in the one case it is the last degree of com 
 position, and, in the other, the last degree of simplicity, that is 
 beyond the scope of our research."! 
 
 This would seem to be going back to what M. Comte is accus 
 tomed to denominate the metaphysical stage of science. The phi 
 losopher of old would, in like manner, have said : " These masses 
 of granite are better known to us than the parts of which they are 
 composed, and therefore we will limit our inquiries to the question 
 as to how they came to have their existing form and occupy 
 their present position." Without the analysis of the chemist it 
 would have been as impossible that we should be enabled to 
 " penetrate into the details" of the piece of stone, and thus to 
 acquire a knowledge of the composition of the distant mountain 
 from which it had been taken, as it would now be for us to pene 
 trate into those of the communities that have passed away, were 
 we not in the midst of living ones, composed of men endowed with 
 the same gifts and animated by the same feelings and passions 
 observed to have existed among the men of ancient times ; and were 
 we not, too, possessors of the numerous facts accumulated during 
 the many centuries that since have intervened. It is the details of 
 
 * Positive Philosophy, Martineau s Translation, vol. ii. p. 81. 
 f Ibid., vol. ii. p. 82. 
 
OF SCIENCE AND ITS METHODS. 2T 
 
 life around us that we need to study, commencing by analysis and 
 proceeding to synthesis, as does the chemist when he resolves the 
 piece of granite into atoms, and thus acquires the secret of the com 
 position of the mass. Having ascertained that it is composed of 
 quartz, feldspar, and mica, and having fully satisfied himself of the 
 circumstances under which it appears in the country around him, 
 he feels entire confidence that wherever else.it may be found, its 
 composition, and its position in the order of formation, will be the 
 same. He is constantly going from the near and the known, 
 which he can analyze and examine, to the distant and the unknown, 
 which he cannot ; studying the latter by means of formulas obtained 
 by analysis of the former. Thus it was that by study of the 
 deposits of Siberia and California, the geologist was enabled to 
 predict that gold would be found among the mountains of Aus 
 tralia. _ir"i. 
 
 If we desire to understand the history of man in past ages, or in I 
 distant lands, we must commence by studying him in the present, 
 and having mastered him in the past and present, we may then be 
 enabjed to predict the future. To do this, it is required that we 
 should do with society as the chemist does with the piece of gra 
 nite, resolve it into its several parts and study each part separately, 
 ascertaining how it would act were it left to itself, and comparing 
 what would be its independent action with that we see to be its 
 action in society ; and then by help of the same law of which the 
 mathematician, the physicist, the chemist, and the physiologist, 
 avail themselves that of the composition of forces we may 
 arrive at the law of the effect. To do this would not, however, be 
 to adopt the course of M. Comte, who gives us the distant and 
 the unknown the societies of past ages as a means of under 
 standing the movements of the men by whom we are surrounded, 
 and of predicting what will be those of future men. "With great_j 
 respect for M. Comte, we must say that to pursue this course 
 appears to us to be equivalent to furnishing his readers with a tele 
 scope by which to study the mountains of the moon for the purpose 
 of understanding the movements of the laboratory. 
 
 The necessary consequence of this inverse and erroneous method 
 is that he is led to arrive at conclusions directly the reverse of 
 those to which men s natural instincts lead them ; and directly 
 opposed, too, to the tendencies of thought and action in all the 
 
28 CHAPTER I. 5. 
 
 times of advancing civilization, whether in the ancient or modern 
 world ; and, as a necessary consequence, he leaves his readers as 
 much at a loss to understand the causes of disturbance that now 
 exist, or the remedy required to be applied, as would a physician 
 who should limit the study of his patient to an examination of the 
 body in a mass, omitting all inquiry into the state of the lungs, the 
 stomach, or the brain. His system of sociology does not explain 
 the past, and cannot therefore be used to direct the future ; and 
 the reason why it does not and cannot is, that he has declined to 
 use the method of physics, the philosophy which studies the near and 
 the known for the purpose of obtaining power to comprehend the 
 distant and the unknown which studies the present to obtain 
 knowledge by help of which to understand the causes of events in 
 the past, and predict those which are bound to flow from similar 
 causes in the future. 
 
 5. Turning from France to Britain, we find ourselves in the 
 home of Adam Smith, whose most essential doctrines have, how 
 ever, been wholly repudiated by his successors of the modern 
 school, which had its origin in the teachings of Messrs. Malthus 
 and Ricardo. " Social science," as we are there taught by one of 
 the most distinguished teachers, and in opposition to the views of 
 Mr. Comte, "is a deductive science; not indeed," as he con 
 tinues, " after the model of geometry, but after that of the highest 
 physical sciences. It infers the law of each effect from the laws of 
 causation upon which the effect depends ; not, however, from the 
 law merely of one cause, as in the geometrical method, but by con 
 sidering all the causes which conjointly influence the effect, and 
 compounding those laws with one another."* 
 
 Such is the theory. What is the practice under it, we may now 
 examine. " Political economy," says the same author, "considers i 
 mankind as occupied solely in acquiring and consuming wealthj 
 and aims at showing what is the course of action into which man 
 kind, living in a state of society, would be impelled, if that motive, 
 except in the degree in which it is checked by the two perpetual 
 counter motives above adverted to aversion to labor and the de 
 sire of the present enjoyment of costly indulgences were abso 
 lute ruler of all their actions. Under the influence of this desire, 
 
 * J. S. Mill. System of Logic, Book vi. ch. 8. 
 
 h- 
 
OF SCIENCE AND ITS METHODS. 29 
 
 it shows mankind accumulating wealth, and employing this wealth 
 in the production of other wealth ; sanctioning by mutual agree 
 ment the institution of property; establishing laws to prevent indi 
 viduals from encroaching on the property of others by force or 
 fraud ; adopting various contrivances for increasing the produc 
 tiveness of their labor ; settling the division of the produce by- 
 agreement, under the influence of competition, * * and employ 
 ing certain expedients * * to facilitate the distribution. AlPI 
 these operations, though many of them are really the result of a 
 plurality of motives, are considered by political economy as flow 
 ing solely from a desire of wealth. * * * * Not that any 
 political economist was ever so absurd as to suppose that man 
 kind are really thus constituted, but because this is the mode in 
 
 x which the science must necessarily be studied."* 
 
 " For the sake of practical utility," however, the principle of 
 population is required to be " interpolated into the exposition," and 
 this is done, although to do so involves, as we are told, a depar 
 ture from "the strictness of purely scientific arrangement, "f 
 
 That having been done, we have the politico-economical man, 
 on one hand influenced solely by the thirst for wealth, and on the 
 other so entirely under the control of the sexual passion as to be 
 at all times ready to indulge it, however greatly such indulgence 
 may tend to prevent the growth of wealth. 
 
 What, however, is this thing in the quest for which he is so assi 
 duously engaged ? What is wealth ? To this question political 
 economy furnishes no reply, it having never yet been settled in 
 what it is that wealth consists. Were it suggested that land con 
 stituted any part thereof, the answer would at once be made that 
 by reason of a great law of nature, the more of it that was brought 
 into use, and the larger the quantity of labor given to its improve 
 ment, the less must be the return to human effort, the poorer must 
 the community become, and the greater must be the tendency 
 towards poverty and death and that such must certainly be the 
 case could readily be proved by passages from writers of high 
 authority. Were it next assumed that wealth might be found in 
 the development of the individual faculties, proof sufficient could 
 be furnished that not only would any search in that direction be 
 
 * J. S. Mill. Sustem of Logic, Book vi. cli. 8. 
 f Ibid. 
 
30 CHAPTER I. 5. 
 
 vain, but that it would result in the establishment of the fact that 
 any increase in the number of teachers must be attended with dimi 
 nution of the quantity of wealth at the command of the community. 
 Foiled thus in all his efforts, the inquirer, after having studied 
 carefully all the books, would still be found repeating the question 
 What is wealth ? 
 
 Turning next to the being so sedulously engaged in the pursuit 
 of an undefined something that seems to embrace so much, and that 
 yet excludes so large a proportion of the things usually regarded as 
 wealth, he would desire to satisfy himself if the subject of politi 
 cal economy was really the being known as man. He might per 
 haps ask himself, has man no other qualities than those here 
 attributed to him ? Is he, like the beasts of the field, solely given 
 to the search for food and shelter for his body? Does he, like 
 them, beget children for the sole gratification of his passions, and 
 does he, like them, leave his offspring to feed and shelter themselves 
 as they may ? Has he no feelings or affections to be influenced by 
 the care of wife and children ? Has he no judgment to aid him in 
 the decision as to what is likely to benefit or to injure him ? That 
 he did possess these qualities he would find admitted, but the econ 
 omist would assure him that his science was that of material wealth 
 alone, to the entire exclusion of the wealth of affection and of intel 
 lect held by Adam Smith in such high esteem and thus would 
 he, at the close of all his search, discover that the subject of 
 political economy was not really a man, but an imaginary being 
 moved to action by the blindest passion, and giving all his ener 
 gies to the pursuit of a thing in its nature so undefinable that all 
 the books in use might be searched for a definition that would be 
 admitted by a jury of economists as embracing all that should be 
 included, and excluding all that should not. 
 
 The law of the composition of forces requires that we should 
 study all the causes tending to produce a given effect. That effect 
 is MAN the man of the past and the present ; and the social phi 
 losopher who excludes from consideration his feelings and affections, 
 and the intellect with which he has been endowed, makes precisely 
 the same mistake that would be made by the physical one who 
 should look exclusively to gravitation, forgetting heat ; and should 
 thence conclude that at no distant day the whole material of which 
 the earth is composed would become a solid mass, plants, ani- 
 
OF SCIENCE AND ITS METHODS. 31 
 
 mals and men having disappeared. Such is the error of modern 
 political economy, and its effects are seen in the fact that it pre 
 sents for our consideration a mere brute animal, to find a name for 
 which it desecrates the word "man," recognized by Adam Smith 
 as expressing the idea of a being made in the likeness of its Creator. 
 It was well asked by Goethe " What is all intercourse with 
 nature, if by the analytical method, we merely occupy ourselves with 
 individual material parts, and do not feel the breath of the spirit 
 which prescribes to every part its direction, and orders or sanc 
 tions every deviation by means of an inherent law ?" And what, 
 we may ask, is the value of an analytical process that selects only 
 the "material parts" of man those which are common to him 
 self and the beast and excludes those common to the angels and 
 himself? Such is the course of modern political economy, which 
 not only does not "feel the breath of the spirit," but even ignores 
 the existence of the spirit itself, and is therefore found defining 
 what it is pleased to call the natural rate of wages, as being "that 
 price which is necessary to enable the laborers, one with another, 
 to subsist and perpetuate their race, without either increase or 
 diminution"* that is to say, such price a will enable some to 
 grow rich and increase their race, while others perish of hunger, 
 thirst, and exposure. Such are the teachings of a system that has 
 fairly earned the title of the " dismal science " that one the study 
 of which led M. Sismondi to the inquiry "What, then, is wealth 
 everything, and is man absolutely nothing ?" In the eyes of 
 modern political economy he is nothing, and can be nothing, 
 because it takes no note of the qualities by which he is distinguished 
 from the brute, and is therefore led to regard him as being a mere 
 instrument to be used by capital to enable its owner to obtain com 
 pensation for its use. " Some economists," said a distinguished 
 French economist, shocked at the material character of the so- 
 called science, "speak as if they believed that men were made 
 for products, not products for men ;"f and at that conclusion must 
 all arrive who commence by the method of analysis, and close 
 with exclusion of all the higher and distinctive qualities of man. 
 
 6. In the progress of knowledge we find ourselves gradually 
 passing from the compound to the simple ; from that which is 
 
 * Ricardo. f Droz. Economic Politique, 
 
32 CHAPTER I. 6. 
 
 abstruse and difficult to that which is plain and easily learned: 
 That "all simple ideas are true," we have been assured by Des 
 cartes, and evidence of the fact may everywhere be found in the 
 beautiful simplicity, and wonderful breadth of propositions in 
 science, themselves the result of a long induction, leading to the 
 knowledge of great truths not at first perceptible, but when an 
 nounced so conclusive as to close, almost at once. and forever, all 
 discussion in reference to them. The falling of the apple led New 
 ton to the law of gravitation, and to the discovery of that law we 
 owe the astonishing perfection of modern astronomy. The estab 
 lishment of the identity of lightning and electricity laid the founda 
 tion of a science, by help of which we have been enabled to 
 command the services of a great power in nature, that has super 
 seded all the contrivances of man. Kepler and Galileo, Newton 
 and Franklin, would have failed in all their efforts to extend the 
 domain of science, had they pursued the method of M. Comte in 
 his attempt to establish a system of social science. 
 
 Does this method, however, supersede entirely the a priori one ? 
 Because we pursue the method of analysis, are we necessarily pre 
 cluded from that of synthesis ? By no means. The one, however, 
 is the indispensable preparation for the other. It was by the 
 careful observation of particular facts that Le Terrier was led to 
 the grand generalization that a new and unobserved planet was 
 bound to exist, and in a certain part of the heavens, and there it 
 was almost at once discovered. To careful analysis of various 
 earths it was due that Davy was led to the announcement of the 
 great fact that all earths have metallic bases one of the grandest 
 generalizations on record, and one whose truth is being every day 
 more and more established. The two methods were well described 
 by Goethe, when he said that synthesis and analysis were "the sys 
 tole and diastole of human thought," and that they were to him 
 " like a second breathing process never separated, ever pulsat 
 ing." " The vice of the d priori method," says the writer from 
 whom this passage is taken, " when it wanders from the right 
 path, is not that it goes before the facts, and anticipates the tardy 
 conclusions of experience, but that it rests contented with its own 
 verdicts, or seeking only a partial, hasty confrontation with facts 
 what Bacon calls notiones temere h, rebus abstractas. "* 
 
 * Westminster Review, Oct. 1852: Article, Goethe as a Man of Science* 
 
OF SCIENCE AND ITS METHODS. 33 
 
 *- 
 
 If science be one and indivisible, then must the method of study 
 be one. That this is so, with regard to all the departments of 
 knowledge that underlie social science physics, chemistry, and 
 physiology cannot now be doubted, yet it is but recently that ; 
 
 there has been reason to believe in any such connection. Witjbt < 
 
 each new discovery the approximation becomes more close, and with 
 each we see how intimately are the facts of all the earlier and more 
 abstract departments of knowledge connected with the progress of 
 man toward that state of high development for which he seems to 
 have been intended. From hour to hour, as he acquires further 
 control over the various forces existing in nature, he is enabled to 
 live in closer connection with his fellow man to obtain larger 
 supplies of food and clothing to improve his own modes of 
 thought and action, and to furnish better instruction to the gene 
 ration destined to succeed him. The knowledge that leads to such 
 results is but the foundation upon which we are required to build, 
 when undertaking to construct that higher department denominated 
 social science, and the instrument that has been so successfully 
 used in laying the foundation cannot but be found equally useful 
 in the construction of the building itself. 
 
 Mathematics must be used in social science, as it is now in every j 
 other branch of inquiry, and the more the former is used, the more L? 
 the latter takes the form of real science, and the more intimate are 
 shown to be its relations with other departments of knowledge. The 
 Malthusian law was the first instance of its application, and had it 
 proved a true one, it would have given a precision to political 
 economy, of which before it had been utterly incapable, making 
 the progress of man directly dependent upon the presence or 
 absence of certain powers in the soil on which he lived. So, too, 
 with Mr. Ricardo s celebrated theory of rent, by which was esta 
 blished what he deemed to be the natural division of the products 
 of labor among the men who labored, and those who superintended 
 the work, or those who owned the land by which they were yielded. 
 The method of both these great laws was right, and the fact of 
 their having adopted that method has properly placed their authors 
 in the front rank of economists, and has given to their works an 
 amount of influence never before exercised by any writers on 
 economical science. That they fell into the error above described, 
 of " seeking only a partial, hasty confrontation with facts," and, 
 
34 . CHAPTER I. 6. 
 
 therefore, furnished the world with theories directly the reverse of 
 truth, does not prevent us from seeing of what infinite advantage 
 to the progress of science it would have been to have had the facts 
 brought under these relations, if true, nor of how great importance 
 it nyist be to have the real facts brought under such , relations 
 whenever possible. 
 
 Let us, for example, take the following proposition : 
 In the early period of society, when land is abundant and people 
 are few in number, labor is unproductive, and of the small product, 
 the land-owner or other capitalist takes a large proportion, leaving 
 to the laborer a small one. The larger proportion yields, how 
 ever, but a small amount, and both laborer and capitalist are 
 poor the former so poor that he is everywhere seen to have 
 been a slave to the latter. Population and wealth, however, in 
 creasing, and labor becoming more productive, the land-owner s 
 share diminishes in its proportion, but increases in its amount. 
 The laborer s share increases not only in its amount, but also in 
 its proportion, and the more rapid the increase in the productive 
 ness of his labor, the greater is the proportion of the augmented 
 quantity retained by him ; and thus, while the interests of both are 
 in perfect harmony with each other, there is a constant tendency 
 towards the establishment of an equality of condition the slave of 
 the early period becoming the free man of the later one. 
 
 Admitting this to be true and if so, it establishes directly the 
 reverse of what was propounded by Messrs. Malthus and Ricardo 
 . we have here the distinct expression of a mathematical relation 
 between the concomitant variations of power of man and matter 
 of the man representing only his own faculties, and of the man 
 representing the accumulated results of human faculties upon mat- 
 I ter and its forces. The problem of social science, and the one 
 attempted to be solved by those writers, is, what are the relations 
 of man and the outside material world. They change, as we see, 
 men becoming, in some countries, from year to year more and 
 more the masters, and in others, the slaves of nature. In what 
 manner is it that changes in one tend to produce further changes 
 in itself, or to effect changes in the other ? To this question we 
 need a mathematical answer, and until it shall be furnished as it is 
 believed to be in the above very simple proposition political 
 economy can bear only the same relation to social science that 
 
OF SCIENCE AND ITS METHODS. 35 
 
 the observations of the Chaldean shepherds bear to modern astro- 
 nomy. 
 
 Social science can scarcely be said to have an existence. That 
 it might exist, it was required that we should first possess the 
 physical, chemical, and physiological knowledge enabling us to 
 observe how it is that man is enabled to obtain command over the 
 various forces provided for his use, and to pass from being the 
 
 slave, to becoming the master of nature. " Man," says Goethe, Jl 
 
 " only knows himself in as far as he knows external nature," and it 
 was needed that the more abstract and general departments of 
 knowledge should acquire a state of high development, before We 
 could advantageously enter upon the study of the highly concrete 
 and special, and infinitely variable science of the laws by which 
 man is governed in his relations with the external world, and with 
 his fellow-man. Chemistry and physiology are both, however, of 
 recent date. A century since, men knew nothing of the composi 
 tion of the air they breathed, and it is within that period that 
 Haller laid the foundation of the physiological science that now 
 exists. In physics, even, the Aristotelian doctrine of the four 
 elements had yet possession of many of the schools, and still pro 
 bably remains in some of those on the outer borders of civilization. 
 In this state of things there could be but little progress towards 
 the attainment of the knowledge how far it was in the power of 
 man to compel the earth to yield the supplies required for a stea 
 dily increasing population ; and without that knowledge there could 
 be no such thing as social science. 
 
 Science requires laws, and laws are but universal truths truths 
 to which no exceptions can be found. Those obtained, harmony 
 and order take the place of chaos, and we are led in every 
 department of knowledge as much to recognize effects as having 
 been the natural results of certain definite causes, and to look 
 for the reappearance of similar effects when like causes shall 
 again occur, as did the first man when he had definitely con 
 nected the presence and absence of light with the rising and 
 setting of the sun. 
 
 Where, however, is there in social science a proposition whose 1 
 truth is universally admitted ? There is not even a single one. 
 A century since, the strength of a nation was regarded as tending 
 to increase with augmentation of its numbers, but now we are 
 
36 CHAPTER I. 6. 
 
 taught that increase of numbers brings with it weakness instead 
 of strength. From year to year we have new theories of the laws 
 of x population, and new modifications of the old one and the 
 question of the laws governing the distribution of the proceeds of 
 labor between the owner and occupier of land, is now discussed 
 as vigorously as it was fifty years since. Of the disciples of Mes 
 sieurs Malthus and Ricardo, scarcely any two are agreed as to what 
 it was that their masters really meant to teach. On one day we 
 are told that the Ricardo-Malthusian doctrine is dead, and on the 
 next we learn that it is an evidence of want of knowledge to doubt 
 its^ truth ; and yet the parties to whom we are indebted for all this 
 knowledge, belong to the same politico-economical school.* The 
 strongest advocates for the removal of all restrictions on trade in 
 cloth are found among the fiercest opponents of freedom in the 
 trade in money; and among the most enthusiastic friends of com 
 petition for the sale of merchandise, are to be found the most de 
 cided opponents of competition for the purchase of the laborer s 
 "Tune and talents. Teachers who rejoice in everything tending to 
 increase the prices of cloth and iron, as leading to improvement 
 in the condition of man, are found among the foremost of those 
 who deprecate advance in the price of the laborer s services, as 
 tending to diminution of power for the maintenance of trade. 
 Others who teach non-interference by government when it looks to 
 the diffusion of knowledge among the people, are among the most 
 decided as to the propriety of such interference when it looks to 
 measures leading to war and waste. All is therefore confusion, 
 and nothing is settled ; as a necessary consequence of which the 
 world looks quietly on, waiting the time when the teachers shall 
 
 * "We believe it (the Ricardo principle of rent), dominates in the long 
 run, and is the main cause of the decline of nations. * * We 
 believe the law of population to which Malthus first directed public atten 
 tion, to be founded in fact." London Spectator, Nov. 18, 1854. 
 
 "Nobody, except a few mere writers, now troubles himself about Malthus 
 on population, or Ricardo on rent. Their error may yet indeed linger in 
 the universities, the appropriate depositories for what is obsolete." London 
 Economist, same date. 
 
 " In fact, this phenomenon, the announcement of which caused so much 
 clamor against Malthus, appears to me incontestable." Bastiat. Harmonies 
 Economiques. 
 
 " l The theory of rent, given by Ricardo, appears to me to remain un 
 touched." Chevalier. De la Monnaie. 
 
 " The Essay on the Principle of Population was really, and we must ac 
 knowledge it, a revelation." Journal des jEconomistes, Oct. 1854. 
 
OF SCIENCE AND ITS METHODS. 37 , 
 
 arrive at so.me understanding among themselves as to what it is , 
 that is to be believed. 
 
 That they may do so, it is essential that they arrive at some 
 such understanding as to the meaning of the various terms in 
 common use, no approach towards which has yet been made. 
 " The great defect of Adam Smith, and of our economists 
 in general," says Archbishop Whateley, " is the want of defini 
 tions," and in proof of this he gives his readers the numerous and 
 widely different ones furnished by the most distinguished teachers 
 in relation to the highly important terms, Yalue, Wealth, Labor, 
 Capital, Rents, Wages, and Profits, and shows that, for want of 
 clear conceptions, the same word is used by the same writer at one 
 time in a manner totally inconsistent with that in which he uses it 
 at another. To that list, he might, as he most truly says, add 
 many others " which are often used without any more explanation, 
 or any more suspicion of their requiring it, than the words "tri 
 angle," or "twenty"* and as a consequence of this it is that, as 
 will be hereafter shown, words of the highest importance are used 
 by distinguished writers as being entirely synonymous, when really 
 expressing not only different, but directly opposite ideas. 
 
 u. 
 
 7. The causes of the existence of this state of things are readily 
 explained. Of all others, social science is the most concrete and 
 special the most dependent on the earlier and more abstract 
 departments of science the one in which the facts are most difficult 
 of collection and analysis and therefore the last that makes its 
 appearance on the stage. Of all, too, it is the only one that 
 affects the interests of men, their feelings, passions, prejudices, 
 and therefore the one in which it is most difficult to find men col 
 lating facts with the sole view to deduce from them the knowledge 
 they are calculated to afford. Treating, as it does, of the relations 
 between man and man, it has everywhere to meet the objection of 
 those who seek the enjoyment of power and privtlege at the cost 
 of their fellow-men. The sovereign holds in small respect 
 science that would teach his subjects to doubt the propriety of his 
 exercise of power by the grace of God. The soldier cannot 
 believe in one that looks to the annihilation of his trade, nor can 
 
 * Elements of Logic. 
 
38 CHAPTER I. Y. 
 
 the monopolist readily be made to believe in the advantages of 
 competition. The politician lives by managing the affairs of 
 others, and he has small desire to see the people taught the proper 
 management of their own concerns. All these men profit by 
 teaching falsehood, and therefore frown upon those who would 
 desire to teach the truth. The landlord believes in one doctrine and 
 his tenant in another, while the payer of wages looks at all ques 
 tions from a point of sight directly the opposite of the one occupied 
 by him to whom the wages are paid. 
 
 We here meet a difficulty with which, as has been already said, 
 no other science has had to contend. Astronomy has wrought its 
 way to its present prodigious height with but temporary opposition 
 from the schools, because no one was personally interested in con 
 tinuing to teach the revolution of the sun around the earth. For 
 a time the teachers, secular and spiritual, were disposed to deny 
 the movement of the latter, but the fact was proved, and opposi 
 tion ceased. Such, too, was the case when geology began to teach 
 that the earth had had a longer existence than previously had 
 been believed. The schools that represented by-gone days did 
 then as they had done in the days of Copernicus and Galileo, 
 denouncing as heretics all who doubted the accuracy of the re 
 ceived chronology, but short as is the time that has since elapsed, 
 the opposition has already disappeared. Franklin, Dalton, Wol- 
 laston, and Berzelius prosecuted their inquiries without fear of 
 opposition, for their discoveries were unlikely to affect injuriously 
 the pockets of land-owners, merchants, or politicians. Social 
 science is, however, still to a great extent in the hands of the 
 schoolmen, backed everywhere by those who profit by the ignorance 
 and the weakness of the people. 
 
 The occupants of academic chairs in Austria or Russia may not 
 teach what is unfavorable to the divine rights of kings, or favor 
 able to increase in the powers of the people. The doctrines of 
 the schools of France vary from time to time as despotism yields 
 to the people, or the people yield to it. The landed aristocracy 
 of England was gratified when Mr. Malthus satisfied it that the 
 poverty and misery of the people resulted necessarily from a great 
 law emanating from an all-wise and all-benevolent Creator ; and 
 the manufacturing one is equally so when it sees, as it thinks, the 
 fact established that the general interests of the country are to be 
 
OF SCIENCE AND ITS METHODS. 39 
 
 promoted by measures looking to the production of an abundant 
 supply of cheap, or badly paid, labor. 
 
 The system of this country being based upon the idea of entire 
 political equality, we might, perhaps, be warranted in looking to 
 our teachers for something different, even if not better, but if we 
 should do so we should, in general, be disappointed. With few and 
 slight exceptions, our professors teach the same social science that 
 is taught abroad by men who live by inculcating the divine rights 
 of kings ; and they teach self-government by aid of books from 
 which their pupils learn that the greater the tendency towards 
 equality the greater is the hatred among the several classes of 
 which society is composed. Social science, as taught in some of ( 
 the colleges of this country and of Europe, is now on a level with 
 the chemical science of the early part of the last century ; and there 
 it will remain so long as its teachers shall continue to look inwards 
 to their own minds and invent theories, instead of looking out 
 wards to the great laboratory of the world for the collection of 
 facts with a view to the discovery of laws. In default of such laws JL _j 
 they are constantly repeating phrases that have 110 real meaning, 
 and that tend, as Goethe most truly says, to " ossify the organs of 
 intelligence," not only of themselves but of their hearers.* 
 
 The state in which it now exists is what M. Cornte is accustomed / 
 to denominate the metaphysical one, and there it must continue to 
 remain until its teachers shall waken to this fact, that there is but 
 one system of laws for the government of all matter, whether 
 existing in the form of a piece of coal, a tree, a horse, or a man and j 
 but one mode of study for all departments of it. " The leaf," says / 
 a recent writer, "is to the plant what the microcosm is to the macro^ 
 cosm it is the plant in miniature a common law governs the 
 two, and therefore whatever disposition we find in the parts of the 
 
 * " The pagan, the idolater, the ignorant even of the Catholic church, 
 worship their stocks and stones ; and instead of regarding these as signs 
 only shadowing forth what in its intellectual state, the human mind can 
 not otherwise express of its religious sentiments, takes the signs for the 
 things they represent, and worships them as facts. We, too, worship our 
 signs our words. Let any man set himself to the task of examining the 
 state of his knowledge on the most important subjects, divine or human, 
 and he will find himself a mere word-worshipper ; he will find words with 
 out ideas or meaning in his mind venerated, made idols of idols different 
 from those carved in wood or stone only by being stamped with printer s 
 ink on white paper." Laing, Chronicle of the Sea Kings, Introd. Disserta 
 tion, chap. ii. 
 
40 CHAPTER I. f . 
 
 leaf, we may expect to find in the parts of the plant; and vice 
 versa." So is it with the tree of science, with its many branches, 
 what is true of its root cannot be otherwise than true of the leaves 
 and the fruit. The laws of physical science are equally those of 
 social science, and in every effort to discover the former we are 
 but paving the way for the discovery of the latter. " The entire 
 succession of men," said Pascal, "through the whole course of 
 ages, must be regarded as one man, always living, and incessantly 
 learning;" and among the men who have most largely contributed 
 towards the foundation of a true social science are to be ranked 
 the eminent teachers to whose labors we have been so largely 
 indebted for the wonderful development of physical, chemical, and 
 physiological science in the last and present centuries. 
 
 The later man is, therefore, the one possessing the most of that 
 knowledge of the operations of society required for comprehending 
 the causes of the various effects recorded in the pages of history, 
 and for predicting those which must result in future from causes 
 now existing. The early man possessed little of science but the 
 instrument required for its acquisition, and what of it he did acquire 
 was purely physical in its character and most limited in its extent. 
 The existing one is in possession not only of physical science to 
 an extent that is wonderful compared with what existed a century 
 since, but to this he has added the chemical and physiological 
 sciences then scarcely known, and has proved that the laws of the 
 former and more abstract are equally those of the latter more con 
 crete and special ones. If, then, there is truth in the suggestion 
 of Pascal that we are to consider the endless succession of men as 
 one man, may it not be that the laws of all the earlier and more 
 abstract departments of science will be found to be equally true in 
 reference to the highly concrete and special one which embraces the 
 relations of man in society and that, therefore, all science will 
 prove to be but one, its parts differing as do the colors of the 
 spectrum, but producing, as does the sun s ray, undecomposed, 
 one white and bright light ? To show that such is the case is the 
 object of the present work. 
 
OF MAN. 
 
 "":" - * 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF MAN THE SUBJECT OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. 
 
 
 
 1. MAN, the molecule of society, is the subject of social science. 
 In common with all other animals he requires to eat, drink, and 
 sleep, but his greatest need is that of ASSOCIATION with his fel 
 low-men. Born the weakest and most dependent of animals, he 
 requires the largest care in infancy, and must be clothed by others, 
 whereas to birds and beasts clothing is supplied by nature. Ca 
 pable of acquiring the highest degree of knowledge, he appears in 
 the world destitute even of that instinct which teaches the bee and 
 the spider, the bird and the beaver, to construct their habitations^ 
 and to supply themselves with food. Dependent upon the expe 
 rience of himself and others for all his knowledge, he requires lan 
 guage to enable him either to record the results of his own observa 
 tion, or to profit by those of others ; and of language there can be 
 none without association. Created in the image of his Maker, he 
 should participate in his intelligence ; but it is only by means of 
 ideas that he can avail himself of the faculties with which he has 
 been endowed, and without language there can be no ideas no 
 power of thought. Without language, therefore, he must remain 
 in ignorance of the existence of powers granted to him in lieu of 
 the strength of the ox and the horse, the speed of the hare, and 
 the sagacity of the elephant, and must remain below the level of 
 the brute creation. To have language there must be association 
 and combination of men with their fellow men, and it is on this 
 condition only that man can be man ; on this alone that we can 
 conceive of the being to which we attach the idea of man. " It 
 is not good," said God, " that man should live alone," nor do we 
 ever find him doing so; the earliest records of the world exhibiting 
 to us beings living together in society, and using words for the 
 expression of their ideas. Whence came those words ? Whence 
 came language ? With the same propriety might we ask Why does 
 4 
 
 
42 CHAPTER II. 1. 
 
 fire burn ? Why does man see, feel, hear, or walk ? Language 
 escapes from him at the touch of nature herself, and the power of 
 using words is his essential faculty, enabling him to maintain com 
 merce with his fellow men, and fitting him for that association with 
 out which language cannot exist. The words society and lan 
 guage convey to the mind separate and distinct ideas, and yet by 
 no effort of the mind can we conceive of the existence of the one 
 without the other. 
 
 The subject of social science then is man the being to whom 
 have been given reason and the faculty of individualizing sounds so 
 as to give expression to every variety of idea and who has been 
 placed in a position to exercise that faculty. Isolate him, and 
 with the loss of the power of speech, he loses the power to rea 
 son, and with it the distinctive quality of man. Restore him to 
 society, and with the return of the power of speech he becomes 
 again the reasoning man. 
 
 ~ We have here the great law of molecular gravitation as the 
 indispensable condition of the existence of the being known as man. 
 The particles of matter having each an independent existence, the 
 atom of oxygen or of hydrogen is as perfect and complete as it 
 could be were it in -connection with millions of others like itself. 
 The grain of sand is perfect whether flying alone before the wind 
 or resting with its fellows on the shores of the broad Atlantic. 
 The tree and the shrub, brought from distant lands and standing 
 alone in the conservatory, produce the same fruits and yield the 
 same odors as when they stood in the groves from which they had 
 been transplanted. The individual dog, cat, and rabbit possess all 
 their powers in a state of entire isolation. Such, however, is not 
 the case with man. The wild man, wherever found, has always 
 proved to be not only destitute of the reasoning faculty, but des 
 titute also of the instinct that in other animals takes the place of 
 reason and therefore the most helpless of beings. 
 
 (Man tends of necessity to gravitate towards his fellow-man. Of 
 all animals he is the most gregarious, and the greater the number 
 collected in a given space the greater is the attractive force there 
 exerted, as is seen to have been the case with the great cities of 
 the ancient world, Nineveh and Babylon, Athens and Rome, and 
 as is now seen in regard to Paris and London, Vienna and Naples, 
 Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. Gravitation is here, as 
 
OF MAN. 43 
 
 everywhere else in the material world, in the direct ratio of the 
 mass, and in the inverse one of the distance. 
 
 Such being the ease, why is it that all the members of the 
 human family do not tend to come together on a single spot of ! 
 earth ? Because of the existence of the same simple and universal 
 law by means of which is maintained the beautiful order of the 
 system of which our planet forms a part. We are surrounded 
 by bodies of various sizes, and some of these are themselves pro 
 vided with satellites, each having its local centre of attraction, by 
 means of which its parts are held together. Were it possible that 
 that attractive power could be annihilated, the rings of Saturn, the 
 moons of our earth and of Jupiter, would crumble to pieces and 
 fall inward upon the bodies they now attend, a mass of ruins. So, 
 too, with the planets themselves. Small as are the asteroids, each 
 has within itself a local centre of attraction enabling it to preserve 
 its form and substance, despite the superior attraction of the larger 
 bodies by which it is everywhere surrounded. 
 
 So it is throughout our world. Look where we may we see 
 local centres of attraction towards which men gravitate, some exer 
 cising less influence, and others more. London and Paris may be 
 regarded as the rival suns of our system, each exercising a strong 
 attractive force, and were it not for the existence of the counter 
 attraction of local centres like Vienna and Berlin, Florence and 
 Naples, Madrid and Lisbon, Brussels and Amsterdam, Copenhagen, 
 Stockholm, and St. Petersburg, Europe would present to view one 
 great centralized system, the population of which was always tend 
 ing towards those two cities, there to make all their exchanges, 
 and thence to receive their laws. So, too, in this country. It is 
 seen by all how strong is even now the tendency towards New 
 York, and that, too, in despite of the existence of local centres of 
 attraction in the cities of Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Wash 
 ington, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, St. Louis, New Orleans, Augusta, 
 Savannah, and Charleston, and in the numerous capitals of the 
 States of which the Union is composed. Were we to obliterate 
 these centres of attraction and place a centralized government like 
 that of England, France, or Russia, in the city of New York, 
 not only would it grow to the size of London, but soon would far 
 exceed it, and the effect would be the same as would be produced 
 in the astronomical world by a similar course of operation. The 
 
44 CHAPTER II, 1. 
 
 local governments would fall to pieces, and all the atoms of which 
 they had been composed would tend at once towards the new 
 centre of gravity that had been thus produced. Local and volun 
 tary association for the various purposes of life, throughout what 
 would then be the provinces of a great centralized State, would be 
 at an end, but in its place would be found the forced association of 
 dependents on one hand and masters on the other. Every neigh 
 borhood that required to have a road or a bridge, to establish a 
 bank, or to obtain a redress of grievances, would be required to 
 make its application therefor at the great city, distant many hun 
 dreds of miles, and to pay innumerable officers before it could 
 obtain the desired permission, as is now the case in France. Every 
 community that found itself suffering from heavy taxes, or from other 
 oppressions from which it desired to be relieved, would be found 
 seeking to make itself heard, but its voice would be drowned by 
 nose of the men who profited by such abuses, as is now the case 
 with the complaints to Parliament of Ireland and of India. Instead 
 of going, as now, to the little capital of the State, close at hand, 
 and obtaining without cost the required laws, they would find 
 themselves compelled to employ agents for the negotiation of their 
 business, and those agents would then, as now in England, accu 
 mulate enormous fortunes at the cost of the poor and distant 
 suitors. Much of this is already seen at Washington, and yet how 
 trivial is it compared with what it would be were all the various 
 business transacted by State Legislatures and by County Boards 
 brought within the sphere of Congress, as it now is within thai of 
 the British Parliament. 
 
 The centralizing tendency of the State capital is, in its turn, 
 greatly neutralized by the existence of opposing centres of attrac 
 tion at the various county seats, and in the numerous towns and 
 cities of the Union, each managing its own affairs, and each pre 
 senting places at which the people of the various districts, and of 
 the whole country itself, are brought into connection with each 
 other, for the exchange of the products of physical or mental 
 effort. Obliterate these centralize the powers of towns and 
 counties in the State Legislatures and the power of local associa 
 tion throughout the States would be in a great degree annihilated. 
 The State capital, or that of the Union, would grow rapidly, as 
 would the sun were the local attraction of the planets destroyed. 
 
OF MAN. 45 
 
 The splendor of both might be greatly increased, but in the space 
 now traversed by the planets motion would cease to exist, as would 
 be the case throughout this country, were it made dependent on a 
 single centre and without motion there can be neither association 
 nor force, nor consequently progress. 
 
 Further, with the growth of centralization there would be seen 
 a diminution in the counteracting force by which families are held 
 together, despite the attractions of the capital. Whatever tends 
 to the establishment of decentralization, and to the production of 
 local employment for time and talent, tends to give value to land, 
 to promote its division, and to enable parents and children to 
 remain in closer connection with each other and the stronger the 
 ties that bind together the members of the various families of which 
 the community is composed, the more perfect will be their revolution 
 on their own axes, and the greater the attraction within the bosom 
 of the communities which constitute the State. Whatever tends, 
 on the contrary, to the diminution of local employment, tends to the 
 consolidation of land, the breaking up of families, and the building 
 up of great cities at the expense of the country, as we see to have 
 been the case in Italy, Ireland, India, and Britain, and as is at this 
 moment seen in the rapid growth of our own cities, accompanied, 
 as it always is, by the expulsion of our people to distant lands, 
 with constant diminution of the power of association and combina 
 tion. 
 
 The pages of history furnish throughout evidence that the 
 tendency towards association without which the human animal 
 cannot become the being to which we apply the denomination of 
 man has everywhere grown with increase in the number and 
 strength of local centres of attraction, and has declined with their 
 diminution. Such centres were found in nearly all the Grecian 
 Islands, while Laconia and Attica, Boaotia and Argos, Arcadia 
 and Elis, Megara and Corinth, were enabled each to rejoice in its 
 own. Local association existed there to an extent that had until 
 then been unequalled in the world, yet the tendency towards general 
 association was exhibited in the foundation of the Isthmian and 
 Nemean, and the yet more celebrated Olympic games, which drew 
 together all that were distinguished for physical or intellectual 
 power, not only in the States and cities of Greece itself, but in the 
 distant Italy and Asia. In the Amphictyonic league we find 
 
46 CHAPTER II. 1. 
 
 further evidence of the tendency to general as a consequence of 
 local association ; but here, unhappily, the idea was not fully car 
 ried out. The attractive power of this sun of the system was not 
 sufficient for the maintenance of order in the movements of the 
 planets, which frequently, therefore, shot madly from their spheres 
 and jostled against each other. 
 
 To the equal action of opposing forces it is due, that the celes 
 tial world is enabled to exhibit such wonderful harmony and such 
 unceasing motion and to the same principle, here carried out to 
 a greater extent than elsewhere in the world, it is due that the 
 history of the Union has presented no case of civil war, while 
 exhibiting an amount of peaceful motion far exceeding what has 
 elsewhere been exhibited. Destroy the State governments and 
 centralize power in the hands of the general government, and the 
 result would be found in a steady diminution of the power of vo 
 luntary association for the purposes of peace, and increase in the 
 tendency towards involuntary association for the purposes of war. 
 Destroy the central government, and conflicts among the States 
 would become inevitable. The people of Greece had all this yet 
 to learn, and the consequences were found in frequent war among 
 the states and cities, resulting in the establishment of a highly 
 centralized government, controlling the disbursements of a treasury 
 filled by the contributions of a thousand subject cities. Thence 
 forward, the people of those cities lost the power of association for 
 the determination of their respective rights, and had to seek for 
 justice among themselves in the courts of Athens. To that city 
 resorted all who had money to pay to, or to receive from, the 
 State all who had causes to try all who sought places of power 
 or profit all who found themselves unable to obtain a living at 
 home and all who preferred the work of plunder to that of labor ; 
 and with every step in this direction, decentralization gave way to 
 centralization, until at length Athens and Sparta, Samos and Mi- 
 tylene, and all the other states and cities of Greece were involved 
 in one common ruin Attica herself becoming, to a great extent, 
 the property of a single individual, surrounded by hosts of slaves, 
 the disposition for voluntary association, and the power to exercise 
 it, having wholly passed away. 
 
 Looking to Italy, we see a similar course of things. In its early 
 days, Etruria and the Campagna, Magna Gr&cia and the Samnite 
 
OF MAN. 47 
 
 Hills, presented to view numerous cities, each the centre of a dis 
 trict throughout which existed in a high degree the habit of local 
 and voluntary association. With time, however, we see that habit 
 gradually disappearing, and first among the people of Rome itself, 
 perpetually engaged in disturbing their peaceful neighbors. The 
 central city growing by help of plunder, with every step in that 
 direction the local centres of attraction diminished in importance, 
 and it became more and more necessary to resort to the arbitration 
 of Rome itself. As power became more and more centralized 
 within her walls, her people became more and more dependent on 
 the public treasury, and the power of voluntary association gradu 
 ally disappeared while Italy throughout presented the spectacle 
 of great landlords occupying palaces, and surrounded by troops of 
 slaves. So long as the opposing forces were in equal balance, 
 Italy furnished the world with men, but with her decline she is seen 
 more and more to have presented it with slaves, sometimes attired 
 in the beggar s rags, and at others in the imperial purple. 
 
 Studying the history of the Republic and the Empire, we see 
 that their long duration is to be attributed to the fact that to so 
 great an extent the people of the provinces were left to govern 
 themselves, subject only to the performance of certain duties to the 
 central power. Local association for almost every purpose was 
 for centuries left untouched, and the towns and cities imposed their 
 own taxes, determined their own laws, and selected the magistrates 
 by whom they were to be carried into effect. 
 
 Modern Italy, from the days of the Lombards, presented during 
 many centuries the most remarkable case of the connection between 
 local attraction and the power of voluntary association. Milan, 
 Genoa, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, Pisa, Sienna, Padua, and 
 Yerona, were each centres of attraction such as had existed once 
 in Greece, but in default of a sun with attractive force sufficient to 
 maintain the harmony of the system, they were perpetually at war 
 with each other, until at length Austria and France centralized 
 within themselves the government of the peninsula, and the habit 
 of voluntary association entirely disappeared. 
 
 India had numerous centres of attraction. In addition to its 
 various capitals, each little village presented a self-governing com 
 munity in which existed the power of association to an extent 
 scarcely elsewhere equalled but with the growth of central power 
 
48 CHAPTER II. 1. 
 
 in Calcutta, the habit and the power of exercising it have almost 
 altogether disappeared. 
 
 Spain had numerous local centres. Association there existed 
 to a great extent, not only among the enlightened Moors, but 
 among the people of Castile and Arragon, Biscay and Leon. The 
 discovery of this continent, of which the government became the 
 absentee landlord, greatly increased the central power, with cor 
 responding decline in local activity and local association, and the 
 consequences are visible in the depopulation and weakness that 
 have since ensued. 
 
 In Germany we find the home of the decentralization of Europe 
 of jealousy of central power and of the maintenance of local 
 rights as a consequence of which the tendency towards associa 
 tion has always been strong among her people, and has now been 
 followed up by the union of her communities in the Zoll- Verein, 
 one of the most important events recorded in the history of Europe. 
 Like Greece, Germany has always been deficient as regards the 
 sun around which the numerous planets might peacefully revolve, 
 and as in Greece, powers exterior to her system have been 
 enabled to use one community against another to an extent that 
 has greatly retarded the progress of civilization at home, although 
 as a rule, she has interfered little with its progress abroad.* Strong 
 for defence, she has, therefore, been weak for offence, and has 
 exhibited no tendency towards wars for conquest, or towards the 
 levying of contributions upon her poorer neighbors, as has been 
 so much the case with her highly centralized neighbor, France. 
 Abounding always in local centres of attraction, it has been found 
 impossible to create a great central city to direct the modes of 
 thought and action, and to that it is due that Germany is now so 
 rapidly taking the position of the great intellectual centre, not only 
 of Europe, but of the world at large. 
 
 Among the states of Germany there is none whose policy has so 
 much tended to the maintenance of local centres of action, as ad 
 vantageous to the best interests of the people and the state, as 
 Prussia. All the ancient divisions, from the communes to the pro 
 vinces, have been carefully preserved, and their constitutions as 
 
 * Austria is a compound of numerous bodies, a large portion of which is 
 entirely exterior to Germany. Her wars in Italy have mostly been Aus 
 trian and not Germanic. 
 
OF MAN. 49 
 
 % 
 
 carefully respected, as a consequence of which it is that here we 
 find the people advancing towards freedom with great rapidity 
 while the state is rapidly advancing in wealth and power. The 
 peaceful effects of decentralization are here fully exhibited in the 
 fact that, under the lead of Prussia, Northern Germany has been 
 brought under a great federal system, by help of which internal 
 commerce has been placed on a footing almost precisely corre 
 sponding with that of these United States. 
 
 Nowhere in Europe had decentralization more existed, and no 
 where had the tendency to peaceful association, or the strength of 
 resistance to attacks from without consequent upon union, been 
 more fully exhibited than in Switzerland, notwithstanding the 
 existence of the widest religious differences. The wars and revo 
 lutions of the period ending in 1815, and the constant revolutions 
 and growing centralization of France, have here, however, pro 
 duced their usual effect in the establishment of increased centraliza 
 tion, under which the weaker cantons have been deprived of rights 
 they had for ages enjoyed, and tyranny and oppression are gradu 
 ally taking the place of the freedom and exemption from taxation 
 that before existed. 
 
 The French Revolution annihilated, when it should have strength 
 ened the local governments and thus was centralization increased 
 when it should have been diminished, the consequences of which 
 are seen in a perpetual succession of wars and revolutions. Much 
 was done towards decentralization when the lands of absentee 
 nobles and of the church were divided among the people, and to 
 the counteracting effect of this measure it is due that France has 
 grown in strength notwithstanding the extraordinary centralization 
 of her system. 
 
 Belgium and Holland present remarkable instances of the power 
 of local action to produce habits of association. In both, the 
 towns and cities were numerous, and the effect of combined action 
 is seen in the wonderful productiveness of what was originally one 
 of the poorest countries of Europe. 
 
 In no part of Europe was the division of land so complete, or its 
 possession so secure, as in Korwcy, at and before the date of the 
 Norman conquest of England; and in none, consequently, was the 
 power of local attraction so fully exhibited. The habit of asso- 
 
50 CHAPTER II. 1. 
 
 elation, therefore, existed to an extent then unknown in France 
 and Germany, developing itself in the establishment of " a litera 
 ture in their own language, and living in the common tongue and 
 minds of the people."* Elsewhere, the languages of the educated 
 and uneducated classes have differed so widely as to render the 
 literature used by the former entirely inaccessible to the latter; 
 and, as a necessary consequence, there has been "a want of that 
 circulation of the same mind and intelligence through all classes 
 of the social body, differing only in degree, not in kind, in the 
 most educated and most ignorant, and of that circulation and in 
 terchange of impressions, through a language and literature com 
 mon to all, which alone can animate a population into a nation, "f 
 They were in advance of other nations, too, in the fact that em 
 ployments were diversified, affording further proof of the existence 
 of the habit of association and combination. "Iron," continues 
 Mr. Laing, "is the mother of all the useful arts; and a people 
 who could smelt it from the ore, and -work it into all that is 
 required for ships of considerable size, from a nail to an anchor, 
 could not have been in a state of such utter barbarism as they 
 have been represented to us. They had a literature of their own, 
 and laws, institutions, social arrangements, a spirit and character, 
 very analogous to the English, if not the source from which the 
 English flowed ; and were in advance of all Christian nations in 
 one branch of the useful arts, in which great combinations of 
 them are required the building, fitting out, and navigating large 
 vessels."! 
 
 The same habit of local association has ever since existed, accom 
 panied by a tendency to union whose effects were fully exhibited 
 in the establishment, forty years since, of a system of government, 
 in which the centralizing and decentralizing forces are balanced to 
 an extent not exceeded in the world; and, as a consequence, this 
 little people has exhibited a force of resistance to centralization, 
 sought to be introduced from abroad, to which it would be difficult 
 to find a parallel in history. 
 
 * Chronicle of the Sea-Kings of Norway. Introductory chapter by S. 
 Laing, p. 33. 
 
 f Ibid., p. 36. J Ibid., p. 146. 
 
 The reader who may desire fully to appreciate the strength of resist 
 ance of free governments, can scarcely fail to derive advantage from Mr. 
 
OF MAN. 51 
 
 The attraction of local centres, throughout the British islands, 
 formerly so great, has, for a long time past, tended steadily to dimi 
 nish Edinburgh, once the metropolis of a kingdom, having become 
 a mere provincial city; and Dublin, once the seat of an independ 
 ent Parliament, having so much declined, that were it not for the 
 fact, that it is the place at which the representative of majesty holds 
 his occasional levees, it would scarcely at all be heard of. London 
 and Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham, have grown rapidly; 
 but with those exceptions, the population of the United Kingdom 
 was stationary in the period from 1841 to 1851. Everywhere, 
 there is exhibited an increasing tendency towards centralization, 
 accompanied by diminution in the strength of local attraction, 
 increase of absenteeism, and decline in the power of voluntary 
 association the diminution of the latter wonderfully exhibited, in 
 the few past years, in the emigration from its shores. With every 
 step in that direction, there is witnessed a steady increase in the 
 necessity for involuntary association, manifested by an increase of 
 fleets and armies, and an increase in the amount of contributions 
 required for their support. 
 
 The Northern States of the Union present, as has been already 
 shown, a combination of the centralizing and decentralizing forces 
 to an extent that has never elsewhere been equalled; and there, ac 
 cordingly, we find existing in a high degree, the tendency to local 
 action for the creation of schools and school-houses, the making of 
 roads, and the formation of associations for almost every imagin 
 able purpose. The system of laws that maintains harmony 
 throughout the Universe is here exactly imitated each State con 
 stituting a body perfect in itself, with local attraction tending 
 to maintain its form, despite the gravitating tendency towards 
 the centre, around which it, and its sister States, are required to 
 revolve. 
 
 As a consequence of this it is, that the course of the North 
 has been always peaceful there having been, at no period, the 
 smallest manifestation of a desire for the acquisition of territory, 
 or for interference with the rights of neighboring States. Annex- 
 
 Laing s account of his residence in Norway during the period of the several 
 conflicts between the Swedish arid Norwegian governments, in the period 
 from 1830 to 1840. 
 
52 CHAPTER II. 2. 
 
 ation of the British provinces, with their millions of free inhabit 
 ants, would add largely to the northern strength ; and yet, while 
 co-operating with the South for the purchase of Florida and Lou 
 isiana, and for the acquisition of Texas, the question of incorpo 
 rating Canada into the Union, can scarcely be regarded as having 
 ever, seriously, been considered. 
 
 Looking to the Southern States, the reverse of the picture is 
 presented to our view. Masters, there, own men who are denied 
 all power of voluntary association, and may not even sell their 
 own labor, or exchange its product for that of the labor of 
 others. This is centralization, and hence it is, that we see through 
 out the South, so strong a tendency towards disturbance of the 
 power of association elsewhere. All the wars of the Union have 
 here had their origin. War tends to increase the number of hu 
 man machines that carry muskets, and require for their support 
 large contributions, that might be better employed in the con 
 struction of roads or mills, by help of which association would be 
 promoted. 
 
 Barbarism is a necessary consequence of the absence of associa 
 tion. Deprived of this, man losing his distinctive qualities 
 ceases to be the subject of social science. 
 
 2. The next distinctive quality of man is INDIVIDUALITY. 
 Each rat or robin, fox or wolf, is the type of his species wherever 
 found, possessing habits and instincts in common with all his race. 
 Not such is the case with man, in whom we find differences of 
 tastes, feelings, and capacities, almost as numerous as those ob 
 served in the human countenance. In order, however, that these 
 differences may be developed, it is indispensable that he be brought 
 into asso2iation with his fellow man; and where that has been 
 denied, the individuality can no more be found, than it would be, 
 were we searching for it among the foxes, or the wolves. The wild 
 men of Germany, and those of India, differ so little, that in read 
 ing the description of the one, we might readily suppose we were 
 reading that of the other. Passing from these, to the lower forms 
 of association, such as exist among savage tribes, we find a grow 
 ing tendency to the development of the varieties of individual cha 
 racter; but, desiring to find their highest development, we must 
 
OP MAN. 53 
 
 seek it in those places in which there exists the greatest demand 
 for intellectual effort those in which there is the greatest variety 
 of employment those in which, therefore, the power of association 
 most perfectly exists, in towns and cities. That this should be 
 the case, is perfectly in accordance with what is everywhere else 
 observed. 
 
 " The more imperfect a being is," says Goethe, " the more do its 
 individual parts resemble each other, and the more do these parts 
 resemble the whole. The more perfect a being, the more dissimilar 
 are the parts. In the former case, the parts are more or less a 
 repetition of the whole ; in the latter case they are totally unlike 
 the whole. The more the parts resemble each other, the less sub 
 ordination is there of one to the other ; subordination of parts 
 indicates a high grade of organization."* 
 
 This is as true of societies as it is of the plants and animals in 
 reference to which it was written. The more imperfect they are 
 the less the variety of employments, and the less, consequently, the 
 development of intellect the more do the parts resemble each other, 
 as may readily be seen by any one who will study man in the purely 
 agricultural countries of the earth. The greater the variety of 
 employments the greater the demand for intellectual effort the 
 more dissimilar become the parts, and the more perfect becomes 
 the whole, as may readily be seen on comparing any purely agri 
 cultural district with another in which agriculture, manufactures, 
 and commerce are happily combined. Difference is essential to 
 association. The farmer does not need to associate with his brother 
 farmer, but he does need to do so with the carpenter, the black 
 smith, and the miller. The mill operative has little occasion to 
 exchange with his brother operative, but he does require to ex 
 change with the builder of houses, or the seller of food ; and the 
 
 * The same idea is thus given in a recent work of great ability : " The 
 differences are the condition of development ; the mutual exchanges, which 
 are the consequences of these differences, waken and manifest life. The 
 greater the diversity of organs, the more active and superior is the life of 
 the individual. The greater the variety of individualities and relations in 
 a society of individuals, the greater also is the sum of life, the more uni 
 versal is the development of life, the more complete, and of a more elevated 
 order. But it is necessary, not only that life should unfold itself in all its 
 richness by diversity, but that it exhibits itself in its utility, in its beauty, 
 in its goodness, by harmony. Thus we recognize the proof of the old pro 
 verb, Variety in unity is perfection. " Guyot s Earth and Man, p. 80. 
 
54 CHAPTER II. 2. 
 
 more numerous the shades of difference in the society of which he 
 is a part, the greater will be the facility for, and the tendency to, 
 that combination of effort required for developing the peculiar 
 qualities of its individual members. It is frequently remarked to 
 what an extraordinary extent, when a demand arises, peculiar 
 qualities are found whose existence had before been unsuspected. 
 Thus, in our own revolution, blacksmiths and lawyers proved them 
 selves distinguished soldiers, and the French revolution brought to 
 light the military abilities of thousands of men that otherwise might 
 have passed their lives at the tail of the plough. It is the occasion 
 that makes the man. In every society there exists a vast amount 
 of latent capacity waiting but the opportunity to show itself, and 
 thus it is that in communities in which there is no diversity of em 
 ployment, the intellectual power is to so great an extent wasted, 
 producing no result. Life has been defined as being a "mutual 
 exchange of relations," and where difference does not exist, ex 
 changes cannot take place. 
 
 So is it everywhere throughout nature. To excite electricity, 
 two metals are required to be brought together ; but in order that 
 they may combine, they must first be reduced to their original ele 
 ments, and this can be done only by help of a third body differing 
 totally from both. That done, what was before dull and inert be 
 comes active and full of life, and capable at once of entering into 
 new combinations. So, too, with the lump of coal. Break it up 
 into pieces, however small, and scatter them in the ground, and 
 there they will remain, still pieces of coal. Let them, however, be 
 decomposed by the agency of heat let the several parts be indi 
 vidualized and at once they become capable of entering into new 
 combinations, forming parts of the trunks, branches, leaves, or 
 blossoms of trees, or of the bones, muscles, or brain of man. The 
 wheat yielded to the labors of man, might remain, as we know it 
 to have remained for numerous centuries, undecomposed and inca 
 pable of entering into combination with any other matter; but let 
 it pass through the stomach, and at once it is resolved into its 
 original element, part of which becomes bones, blood, or fat, and 
 then again passes off in the form of perspiration while another is 
 ejected in the form of excrement, and ready to enter instantly into 
 the composition of new vegetable forms. The power of association 
 
OF MAN. 55 
 
 thus exists everywhere throughout the material world in the ratio of 
 individualization. So, too, has it everywhere been with man and 
 the development of individuality has, at all times, and in all coun 
 tries, been in the ratio of his power to act in obedience to that prime 
 law of his nature which imposes upon him a necessity for association 
 with his fellow-men. 
 
 That power, as has already been seen, has always existed in 
 the ratio of the equal action of the centralizing and decentralizing 
 forces, and where that action has most been found we should most 
 find individuality, and that such has been the case can readily be 
 shown. In no country of the world has it ever existed to so great 
 an extent as was the case in Greece in the period immediately 
 anterior to the invasion of Xerxes, and then and there it is that we 
 find the highest development. To the men produced in that period 
 it is that the age of Pericles owes its illustration. The destruction 
 of Athens by Persian armies brought with it the conversion of 
 citizens into soldiers, with steady tendency to increase of central 
 ization and decline of the power of voluntary association and of 
 individuality, until the slave alone is found cultivating the lands of 
 Attica, the free citizens of the earlier period having entirely dis 
 appeared. So, likewise, was it in Italy, where the highest indi 
 viduality was found when the Campagna was filled with cities. 
 Following their decline the great city grows, filled with paupers, 
 the capital of a land cultivated by slaves. So it is now throughout 
 the p]ast, where society is divided into two great parts the men 
 who toil and slave on the one side, and, on the other, those who 
 live by the labors of the slave. Between two such masses there can 
 be no association, and among the members there can be but little, 
 because there is wanting among them that difference of pursuits 
 which is required for producing an exchange of relations. The chain 
 of society being there deficient in the connecting links, there is no 
 motion among the parts, and where motion does not exist there 
 can be no more development of individuality of character than 
 could be found in the pebble-stone before it had been subjected to 
 the action of the blowpipe. 
 
 The numerous towns and cities of Italy of the Middle Ages were 
 remarkable for their motion, and for the development of indi 
 viduality. So, likewise, was it in Belgium, and in Spain prior to 
 
56 CHAPTER n. 2- 
 
 the centralization which followed close upon the expulsion of the 
 Moors, and the discovery of the gold and silver deposits of this 
 continent. Such was the case, too, in each of the kingdoms now 
 composing the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. If 
 we take Ireland separately, we find her at the close of the last cen 
 tury giving to the world such men as Burke, Flood, G rattan, 
 Sheridan, and Wellington ; but since then centralization has 
 greatly grown, and individuality has passed away. So, likewise, 
 has it been in Scotland since the union. A century since that coun 
 try presented to view a body of men occupying positions as dis 
 tinguished as any that could be found in Europe, but her local 
 institutions have decayed, and there are now, as we are told, "fewer 
 individual thinkers" in that country than at any period " since the 
 early part of the last century."* The mind of the whole youth of 
 that country is now, as the same journal tells us, required to be 
 "cast in the mould of English universities," which exercise upon 
 it "an influence unfavorable to originality and power of thought." 
 
 In England herself, centralization has made great progress, and 
 the consequence among her people has been witnessed in the 
 steady increase of pauperism, a condition of things adverse to the 
 development of individuality. The little landed proprietors have 
 gradually disappeared to make way for the farmer and his hired 
 laborers, and the great manufacturer, surrounded by hosts of opera 
 tives, of whose names even he is ignorant and with every step in 
 this direction there is diminished power of voluntary association. 
 London grows to an enormous size, at the cost of the country at 
 large, and thus does centralization produce the disease of over 
 population, to be cured by a colonization tending at every step 
 further to diminish the power of association. 
 
 Looking to France, we may see the steady decline of indivi 
 duality attending the growth of centralization. In the highly cen 
 tralized days of Louis XIV., almost the whole land of the kingdom 
 was in the hands of a few great proprietors and of the dignitaries of 
 the church nearly all of whom were mere courtiers whose faces but 
 reflected the expression apparent on that of the sovereign they 
 were bound to worship. The right to labor was then held to be a 
 privilege to be exercised at the pleasure of the monarch, and men 
 
 * North British Review, Aug., 1853. 
 
OF MAN. 5t 
 
 were forbidden, on pain of death, to worship God according to 
 their consciences, or even to leave the kingdom. 
 
 Passing to this country, we find in the Northern States indi 
 viduality developed to an extent elsewhere entirely unknown, and for 
 the reason that centralization exists in a very limited degree, while 
 decentralization facilitates the rapid growth of the associative 
 power. All the links of the chain are here to be found, and as 
 every man feels that he can rise if he will, there is the strongest 
 inducement to strive for intellectual development. In the Southern 
 States power centralizes itself in the hands of the few, and associa 
 tion among the slaves can take place only through the master, as 
 a consequence of which there is little individuality. 
 
 It is in variety there is unity, and this is quite as true of the 
 social as it is of the material world. Let the reader watch the 
 movements of a city and study the facility with which men, so 
 various in their qualities, combine their movements and the num 
 ber required to work in combination for the production of a penny 
 newspaper, a ship, a house, or an opera and then compare it with 
 the difficulty experienced throughout the country, and particularly 
 in the purely agricultural portions of it, of combining for even the 
 most simple purposes, and he will see that it is difference that leads 
 to association. The more perfect the organization of society 
 the greater the variety of demands for the exercise of the physical 
 and intellectual powers the higher will be the elevation of man 
 as a whole, and the stronger will be the contrasts among men. _ 
 
 Individuality thus grows with the growth of the power of asso 
 ciation, and prepares the way for further and more perfect combi- 
 nation of action. 
 
 The more perfectly the local attraction tends to counterbalance 
 that of the centre the more society tends to conform itself to the 
 laws we see to govern our system of worlds the more harmonious 
 will be the action of all the parts, and the greater will be the 
 tendency towards voluntary association, and to the maintenance of 
 peace abroad and at home. 
 
 3. Next among the qualities by which man is distinguished 
 from all other animals, is that of RESPONSIBILITY before his fellow- 
 man, and before his Creator, for his actions. 
 
 The slave is not a responsible being, for he but obeys his master. 
 5 
 
58 CHAPTER II. 3. 
 
 The soldier is not responsible for the murders he commits, for he 
 is but an instrument in the hands of his superior officer, and he in 
 turn but obeys the irresponsible chief of the State. The pauper is 
 an irresponsible being, though often held by man to be responsi 
 ble. Responsibility grows with the growth of individuality, and 
 the latter grows, as we have seen, with the growth of the power of 
 association. 
 
 The savage slays and robs his fellow-men, and proudly exhibits 
 their scalps, or the plunder he has acquired, as evidence of his 
 cunning or his courage. The soldier boasts of his prowess in the 
 field, and gladly enumerates the men who have fallen by his arm, 
 and this he does in a community whose laws award fine and im 
 prisonment as the punishment for even the smallest violation of 
 personal rights. The warlike nation prides itself upon the glory 
 acquired in the field, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives, 
 and decorates its galleries with pictures plundered from their right 
 ful owners, while generals and admirals live in affluence upon their 
 respective shares of the spoils of war. With growing individu 
 ality men learn to denominate such acts by their true and only 
 legitimate titles robbery and murder. 
 
 The savage is not responsible for his children, nor is the slave, 
 who regards them as only his master s property. With every step 
 towards perfect individuality always the result of increase in the 
 power of voluntary association men learn more and more to appre 
 ciate their severe responsibility towards society at large, and towards 
 their Creator, for the careful preparation of their children for the 
 performance of their duties to both. To that feeling, more than to 
 any other, are due the vigorous efforts made for acquiring the 
 mastery over the forces of nature by which the associated man is 
 distinguished from the isolated one and thus it is that each of 
 the distinguishing characteristics of man aids, and is aided by, each 
 and every of the others. The savage is indolent, and he destroys 
 his female children. The farmer extends his cultivation that he 
 may provide more fully for the moral and physical training of 
 his sons, and so fit them better than he himself had been for the 
 performance of their duties to their fellow-men. The artisan irn- 
 .proves his machinery, that he may call to his aid the power of 
 electricity or of steam, and every step in this direction develops more 
 fully his own peculiar powers. He thus becomes more individual- 
 
OF MAN. 59 
 
 ized with great increase in the feeling of responsibility both for 
 himself and his children, and in the disposition for combination of 
 his efforts with those of his fellow-men whether for the purpose 
 of increasing the productiveness of their common labor, or for 
 administering the affairs of the community of which he is a part. 
 
 Here again we find the correspondence between the development 
 of the essential qualities of man to be in the ratio of the equal ac 
 tion of the centralizing and decentralizing forces. The Spartans 
 permitted no responsibility for their children, and they endeavored 
 to prevent the growth of wealth, while surrounding themselves with 
 slaves, to whom all individuality was denied. The helot had no 
 will of his own. In Attica, on the contrary, although slaves were 
 numerous, labor was held in much higher respect, and diversity of 
 employment caused great demand for intellectual effort. There, 
 consequently, the rights of parents were respected, while those of 
 the child were fully cared for under the laws of Solon. 
 
 In the East, and in Africa, where individuality has no existence, 
 parents kill their children, and children expose their parents when 
 unable to support themselves. In the highly centralized France, 
 foundling hospitals abound, and it is but quite recently that any 
 effort has been made to diffuse the blessings of education among 
 the masses of the people. The growth of centralization in the 
 United Kingdom, has been accompanied by a growing disregard 
 for the rights of children, and child-murder now occupies the place 
 that in France is filled by the foundling hospital. No provision 
 exists for the general education of the people, and the feeling of 
 responsibility declines with the decline of individuality that has 
 attended the consolidation of the land, and the substitution of day 
 laborers for small proprietors. 
 
 In decentralized Germany, on the contrary, there is a steady in 
 crease in the provision for education. It is, however, in the highly 
 decentralized Northern States of the Union that we see the most 
 conclusive evidence of a growing feeling of responsibility in this 
 regard. The system of universal education commenced in Massa 
 chusetts by her earlier settlers has made its way gradually through 
 New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and all the Western 
 States, aided in all these latter by grants of land from the general 
 government expressly devoted to this object. New York, unaided, 
 exhibits, in her public schools 900,000 students, with school libra- 
 
60 CHAPTER II. 4. 
 
 ries containing 1,600,000 volumes. The public schools of Penn 
 sylvania contain 600,000 students, while Wisconsin, youngest of 
 the States, manifests a disposition to place herself, in this respect, 
 in advance of her elder sisters. 
 
 In no part of the world is the subject of education studied with 
 so much care as throughout the Northern States, whereas the 
 highly centralized ones of the South stand alone in the fact that 
 all instruction of the laboring population is by law prohibited. As 
 a natural consequence of this, schools of any kind are few, and the 
 proportion of uninstructed among the white population is extremely 
 great. 
 
 Responsibility, individuality, and association grow thus together, 
 each helping and helped by the other, and everywhere they are 
 seen to grow in the direct ratio of the approach of social govern 
 ment to the system under which the wonderful harmony of the 
 heavens is maintained. 
 
 4. Lastly, man is distinguished from all other animals by his 
 CAPACITY FOR PROGRESS. The hare, the wolf, the ox, and the 
 camel are the same as those that existed in the days of Homer, or 
 in those of the monarchs of Egypt, who left behind them, in the 
 pyramids, evidence of the absence of individuality among their 
 subjects. Man alone records what he has seen and learned, and 
 man alone profits by the labors of his predecessors. To do this, 
 he requires language, and that he may have that he must have 
 association. 
 
 That there may be progress, their must be motion. Motion is 
 itself a result of the incessant decomposition and recomposition of 
 matter, and the work of association is but the incessant decomposi 
 tion and recomposition of the various forces of man. In a heap 
 of penny newspapers we find portions of the labor of thousands of 
 persons, from the miner of iron and lead ores and of coal, and 
 the collector of rags, to the makers of the types and paper, the 
 engine-makers and engineer, the compositor, the pressman, the 
 writer, editor, and proprietor, and finally to the boys by whom 
 they are distributed ; and this exchange of services goes on from 
 day to day, without intermission, throughout the year, each con 
 tributor to the work receiving his share of the pay, and each 
 reader of the paper receiving his share of the work. 
 
OF MAN. 61 
 
 To have motion there must be heat, and the greater the latter 
 the more rapid will be the former, as is seen in the rapidity with 
 which, in the tropical regions, water is decomposed and returned 
 again in the form of rain, and in the rapid growth and develop 
 ment of their vegetable products. Vital heat is the result of chemi 
 cal action, the fuel being food, and the solvent some of those juices 
 which result from its consumption. The more rapid the process 
 of digestion, the more healthful and perfect is the motion of the 
 machine. Social heat results from combination, and that the 
 latter may be produced there must be difference. "Everywhere," 
 says a writer already referred to, "a simple difference, be it of mat 
 ter, be it of condition, be it of position, excites a manifestation of 
 vital forces, a mutual exchange of relations between the bodies, 
 each giving to the other what the other does not possess"* and 
 the picture thus presented of the movements of the inorganic world 
 is just as true in reference to the social one. 
 
 The more rapid the consumption of either material or intellectual 
 food, the greater will be the heat that must result, and the more 
 rapid the increase of power to replace the quantity consumed. 
 That consumption may follow closely on production there must be 
 association, and that there cannot be without variety in the modes 
 of employment. That such is the fact will be obvious to all who 
 see how rapid is the spread of ideas in those countries in which 
 agriculture, manufactures, and commerce are combined, compared 
 with that observed in those which are purely agricultural Ireland, 
 India, the "West Indies, Turkey, Portugal, Brazil, and others. 
 Nowhere, however, is the difference more strongly marked than in 
 the Northern States of the Union as compared with the Southern 
 ones. In the one there is great heat and corresponding motion, 
 and the more motion the greater is the force. In the other there 
 is little heat, but little motion, and very little force. 
 
 Progress requires motion. Motion comes with heat, and heat 
 results from association. Association brings with it individuality 
 and responsibility, and each aids in the development of the other 
 while profiting by the help received from them. 
 
 * Guyot. Earth and Jl/an, p. 74. 
 
CHAPTER H. 5. 
 
 5. The laws here given are those which govern matter in all 
 its forms, whether that of coal, clay, iron, pebble stones, trees, 
 oxen, horses, or men. If true of communities they must be equally 
 so of each and every individual of which they are composed as 
 are those relating to the atmosphere at large in reference to all 
 the atoms of which it is composed. That they are so will be obvi 
 ous to every reader who reflects to how great an extent he profits, 
 physically and intellectually, by association with his fellow-men 
 and that the severest of all punishments is universally recognized 
 as being deprivation of the intercourse he is accustomed to obtain 
 by means of that association. Further reflection will satisfy him 
 that the more perfect his individuality the greater his material or 
 intellectual wealth the more perfect is his power to determine for 
 himself what shall be the extent of his association with his neigh 
 bor men. Again, he will see that his responsibility for his actions 
 increases in the ratio of the increase of his power to determine for 
 himself what shall be his course in life that if he be poor and 
 perishing for want of food, he cannot be held to the same rigid 
 responsibility that might with propriety be exacted were he in 
 affluent circumstances. Lastly, he will be satisfied that his power of 
 progress is in the direct ratio of his ability to combine his efforts 
 with those of his fellow-man, and that, materially and intellectually, 
 the power of production tends to increase with every increase in the 
 demand for either commodities or ideas resulting from the increased 
 ability of others to furnish commodities or ideas in exchange for 
 them. 
 
 Were the reader now to ask himself to what it was that he had 
 been indebted for being the man he is, his answer would be that it 
 had been to his power of association with his fellow-men of the 
 present, and with those of the past who have left behind the records 
 of their experience. Were he to extend his inquiry with a view 
 to determine what it was of which he would least desire to be de 
 prived, he would find that it was the power of association. Next, 
 and only second to that, he would desire perfect volition the 
 right to determine when, how, and with whom he would labor and 
 what disposition he should make of the product. Deprived of 
 volition he would feel himself an irresponsible being. With it, 
 knowing that it depended upon himself what should be his future, he 
 would feel responsible for the proper use of the advantages that he 
 
OF MAN. 63 
 
 possessed and would have every inducement so to strengthen his 
 faculties as to qualify himself for rising in the world himself, and 
 for providing for his wife and children and every step in this 
 
 direction would be but the preparation for further progress, s ^ 
 
 Social science treats of man in his efforts for the maintenance, 
 and improvement of his condition, and may now be defined to be 
 the science of the laws which govern man in his efforts to secure for 
 himself the highest individuality, and the greatest power of associa 
 tion with his fellow -men. 
 
64 CHAPTER III. S 1. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 
 
 1. THAT the power of association may increase, and that 
 there may be increased motion among men, accompanied by an in 
 crease of ability to command the forces of nature, there must be 
 increase in the numbers occupying a given space or in other 
 words, population must increase in density. That it has done so, 
 is shown in the fact that the population of France has doubled 
 since the commencement of the last century that that of Great 
 Britain has doubled in the present one and that New York and 
 Massachusetts, which sixty years since had but 700,000 inhabitants, 
 now contain more than four millions. 
 
 The quantity of matter has not, however, grown, nor is it sus 
 ceptible of increase. Man can make no addition to it, his power 
 over it being limited to effecting changes of place and of form. 
 Such being the case, it is evident that a portion of that which had 
 previously existed, has taken upon itself -new and higher forms, 
 passing from the simple ones of granite, shale, clay, or sand, to the 
 complex and heterogeneous ones exhibited in the bones, muscles, 
 aud brains of men. 
 
 With this increase in the number of persons requiring to be fed, 
 there has been required a corresponding one in the quantity of 
 animal and vegetable food and, that it might be furnished, it has 
 been necessary that other portions of the rocks, or of the clays and 
 sands resulting from their decomposition, should take upon them 
 selves the forms of wheat and rye, of oats and grass, while others 
 still have passed into the forms of sheep and calves, hogs and oxen. 
 That this change must have taken place is obvious from the fact 
 that large as has been the increase in the number to be fed, the 
 facility of obtaining food is greater now than at any former period. 
 What, however, we may now inquire, has been the agency of man 
 in bringing about these results ? 
 
OF INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 65 
 
 " The phenomena of the visible universe are resolvable into 
 Matter and Motion. These in conjunction make Force ; and 
 Matter itself has been regarded, in a metaphysical analysis, as the 
 result and the evidence of an equilibrium of forces. They are in 
 perpetual flux and circulation. Man can neither create nor destroy 
 a particle of matter, nor can he affect the quantity of force in the 
 world. His power is limited to altering the mode of its manifes 
 tation, its direction and distribution. It is latent in matter, and 
 he can set it free by destroying the equilibrium of other forces that 
 hold it bound in quiescence. He may do this by giving the appro 
 priate direction to some independent force existing in the store 
 house of Nature, which, after accomplishing its mission, enters 
 into a new equilibrium with one or more of the liberated forces, to 
 remain at rest until again evoked for fresh labor. Every develop 
 ment of force, however, involves a consumption of matter not its 
 destruction, but its change of form. To generate in the battery a 
 given amount of light or heat, to produce a certain amount of 
 electro-magnetic motion, for the purpose of transmitting a message 
 upon the telegraph wires from New York to Buffalo, a certain 
 quantity of zinc must be burned by an acid and converted into an 
 oxide. To propel a steamboat a hundred miles, a given quantity 
 of coal must be decomposed into gas and cinders, and a given 
 quantity of water turned into steam. To effect a muscular action 
 of the human body, the brain the galvanic battery of man s frame 
 must send its message along the animal telegraph wires, the 
 nerves, and in doing so part with a portion of its own substance ; 
 and the muscle, in obeying the command, undergoes a change by 
 which a portion of its substance loses its vital properties and sepa 
 rates from the living part, uniting with oxygen and being trans 
 formed into unorganized matter, to be thrown out of the system. 
 The gymnoti, or electrical eels of South America, by being stimu 
 lated to give repeated shocks, become exhausted, so that they may 
 be safely handled. Long repose and abundant food are required to 
 replace the galvanic force which they have exhausted. It is no 
 otherwise, except in degree, with man. 
 
 " The electro-magnetic telegraph has made the action of its 
 battery familiar to most of eur readers. A number of plates of 
 zinc and copper are arranged alternately in a vessel containing an 
 acid. When the extremities of the apparatus are joined by means 
 
66 CHAPTER III. 1. 
 
 of a wire, however long, a chemical action begins upon the surface 
 of the zinc, and a force is propagated along the wire, by which we 
 can raise weights, set wheels in motion, and decompose compounds 
 the elements of which have the strongest affinity for each other. 
 The moment the continuity of the wire is interrupted and the cir 
 cuit broken, the force disappears, and the action between the acid 
 and the zinc immediately stops. When the communication is 
 restored, the action of the acid upon the zinc is renewed, and the 
 force which had vanished reappears with all its original energy. 
 The substance of the wire, however, is merely the conductor of 
 force, and does not contribute the slightest share to its manifesta 
 tions. Something analogous to this is the office of man in regard 
 to matter and the forces of nature. He serves merely to give them 
 circulation, without adding to or detracting from their quantity. 
 His person is but a scene in the theatre of their action, in which 
 they have their exits and their entrances, and each one in his time 
 plays many parts, sustaining transmutations of force, and causing 
 them ; but they are immortal in their essence, and run in an end 
 less vicissitude through a round of various utilities, for the main 
 tenance of life, and the means of life."* 
 
 We have here perpetual circulation, and the more rapid the mo 
 tion the greater is the force produced. That circulation has 
 endured from all time, but with every step in the progress of the 
 earth towards its present condition, there has been seen an increase 
 of the machinery of decomposition and recomposition, with steadily 
 increasing tendency towards the development of those forces always 
 latent in matter, and waiting until man shall come to set them free. 
 Geologists inform us that in the Silurian period, the present conti 
 nent of Europe was represented by little more than a few islands, 
 marking the places now occupied by England, Ireland, France, 
 and Italy. Russia and Sweden were then somewhat more defined, 
 but neither Spain nor Turkey yet existed, and what there was of 
 vegetable or animal life was uniform of character, and lowest in 
 development. Later, we reach the period of the coal formation, 
 when vegetable life abounded, but still of the most monotonous 
 character. The English coal measures, and those of Belgium and 
 of this country, presented then everywhere the same description of 
 
 * Manual of Political Economy, by E. Pesliine Smith, p. 24. 
 
OF INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 6f 
 
 plants, all exhibiting a total absence of true flowers, always the 
 characteristic of a state of low development. 
 
 What now, we may inquire, was the object of all this vegetation ? 
 To produce decomposition, and thus set free the latent forces of 
 matter. " It is in the stomach of plants," says Goethe, " that 
 development begins." Without that stomach without that pro 
 cess of digestion the process of change from the angular forms of 
 the inorganic world to the oval and beautiful ones of the highly 
 developed organism could never have even been begun, nor could 
 the earth have ever become the residence of man, who requires for 
 his support both animal and vegetable food.* 
 
 " The animals he consumes are," to quote again from the same 
 writer, " themselves nourished by vegetable aliment. The vegeta 
 bles, in their turn, digest the inorganic elements supplied by the 
 soil and the air. Modern chemistry has proved that the ultimate 
 constituents of all are carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen, 
 the four principal elements of the organic creation, and sulphur, 
 phosphorus, chlorine, lime, potassium, sodium, iron, and a few 
 other inorganic substances. These must be introduced into the 
 vegetable or animal body, in order that it may live and grow. 
 From these few elements, combined in different numbers and pro 
 portions, are formed air and water, the rocks and the earths, which 
 are the result of their decomposition. 
 
 " That the elements incorporated into the frame of vegetables 
 and animals, are derived from air, water, earth, and rock, has been 
 demonstrated by repeated experiments, exhibiting the fact that the 
 precise quantities of the identical elements gained by the former 
 had disappeared from the latter, under circumstances artificially 
 arranged so as to exclude the possibility of their being drawn from 
 other contributories than those whose loss was to be examined. 
 For detailed accounts of the experiments and reasoning by which 
 these conclusions are demonstrated, we refer the student to the 
 works of Liebig, and other writers on organic chemistry, who have 
 pursued the path of inquiry which he opened and so successfully 
 wrought. 
 
 * " In every given moment is the plant the ruin of the past, and yet at 
 the same time the potentially and actually developing germ of the future ; 
 still more, it also appears a perfect, complete, and finished product for the 
 present." Schloiden. The Plant, p. 90. 
 
68 CHAPTER III. 1. 
 
 " The fundamental property of vitality, common to all organized 
 bodies, consists in their constant material renovation ; an attribute 
 which distinguishes them from the inert or unorganized bodies, 
 whose composition is always fixed. The latter may be artificially 
 constructed by putting together their constituent parts ; while no 
 chemical skill is adequate to the production of wood, sugar, starch, 
 fat, gelatine, flesh, &c., whose elements, though equally simple and 
 equally well known, refuse to combine in organized compounds, 
 otherwise than under the operations of that mysterious power which 
 we call vital force. The growth of a crystal the highest inor 
 ganic process we are acquainted with, involving but one action, 
 that of accretion may be conducted artificially by the chemist ; 
 while the growth of a simple cell, such as compose the yeast fungus, 
 and the minute algcs which color the waters of stagnant pools, 
 though the lowest organic process, involves the double action of 
 accretion and disintegration, and defies the power of science to 
 produce. The meanest and least complex form of life it is beyond 
 man s reach to fashion. 
 
 " While the ultimate elements of vitality are profusely furnished 
 in the natural world, vegetables alone have sufficient assimilative 
 power to compose their tissues directly from inorganic matter, the 
 liquid and gaseous materials, and the earthy particles, which are 
 minerals decomposed. Not only so, but no part of an organized 
 being can serve as food to vegetables, until, by the process of 
 putrefaction and decay, it has assumed the form of inorganic mat 
 ter. It is this capacity which renders vegetable organization 
 the essential base of all other. In the absence of vegetation all 
 animals must be carnivorous, and subsist by mutual destruction, 
 which would soon exterminate their species. For this reason it 
 must necessarily precede animal life. That such has been the fact 
 is abundantly proved by geological research, which, reading the 
 history of buried ages in the rocks, shows us that a period of long 
 duration intervened, after the growth of lichens and ferns in the 
 primitive world, before the lowest order of animals made its appear 
 ance on the earth. 
 
 " Animal organism, on the contrary, requires for its support and 
 development highly organized atoms. The food of animals, in all 
 circumstances, consists of parts of organisms. While some of them 
 feed directly upon vegetation, others, requiring that matter should 
 
OF INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 69 
 
 have taken on a higher order of life before it can support their 
 own, prey upon other and inferior animals. Having a lower 
 assimilative capacity, it is necessary that their food should have 
 been brought by intermediate agents, into combinations agreeing 
 more nearly with those of their own tissues than even vegetable 
 organization. Without some arrangement and gradation of this 
 character, the higher natures must either perish for lack of food, or 
 consume all their activity in chemical transformations, without 
 reserving any for locomotion or other muscular eifort. We may 
 remark here, that with this necessity of overcoming and capturing 
 prey, arises a degree of mental power, enabling the carnivorous 
 animals to devise plans, and to compass by association with their fel 
 lows, ends beyond their unassisted power. The spider spins an art 
 ful web to catch flies, and wolves hunt their game in packs. The 
 superior functions are everywhere united with less energy in the 
 inferior. Those beings in whom the latter prevail are self-sufficing 
 and independent, but have little reach and power beyond the satis 
 faction of the low primary wants. As we rise in the scale up to man, 
 the crown and roof of things, we find him, of all, the most depend 
 ent, the most prone to association, for which, by the faculty of 
 speech, he is most adapted ; and by means of association, though 
 alone the least self-sufficing of all beings, he wins the dominion 
 over nature and her forces, whether animate or inanimate. 
 
 "Another distinction between animal and vegetable life is this : 
 The growth and development of vegetables depend upon the 
 elimination of oxygen from the other component parts of their 
 nourishment. They are perpetually exhaling this gas from the 
 surfaces of their leaves into the air. The life of animals exhibits 
 itself in the continual absorption of the oxygen of the air, and its 
 combination with certain component parts of the body. Its office 
 is to generate animal heat by burning the combustible substances 
 of the frame. It combines with the carbon of the food, and in so 
 doing precisely the same quantity of heat is disengaged as if it had 
 been directly burned in the air. The result is carbonic acid gas, 
 which is thrown out of the lungs and the skin ; this is absorbed by 
 the leaves of plants, the carbon separated and incorporated into 
 their substance, and the oxygen again exhaled into the atmosphere, 
 to resume its round of circulation. 
 
 " To trace the cycle a little further the carbon uniting with 
 
70 CHAPTER III. 1 
 
 water in the plant, forms, among other things, starch, which the 
 sap conveys to the part requiring it. It is found largely in the 
 seeds. Starch exists in wheat to the extent of one-half the weight 
 of the grain, and it consists of carbon and water only. Man eats 
 the wheat, but we find no starch in the human body. When it 
 enters our frames it undergoes a chemical change, a slow burning, 
 in fact, in which the carbon of the starch combines with oxygen, 
 forming carbonic acid gas, which, together with the liberated water 
 in the shape of vapor, is thrown out of the human system into the 
 atmosphere, to be again converted in the laboratory of the plant 
 into the starch from which they were derived. Having served our 
 purpose in keeping up the internal warmth upon which animal life 
 depends, the disengaged elements are recomposed by the plants 
 into part of their substance, which when completed again serve as 
 fuel in the animal economy. 
 
 " The instances we have given, will, so far as relates to their 
 organic constituents, suffice to exemplify the law that animals and 
 vegetables are mutually convertible one into the other, and depend 
 on each other for existence. The interchange of their elements is 
 accomplished through the medium of the atmosphere from which 
 plants derive far the greatest portion of their nutriment. It is 
 found by burning any form of vegetable matter, in a dry state, that 
 the organic part, which is combustible and disappears in the air, 
 is by far the largest. It ordinarily constitutes from ninety to 
 ninety-seven pounds in every hundred. This part of the plant can 
 only have been formed from air at first, if not directly, yet from 
 compounds whose elements were themselves derived from air, exist 
 ing in the soil, and taken up by the roots. In the language of 
 Professor Draper, in his Chemistry of Plants, Atmospheric air is 
 the grand receptacle from which all things spring and to which 
 they all return. It is the cradle of vegetable, and the coffin of 
 animal life. 
 
 " About one pound in ten, upon an average, of the dry weight 
 of cultivated plants, including their roots, stems, leaves and seeds, 
 is formed of matter which existed as a part of the solid substance 
 of the soil in which the plant grew. Every organ in the stalk, 
 stems, and leaves of the plant has a reticulated framework of in 
 organic matter, the base of which is either silex or lime. Silex, 
 familiar to us in the various shapes of white sand, flint, and crystal 
 
OF INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 1 
 
 of quartz, constitutes more than sixty per cent, in quantity of the 
 soil, sometimes forming as much as ninety-five per cent.* It 
 gives porosity to the soil, in order that water and air may be 
 admitted into its texture. Alumina, the base of clay, on the con 
 trary, renders it compact and retentive. The office of silex in 
 plants is to give strength to the straw of wheat for example ; it 
 serves as the bone of all the grass family. From ninety-three to 
 one hundred and fifty pounds of soluble flint are required to form 
 an acre of wheat, "f 
 
 2. Development thus beginning in the stomach of vegetables 
 is continued in that of animals, until the earth is, by degrees, pre 
 pared to serve the purpose of man and with his coming we find 
 the important difference that whereas all other animals were bound 
 to continue forever the slaves of nature, he alone was gifted with 
 the faculties required for enabling him to become her master, and 
 to make her do his work. 
 
 Casting our eyes at the present moment over the earth, we see 
 the same forces everywhere in action, producing new combinations 
 for the support of vegetable life, as a preparation of land as a resi 
 dence at first of the lower animals, but ultimately for that of man. 
 The amount of heat by which the sea water is raised in the form of 
 vapor is estimated as being equal to the power of 16 billions of 
 horses. Condensed again, that vapor reassumes the form of water, 
 
 * "Two hundred pounds weight of earth was dried in an oven, and after 
 wards put into an earthen vessel. The earth was then moistened with 
 rain water, and a willow-tree, weighing five pounds, was placed therein. 
 During the space of five years the earth -was carefully watered with rain 
 water, or pure water ; the willow grew and nourished, and to prevent the 
 earth being mixed with fresh earth or dust blown to it by the winds, it was 
 covered with a metal plate perforated with a great number of small holes 
 suitable for the free admission of air only. After growing in the air for 
 five years, the tree was removed and found to weigh 169 pounds and about 
 three ounces ; the leaves which fell from the tree every autumn not being 
 included in this weight. The earth was then removed from the vessel, 
 again dried in the oven and afterwards weighed when it was discovered 
 to have lost only about two ounces of its original weight : thus 164 pounds 
 of woody fibre, bark and roots, were certainly produced, but from w r hat 
 source ? The air has been discovered to be the source of solid element at 
 last. This statement may at first appear incredible, but on slight reflec 
 tion its truth is proved, because the atmosphere contains carbonic acid, 
 which is the compound of 714 parts by weight, of oxygen, and 338 parts by 
 weight, of carbon." 
 
 f Smith. Manual of Political Economy, p. 25. 
 
Y2 CHAPTER III. 2. 
 
 which descending in rain, has again to seek the ocean, and in 
 its passage carries with it large quantities of soil, resulting from 
 the decomposition of the rocks of which the earth is formed 
 and that decomposition is in its turn a consequence of the ever- 
 varying temperatures, themselves consequences of motion among 
 the particles of which the water and the air are composed. " The 
 frost," says Dr. Clarke, "is God s plow which he drives through 
 every inch of the ground, opening each clod, and pulverizing the 
 whole," and fitting all the parts for readily entering into new 
 combinations. 
 
 The particles of earth thus yielded are, by means of the moving 
 waters, brought into close connection with each other, and here 
 again we find difference leading to combination and producing 
 motion. The greater the variety of the particles, the greater will 
 be the ability of the compound to yield support to vegetable life, 
 as is seen to be the case in the deltas of the Mississippi, the Ama 
 zon, and the Ganges, all furnishing trees of gigantic size, sur 
 rounded by shrubs of every description, growing in the rankest 
 luxuriance. Here we find the lower forms of animal life, but the 
 impurity of the air forbids that they should, during a long period 
 of time, become the residence of man, or even of the higher order 
 of brute animals. 
 
 Yast quantities of this earth pass into the ocean, and here it is 
 taken up and passed through the stomach of myriads of animated 
 beings, of which the ocean is the residence. The recent deep sea 
 soundings of the Atlantic have brought to light the fact that no 
 earth is found to attach itself to the lead, while hosts of microsco 
 pic animals are brought by it from the bottom of the great deep. 
 
 " Within its bosom," says a recent writer, "tiny insects are at 
 work, upon which nature has imposed, in addition to the quest for 
 food and the care for their offspring, the perpetual labor of building 
 new houses. For defence as well as for shelter, the shell-fish toils 
 continually, repairing, enlarging, and renewing his own dwelling- 
 place ; and dying at last, he leaves it as a contribution to the 
 growing thickness of shelly limestone. For thousands of miles, in 
 more southern seas, still humbler insects erect their massive coral 
 walls, which, r now skirting long coastlines, and now encircling 
 solitary islands, bid defiance to the angriest waters ; and, as they 
 die, generation after generation, they leave, in rocky beds of coral- 
 
OF INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 73 
 
 line limestone, an imperishable memorial of their exhaustless 
 labors. These rocks contain, chained down in a seemingly ever 
 lasting imprisonment, two-fifths of their weight of carbonic acid. 
 This has been derived either directly or indirectly from the atmo 
 sphere, and thus the sea must ever be drinking in carbonic acid 
 from the air. The labors of marine animals, therefore, like the 
 burying of vegetable matter, should cause a yearly diminution of 
 the absolute quantity of this gas contained in the atmosphere, 
 were no other natural operation to compensate for the constant 
 removal. 
 
 " But the earth herself breathes for this purpose. From cracks 
 and fissures, in the crust, which occur in vast numbers over the 
 surface of the earth, carbonic acid gas issues in large quantities, and 
 daily mingles itself with the ambient air. It sparkles in the springs 
 of Carlsbad ; rushes as from subterranean bellows on the table 
 land of Paderborn ; chinks in the pockets of the Prince of Nassau ; 
 astonishes innocent travellers in the Grotto del Cane ; interests 
 the chemical geologist in the caves of Pyrmont ; and is terrible 
 to man and beast in the fatal Valley of Death, the most wonder 
 ful of the wonders of Java. And, besides, it doubtless issues still 
 more abundantly from the unknown bottom of the expanded waters 
 which occupy so large a proportion of the surface of the globe. 
 From these many sources, continually flowing into the air, or rising 
 into the sea, carbonic acid is daily supplied in place of that which 
 is daily withdrawn, to be buried in the solid crust. Did we know 
 after what lapse of time the earth would again breathe out what is 
 thus daily entombed, we should be able to express in words how 
 long this slowly revolving secular wheel requires fully to perform 
 one of its immense gyrations. 
 
 " Thus, like the watery vapor of the atmosphere, its carbonic acid 
 also is continually circulating. While that which floats in the air, 
 during one generation, circles many times, it may be, from the 
 atmosphere to the plant, from the plant to the animal, and from 
 the animal to the air again never really the property of any, and 
 never lingering long in one stay the whole created carbon is 
 slowly moving in a greater circle between earth and air. It rises 
 from the earth at one end of the curve in the state of an elastic 
 gas; it amuses itself by the way in assuming for brief intervals many 
 successive varieties of plant-form and animal-form, till it is finally 
 6 
 
74 CHAPTER III. 2. 
 
 buried in the earth again, at the other end of the curve, in the 
 state of solid limestone and fossil plants."* 
 
 The beds of limestone resulting from the labor of these little 
 beings, who thus absorb carbonic acid from the atmosphere, become 
 in their turn nuclei of islands, destined to furnish places of abode 
 for the lower orders of animals, and ultimately for man. What is 
 the process by which the work of preparation is accomplished, is 
 well described in the following passage : 
 
 " The coral islands of the tropical seas present the most remark 
 able examples of the rapid clothing of a naked rock with vegetable 
 life, and its preparation for the habitation of human beings. The 
 creatures which build up these islands from unknown depths in the 
 ocean partake, as is indicated by the name of their species, zoo 
 phyte, or animal plant, in the characteristics of both orders of 
 vitality. They fulfil their functions without a heart or system of 
 circulation the several polypi in a group have separate mouths 
 and tentacles, and separate stomachs ; but beyond this there is no 
 individual property and form a living sheet of animals, fed and 
 nourished by numerous mouths and stomachs, but coalescing by 
 intervening tissues. They possess no more power of motion than 
 is sufficient to thrust out their arms to seize the food that drifts 
 past them, and they propagate by buds, the bud commencing as a 
 slight prominence on the side of the parent ; the bud enlarges, a 
 circle of tentacles grows out, with a mouth in the centre, and the 
 enlargement goes on till the young equals the parent in size, when 
 it begins to protrude buds itself and the group thus continues to 
 grow. They secrete the coral as the quadruped secretes its bones, 
 until single reefs are formed and attain the surface of the water. 
 But it is essential to the life of these submarine builders that they 
 should be covered by the waves, and when they have reached low 
 water mark they die. A new process now begins, in the accumu 
 lation of loose materials upon its summit, from coral boulder 
 broken off from the reef by the waves, thrown up from below, and 
 gradually ground into fragments coral gravel and sand. Agassiz 
 states that all that portion of Florida known as the Everglades is 
 only a vast coral bank, composed of a series of more or less 
 parallel reefs, which have successively grown from the bottom of 
 .tbe sea up to the surface, and have been added to the main land, 
 
 * Dr. Johnston, in Blackicood s Magazine, May, 1853. 
 
OP INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 75 
 
 by the gradual filling of the intervals which separate them with 
 deposits of the coralline sand, and debris brought thither by the 
 action of the tides and the currents. 
 
 " The cocoanut, with its husk, being well adapted to be wafted 
 by the waves, it takes root upon the naked sand of the coral island, 
 just lifted above the level of the ocean, and, washed by the spray, 
 grows luxuriantly. Nourished at first by only so much of organic 
 aliment as the remains of the zoophytes, who build the island, sup 
 ply, the decay of its leaves soon furnishes a mould which suffices for 
 other vegetable growth. Its uses are manifold : the inhabitants, 
 when they come, find in it material for the scanty dresses which 
 the climate requires, drinking-vessels from the shell of its nut, and 
 other utensils, mats, cordage, fishing-lines, and oil, besides food, 
 drink, and building materials. In every stage, from its first forma 
 tion after the fall of the blossom, to the hard, dry, and ripe nut, 
 that has almost begun to germinate, the fruit may be seen at the 
 same time, on the same tree. The pandanus, or screw-pine, another 
 tree which soon roots itself in the scanty soil, throwing out props 
 from the trunk, which plant themselves in the ground, and widen 
 the supporting base as it grows, furnishes a sweetish, husky fruit, 
 which, though a little bitter, says Mr. Dana, in his Geology of 
 the Exploring Expedition, from which these facts are drawn, 
 admits of being stored away for food when other things fail. 
 Fish and crabs from the reefs, and the large fish caught with 
 wooden hooks from the deep waters, eke out the subsistence of 
 the natives. From such scanty resources, says Mr. Dana, a 
 population of 10,000 persons is supported on the single island of 
 Tapnteouea, whose habitable area does not exceed six square miles. 
 
 " The process in this case, by which the emerging peak of the 
 submarine mountain is fitted by the germination of vegetation for 
 a human abode, is rapid. That by which the peaks of the land 
 mountain have crumbled into soil involves more intermediate 
 stages, and a much greater variety of results. Some of the rocks, 
 such as slates and shales, decompose with such facility, that the 
 whole process may be observed within a brief period, and we have 
 constant opportunities of watching its progress. The granitic 
 rocks, however, which, constituting in the view of geologists the 
 lower and earlier strata, have been made, upon the disruption and 
 upheaving of the crust of the earth, to occupy the highest place, 
 
76 CHAPTER III. 2. 
 
 are of a less frangible character. But their chemical composition 
 is such as to favor their speedy disintegration under the action of 
 the elements. The presence of alkalies in the feldspar and mica, 
 which are combined with silex in granite, exerts a powerful influ 
 ence in this change. Carbonic acid, the great solvent for the 
 hardest materials, decomposes the potash with which silica is com 
 bined in the feldspar, and it is made soluble. The intensity of the 
 frost, and the length of time during which rocks on the mountain 
 tops are exposed to it, the suddenness of the changes of tempera 
 ture to which they are subjected, and which, from their being poor 
 conductors of heat, involve an inequality in the contraction and 
 expansion of the surface and the interior, which induces flaking 
 and cracking, the dampness of the air during the summer, when 
 watery vapors condense upon their summits, are among the cir 
 cumstances which hasten the destruction of rocks in these places. 
 As disintegration is accomplished by the process of weathering, 
 the decomposed particles fall by their own weight, and are washed 
 by the rains into the valleys beneath, which receive in the same 
 manner the contributions of the intermediate rocks. During this 
 process, the rocks are not merely mechanically broken into small 
 fragments, but from their insoluble constituents, soluble salts, as 
 those of lime, soda, &c., are generated, which may be absorbed by 
 the root of plants. In the decomposition of feldspar, the silicate 
 of potassa is gradually removed by the water, and while the sand 
 remains upon the sloping surfaces, the fine alumina or clay accu 
 mulates in the valleys, and forms a mixture of clay and sand, which 
 is more favorable to the support of grass and grain. Thus every 
 gradation is presented, from the naked granite of the hill-tops 
 through the thin, porous soils of the slopes, to the rich meadow 
 lands of the valleys. 
 
 " Yegetation of some kind, however, can find nourishment even 
 on the surface of the rock.* Lichens and alga? grow high above 
 
 * " Look at a recently exposed surface of a block of granite for instance, on 
 the summit of the Brocken ; there we find that vegetation is soon developed, 
 in the form of a little delicate plant, which requires the microscope for its 
 recognition ; and this is nourished hy the small quantity of atmospheric 
 water impregnated with carbonic acid and ammonia. This, the so-called 
 violet-stone, a scarlet, pulverulent coating over the bare stone, which on 
 account of the peculiar smell of violets which it emits when rubbed, has 
 become a curiosity, industriously sought by the thoughtful wanderer on 
 the Brocken. By the gradual decay and decomposition of this little plant, 
 
OF INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 7 7 
 
 the line of perpetual snow ; and in bleak northern climes, upon 
 the bare face of the granite rock, a species of lichens flourishes, 
 which the hunger-pinched Canadian voyageur seeks for food, and 
 gives the appetizing name of tripe de rocheS Decaying vegetable 
 matter of such kinds is swept by every shower down hill, to accu 
 mulate at the base with the deposits of mineral origin. After a 
 sufficient period, a soil is thus formed at the bottom of the slopes, 
 which is capable of sustaining heavy timber. The first tree sheds 
 its leaves and branches to feed the fattening soil, in a circle around 
 its trunk, whose area is measured by the spread of its branches. 
 The probable process from this starting-point is this : Upon the 
 outer circumference of the first circle thus nourished, and that edge 
 of it, which, lying between the trunk and the hill-top, upon the 
 ascending slope, is inferior to the lowest point in the collected 
 elements of vegetable nutrition, it becomes possible for another 
 tree to grow. This, in its turn, becomes the centre of a circle of 
 fertilized ground, upon whose upper exterior the material to sup 
 port a new growth is accumulated, by the droppings of its stem 
 and branches. Each new plant thus manures the ground for its 
 successor, and vegetation creeps up the hill-side, along a soil of 
 constantly diminishing richness, and which, though made more fat 
 and tenacious by its growth, is always parting with some portion 
 of its mineral and vegetable elements to fatten the valley beneath 
 it. The process, like so many others in the operations of nature, 
 is one of action and reaction, of a disturbance of equilibrium which 
 sets at work the machinery for its own restoration. The elemental 
 forces, gravitation, and the wash of running water, carry to the 
 
 a very thin layer of humus is by degrees produced, which now suffices to pro 
 cure from the atmosphere food sufficient for a couple of great blackish-brown 
 lichens. These lichens, which densely clothe the heaps of earth round the 
 shafts of the mines of Fahlun and Dannemora in Sweden, and through their 
 gloomy color, which they impress on all around, make those pits and shafts 
 look like the gloomy abysses of death, have been appropriately called by the 
 botanists the Stygian and Fahluii lichens. But they are no messengers of 
 death here : their decay prepares the soil for the elegant little Alpine moss, 
 the destruction of which is speedily followed by the appearance of greener 
 and more luxuriant mosses, until sufficient soil has been formed for the 
 whortleberry, the juniper, and finally for the pine. Thus, from an insignifi 
 cant beginning, an ever-increasing coating of humus grows up over the 
 naked rock, and a vegetation, continually stronger and more luxuriant, 
 takes up its position, not to be nourished on that humus, which increases 
 instead of decreasing with every decaying generation, but by its means to 
 be supplied with nourishment from the atmosphere." Schleiden, The Plant. 
 p. 162. 
 
78 CHAPTER III. 2. 
 
 lowest levels the mineral and organic nutriment for vegetation ; 
 and vegetation, thus originated, carries them back again up the 
 slopes, preparing a soil for its own progress as it goes. The 
 slimmest and scantiest vegetation is always in the advance, like 
 the pioneers and light troops who clear the ground for the heavy 
 columns of an army."* 
 
 The plant is thus, as we see, a manufacturer of soil, and what, in 
 this respect, is true of it, is equally so of all the living and moving 
 beings that walk the face of earth. The development commenced 
 in the stomach of the plant is continued and carried out in 
 that of the man, who has been well compared to a locomotive engine. 
 Into the stomach of the latter we introduce fuel under circumstances 
 tending to promote its decomposition, or motion of the elements of 
 which it is composed and this motion gives force. The man 
 takes into his stomach, as fuel, the various products of the vegeta 
 ble and animal kingdom, and there they are subjected to the pro 
 cess of decomposition, whence result vital heat and force. The 
 manner in which plants and animals combine to produce this in 
 creasing motion, is well exhibited in the following passage : 
 
 " Man himself, and other animals, assist in the same conversion. 
 They consume vegetable food with the same final result as when it 
 perishes by actual decay, or is destroyed by the agency of fire. It 
 is conveyed into the stomach in the form in which the plant yields 
 it ; it is breathed out again from the lungs and the skin, in the 
 form of carbonic acid and water. We can follow out this opera 
 tion, however, more closely, and it will be both interesting and 
 instructive to do so. 
 
 " The leaf of the living plant sucks in carbonic acid from the air 
 and gives off the oxygen contained in this gas. It retains only the 
 carbon. The roots drink in water from the soil, and out of this 
 carbon and water the plant forms starch, sugar, fat, and other 
 substance. The animal introduces this starch, sugar or fat, into 
 its stomach, and draws in oxygen from the atmosphere by its lungs ; 
 and with these materials it undoes the previous labors of the living 
 plant, delivering back again from the lungs and the skin both the 
 starch and the oxygen in the form of carbonic acid and water. 
 The process is clearly represented in the following scheme : 
 
 
 
 * Smith. Manual of Pol. Econ. p. 38. 
 
OF INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 79 
 
 Takes in Produces 
 
 / Stardi anrf/a* in the stomach ; J C a / 6<w * c acid . and 
 THE ANIMAL, | Qxygen . nt the lungg> | from the skin and the 
 
 " The circle begins with carbonic acid and water, and ends with 
 the same substances. The, same material the same carbon, for 
 example circulates over and over again, now floating in the 
 invisible air, now forming the substance of the growing plant, now 
 of the moving animal, and now again dissolving into the air, ready 
 to begin anew the same endless revolution. It forms part of a 
 vegetable to-day it may be built into the body of a man to-mor 
 row ; and, a week hence, it may have passed through another plant 
 into another animal. What is mine this week is yours the next. 
 There is, in truth, no private property in ever-moving matter."* 
 
 3. In the early periods of society the changes of form are very 
 slow, and thus we see that, in the days of the Plantagenets, and 
 for centuries afterwards, the yield of an acre of land was but six 
 or eight bushels of wheat. Small as it was, it was, nevertheless, 
 attended with constant improvement in the form of matter result 
 ing from the motion that thus far had been obtained. The rocks 
 had been decomposed, and the clays and the sands had taken upon 
 themselves a higher form and the beautiful green of the wheat 
 had replaced the sombre brown of the earth. Step by step, how 
 ever, man is seen obtaining higher command of the various forces 
 provided for his use, and passing onward until at a later period he 
 obtains thirty, forty, and fifty bushels to the acre ; while of other 
 commodities they count by hundreds. 
 
 Without vital heat this command could not be obtained, and 
 without fuel there could be no heat. That fuel, as we see, is food, 
 without which there can be no vital action and thus it is that we 
 reach the point at which man and other animals stand upon a level 
 with each other. In common with them all, he eats, drinks, and 
 sleeps, and in common with them he must obtain supplies of food. 
 
 Looking around, he sees vast bodies of matter held in a quies- 
 
 * Blackwood s Magazine, May, 1853. 
 
80 CHAPTER III. 3. 
 
 cent state, by reason of the force of gravitation, and therefore 
 unproductive. It is a magazine of power, latent, waiting help to 
 set it free. The hard soil yields scanty herbage, but he now 
 loosens it so as to expose its particles to the action of the sun and 
 the rain, and, that done, he places therein a seed ready to receive 
 into its stomach the food required for its nourishment. It sprouts, 
 and the plant grows by aid of earth and atmosphere, yielding the 
 oats, the rye, or the corn required for his support, or that of the 
 animals on which he feeds. In all this, however, he has done no 
 more than is done by the man who feeds the locomotive, placing 
 matter in a situation to become decomposed, and thus giving indi 
 viduality to its atoms, by help of which they are enabled to com 
 bine with other atoms. The act of combination is one of motion, 
 and that motion gives force. 
 
 To accomplish this, he has ploughed deeper, and has enabled a 
 larger quantity of soil to become presented to the action of the 
 rain and the sun. He has dug drains, and has thus enabled the 
 water to run off, that otherwise would have remained stagnant and 
 would have destroyed his seed ; and precisely as he has thus facili 
 tated the motion of matter he has found himself rewarded by a 
 more rapid increase in the quantity that has taken upon itself the 
 form required for his purposes. 
 
 The greater the motion, the more rapid is the improvement in 
 the form. The stiff pine gives way to the graceful barley, while 
 beautiful fields of clover replace the rank weeds of the swamp, and. 
 the gaunt wolf disappears from the land that now maintains the 
 high-bred horse and well-formed man. 
 
 With increased control over the natural forces, he is thus enabled 
 to obtain a constant increase of food from any given surface, with 
 steady increase in the power to live in connection with his fellow 
 man. Association grows, giving in its turn power to bring into 
 activity other forces that thus far have remained dormant and 
 waiting the help of man. He turns up the limestone and subjects 
 it to the process of decomposition, furnishing carbonic acid to the 
 air, and giving quicklime to the earth. He digs the coal, and that 
 in its turn is decomposed, furnishing to the atmosphere new sup 
 plies of the material that is to be recomposed in the form of vege 
 tables for his nourishment. He mines the iron ore, to be decomposed 
 by help of coal, and here again are new supplies of the materials 
 
OF INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 81 
 
 required for the support of organic life ; and furnished, too, by the 
 very process required for giving him instruments needed for the 
 work of cultivation. The matter thus decomposed continues in 
 motion, and must so continue while men increase in the power of 
 association. The various ores never again return to their original 
 form, nor does the lime become again limestone, after it has entered 
 into the composition of food. Eaten, it returns again to the atmo 
 sphere, or to the earth, and the man himself at length dies and is 
 buried, and thus repays the debt he owes to nature. Even, how 
 ever, while still living, he is constantly absorbing and giving out 
 again to the earth and atmosphere the atoms of which his system 
 is composed, as is well explained in the following passage : 
 
 " In natural forests, where the leaves are annually shed and the 
 trees periodically die, the mineral matter quits the soil for the 
 plant, and again, in the decaying plant, returns to the soil, thus 
 making but a short stage up and down from earth to plant, and 
 from plant back to the earth again. And it is so also in natural 
 meadows, where yearly in autumn the grass ripens, withers, and 
 returns its mineral matter to the soil, and yearly again in spring 
 the young herbage springs up and feeds on the relics of the pre 
 vious year. But it is different when the vegetable produce is con 
 sumed by animals. It then enters into their stomachs, is dissolved 
 or digested, and its several parts taken up by vessels provided for 
 the purpose, to be conveyed to the parts of the body where their 
 services are required. The saline matter we need not at present 
 follow further than the blood and the tissues. The phosphoric 
 acid and the lime in the form of phosphate of lime are chiefly 
 deposited in the bones. 
 
 " The importance of this phosphate of lime to the animal 
 economy will be apparent, when we mention that ordinarily dry 
 bones leave, on burning, half their weight of a white ash, which 
 consists for the most part of phosphate of lime. 
 
 " But, as we have already explained, all the parts of the body, 
 even the most solid, are in a constant course of renewal. To this 
 law of change the bones are subject equally with the soft parts, 
 and the phosphoric acid carried in to-day is in a few days carried 
 out again, mixed up with the other refuse and excretions of the 
 body ; and finally the body itself dies, and all its material parts 
 are at once returned to the earth from which it came. There they 
 
82 CHAPTER III. 3. 
 
 undergo, through the agency of the air, a complete breaking-lip 
 or decomposition, by which their mineral matter itself is brought 
 into a condition in which it can enter usefully into the roots of 
 new plants. There are other minutiae in reference to the revolu 
 tion of this mineral matter which are full of interest, but we will 
 not try the patience of our readers by insisting upon them in this 
 place. The general changes we have indicated are represented 
 briefly as follows : 
 
 Taken in by Produced 
 
 {Phosphoric acid, lime, com-"| 
 
 mon and other salts from [ Perfect substance of plants. 
 the soil. j 
 
 {- , f Perfect bone, blood, and Us 
 
 er. Parts of plants. -j sues> 
 
 b. The bone and tissues, with f Phosphates and other salts 
 oxygen from the lungs. \ in the excretions. 
 
 m (2 /Excretions of animals, dead f Phosphoric acid, lime, &c. 
 
 I animals and plants. \ &c. 
 
 " It may be that a careful hunter after human earth might scrape 
 together as much as would stop a hole to keep the wind away. 
 But our science teaches us that the earth is not the kind of stuff 
 that clay is made of, and such vile uses are, after all, only imagi 
 nary slights to which our cherished ashes can never be subjected. 
 They have another appointed use, from which, treat them as they 
 may, they cannot long be kept. The plant is wonderfully framed, so 
 as not to grow without the phosphoric acid, &c., which it is bound 
 to gather up and supply to the growing animal. And the soil is so 
 poorly provided with these and other necessary substances, that 
 plant and animal are both ordained to return without fail their bor 
 rowed material to mother earth when the term of life has come. Thus 
 a constant circulation of the same comparatively small quantity of 
 mineral matter is secured, and a duty is laid upon each particle 
 zealously to prepare for a new service, as soon as each earlier com 
 mission is performed. As we have no property in, so we ought to 
 have no foolish affection or reverence for dead ashes ; and certainly 
 we ought to have no fear that they can ever long be withheld from 
 connecting themselves, in some form or other, with new phases of 
 vegetable and animal life."* 
 
 " Plant and animal are both," as we here see, ordained to return 
 
 * Ibid. 
 
OF INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 83 
 
 their borrowed materials to mother earth," and it is upon this con 
 dition only that motion can be increased, or even maintained. Our 
 great mother, Earth, gives nothing, but she is willing to lend every 
 thing, and the larger the demand made upon her the larger will be 
 the supply, provided, that man always recollects that he is but a 
 borrower from a great bank, in which punctuality is as much 
 required as it is in the banks of America, France, or England. 
 
 That this condition may be complied with, there must be asso 
 ciation, and difference is in the social, as well as in the material 
 world, indispensable to association. The man whose land yields 
 corn does not require to associate with his brother corn grower ; 
 the sugar planter does not need to exchange with his neighbor 
 planter nor does the wool grower require to meet his brother 
 farmer who also has wool to sell but they, each and all, find it 
 advantageous to exchange labor and its products with the carpen 
 ter, the blacksmith, the mason, the sawmiller, the miner, the furnace 
 man, the spinner, the weaver, and the printer, as all of these require 
 to purchase food, and to give in pay for it their services, or the vari 
 ous commodities with which they have to part. Where there is 
 diversity of employment, the producer and the consumer take their 
 places by the side of each other, and there is rapid motion among 
 the products of labor, with constant increase in the power to repay 
 to mother earth her loans, and to establish with her a credit for 
 larger ones in future. Where, on the contrary, there are none but 
 farmers or planters, and where consequently there is no motion 
 in society, the producer and the consumer are so widely separated 
 that the power to repay the loans from the great bank dies away, 
 and motion gradually ceases among the particles of the earth itself 
 as we see to be the case in all the purely agricultural countries. 
 Virginia and the Carolinas have been steadily engaged in exhaust 
 ing the elements of fertility originally contained in the soil, because 
 of the absence of consumers, and the necessity for dependence on 
 distant markets ; and such, to a great extent, is the case through 
 out this country, and particularly in the Southern States. The 
 farmer who commences on rich prairie land, obtains at first forty 
 or fifty bushels of corn to the acre, but the quantity declines from 
 year to year, and finally falls to fifteen or twenty bushels. A 
 century since, the farmers of New York were accustomed to obtain 
 twenty-four bushels of wheat, but the average now is but little 
 
84 CHAPTER III. 3. 
 
 more than half that quantity, while the rich State of Ohio has 
 fallen to an average of only eleven bushels, and with every step in 
 the progress of decline there is a diminution of ability to associate; 
 the power of the soil to yield support being always the measure of 
 the power of men to live together. That this state of things must 
 certainly arise when the consumer and the producer are widely 
 separated, is clearly shown in the remarkable emigration at this 
 moment going on from Ohio, whose settlement commenced but 
 little more than half a century since ; from Georgia, with a popula 
 tion of 900,000, and with a territory capable of supporting half the 
 people of the Union ; and from Alabama, that but forty years since 
 was a wilderness occupied chiefly by a few bands of straggling 
 Indians.* 
 
 " The plant," says Professor Johnston, in the article already so 
 largely quoted from, " is the servant of the animal." " Man," as he 
 continues, "placed upon the earth, without the previous existence of 
 the plant, were utterly helpless. He could not live either upon 
 earth or upon air, and yet his body requires a constant supply of 
 the elements contained in each. It is the plant which selects, col 
 lects, and binds together these indigestible materials, and manu 
 factures them into food for man and other animals. And these 
 appear only to throw back again to their toiling slaves the waste 
 materials which they cannot further use, to be again worked up into 
 palatable food. In this aspect, the plant appears only the ap 
 pointed bond-servant of the animal ; and yet, how willing, how 
 
 * " True it is that thorns and thistles, ill-favored and poisonous plants, 
 well named by botanists rubbish plants, mark the track which man has 
 proudly traversed through the earth. Before him lay original Nature 
 in her wild but sublime beauty. Behind him he leaves the desert, a 
 deformed and ruined land ; for childish desire of destruction, or thought 
 less squandering of vegetable treasures, has destroyed the character of 
 nature, and, terrified, flies man himself from the arena of his actions, leav 
 ing the impoverished earth to barbarous races or to animals, so long as yet 
 another spot in virgin beauty smiles before him. Here again in selfish 
 pursuit of profit, and, consciously or unconsciously, following the abomina 
 ble principle of the great moral vileness which one man has expressed, 
 aprds nous le deluge, 1 he begins anew the work of destruction. Thus did 
 cultivation, driven out, leave the East, and perhaps the deserts formerly 
 robbed of their coverings ; like the wild hordes of old over beautiful Greece, 
 thus rolls this conquest with fearful rapidity from east to west through 
 America, and the planter now leaves the already exhausted land, the east 
 ern climate become infertile through the demolition of the forests, to intro 
 duce a similar revolution into the far West." Schleiden, The Plant, p. 306. 
 
OF INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 85 
 
 beautiful, how interesting a slave it is. It works for ever, yet it 
 is self-tasked. It toils itself to death, yet, punctually as spring 
 comes round, it rises, young, beautiful, and willing as ever, rejoic 
 ing to resume its destined work."* It can do so, however, only on 
 the condition that "the waste materials" which man can no further 
 use be returned to the place from whence they had been drawn. 
 
 Those materials, as we have seen, come chiefly from the atmo 
 sphere ; but, in order that they may be drawn from thence, it is 
 indispensable that the earth itself should contain the ingredients 
 required for combination with them.") The atmosphere that now 
 rests upon the worn-out tobacco fields of Virginia contains the 
 same elements with that which rests upon the finest farms of Mas 
 sachusetts, of Belgium, or of England ; yet the power of combina 
 tion has no existence, because certain other elements have been 
 withdrawn and sent abroad, in the absence of which there can be 
 no motion in the soil. While they existed there, men could live 
 together on the land ; but with impoverishment of the latter the 
 former have disappeared. That the power of association among 
 men may increase, there must be a constantly increasing inter 
 change motion between the earth and the atmosphere, and that 
 there cannot be in any country where there is no diversity of em 
 ployment ; and in which, consequently, the place of consumption 
 being remote from that of production, the farmer is limited to the 
 cultivation of such commodities only as will bear transportation to 
 distant countries. Hence it is that we should see a great decline in 
 
 * Blackwood s Magazine. 
 
 f "All the nitrogenous components of plants, which we use as food, consist, 
 it is true, of merely carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. But the pre 
 sence of these substances alone does not help the plant in the least ; it 
 cannot form from them a granule of albumen or gluten, unless it contains, 
 at the same time and in the proper relative condition, salts of phosphoric 
 acid. The useful starch, the sweet sugar, the cooling citric acid, the aro 
 matic oil of oranges, are indeed composed solely of carbon, hydrogen and 
 oxygen ; but the plant cannot prepare those gifts for us, out of ever so 
 great an abundance of these elements, if it does not possess also alkaline 
 salts. The slender stalk of the wheat could not lift itself to ripen its grain 
 in the sun s rays, unless the soil furnished it with silex, through which it 
 gives its cells that solidity necessary to enable it to maintain an erect 
 position." Schleiden, The Plant, p. 206. 
 
 " The conclusion is therefore simple : that we must in future never culti 
 vate the potato as the first crop, as has generally been hitherto done through 
 out the greater part of Europe, but we must begin with rye, and allow the 
 potato to follow it, or perhaps still better, to come two years later, after 
 
86 CHAPTER III. 3. 
 
 the productive powers of the land in those countries of the eastern 
 continent in which there are few or no manufactures Ireland, 
 Portugal, Turkey, India, and others. Hence, too, it is that with 
 declining population and diminished motion in society, we see 
 the difficulty of obtaining food increasing with diminution of the 
 numbers requiring to be fed. Famines are now more frequent in 
 India than they were a century since when the population was far 
 more numerous, and when combination of action existed through 
 out that country. Looking to past ages, we see everywhere facts 
 of a similar kind. The valley of the Euphrates once exhibited 
 millions of well-fed men ; but as they passed away motion ceased, 
 and its few straggling occupants now obtain with difficulty the 
 means of supporting life. When the African province was well 
 peopled, its people were well fed, but the few who now remain 
 perish for want of food. So has it been in Attica and in Greece 
 generally, in Asia Minor, in Egypt, everywhere in fact. Associa 
 tion, combination of action, is required to enable man to obtain 
 control over the various forces existing in nature and that com 
 bination can never take place except when the loom and the spindle 
 take their natural places by the side of the plough and the harrow. 
 The consumer must take his place by the side of the producer, to 
 enable man to comply with the condition upon which he obtains 
 loans from the great bank of mother Earth the simple condition 
 that when he has done with the capital furnished to him he will 
 return it to the place from which it had been taken. 
 
 In all those countries in which this condition is complied with, 
 we see a steady increase in the motion of the matter destined to 
 furnish man with food, and equally steady increase in the number 
 of persons requiring to be supplied, with constant improvement in 
 the quantity and quality of food to be divided among an increasing 
 population. In the days of the Plantagenets and Lancasters, 
 when the population of England but little exceeded two millions, 
 an acre of land yielded but six bushels of wheat, and, small as 
 
 clover, if we would raise a healthy produce, and in future be rid of the 
 plague to which we have recently been subject. The fundamental propo 
 sition will henceforward stand firmly established, that the nutrient matter 
 which the plant itself takes up from the soil consists essentially only of 
 the inorganic constituents of the same, and that these, and not the organic 
 substances, constitute the peculiar richness of a soil." Ibid., p. 181. 
 
OF INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 87 
 
 were the numbers to be fed, famines were frequent and severe. In 
 our day, we see eighteen millions occupying the same surface, and 
 obtaining greatly increased supplies of very superior food. 
 
 Looking to France, we meet precisely similar facts. In 1760, 
 the population was 21,000,000, and the total produce of grain was 
 94,500,000 hectolitres; whereas, in 1840, the former had risen to 
 34,000,000, and the latter to 182,516,000 hectolitres, giving to 
 each person twenty per cent, more in quantity in the latter than in 
 the earlier period, with great improvement in the quality of the 
 grain itself ; and yet the surface appropriated to the cultivation of 
 the cereals has scarcely at all increased. In the same time the 
 potato culture has been introduced, and green crops of various 
 kinds now furnish supplies of food that themselves alone are two- 
 thirds as great as the whole quantity produced but eighty years 
 before.* The total product has been trebled in that time, while 
 the numbers to be fed have increased but 60 per cent. The 
 French peasant now pays his debts to mother earth, returning 
 to her the manure yielded by his crops, and he is enabled so 
 to do, because of the growing diversity of employment ; whereas, 
 at an earlier period, when manufactures had scarcely an existence 
 in that country, famines were so numerous and sometimes so 
 severe as to sweep off a large proportion of the very scattered 
 population. 
 
 So it is in Belgium, in Germany, and in every other country in 
 which diversity of employment difference facilitates the work of 
 association ; while precisely the reverse is observed in- all those 
 purely agricultural countries that are steadily employed in exhaust 
 ing the soil, and diminishing the power of association, as we see 
 to have been so uniformly the case in Virginia and Carolina on 
 this side of the ocean, and Portugal and Turkey on the other. 
 
 With every step in the progress towards increased power to 
 associate resulting from increased motion among the elements of 
 
 * The facts are thus stated by M. de Jonnifs, in his Statistique de V Agri 
 culture de France. 
 
 1760. 1840. 
 
 Wheat . . .150 208 litres. 
 
 Inferior grains . . 300 333 
 
 Potatoes and green crops . 291 
 
 Total per head ... 450 832 
 
88 CHAPTER III. 4. 
 
 which food is composed, man is enabled to call to his help other 
 forces to be employed in grinding his grain and transporting its 
 product to market in converting his trees into planks and pre 
 paring them for the construction of houses in converting his wool 
 into cloth and finally, in carrying his messages with such rapid 
 ity that time and space seem almost annihilated. With each, 
 he is enabled more and more to economize his own labors, and to 
 devote his time and mind with increased force to the production of 
 the grain that is to be ground, the trees that are to be sawed, or the 
 wool that is to be converted, and thus to make provision for 
 increased association with his fellow-man, and increased corre 
 spondence with the distant ones, each step being but the prepara 
 tion for a new and greater one. 
 
 "With the development of the latent powers of the earth there is 
 thus a daily increasing tendency towards increase in the movement 
 of matter, and improvement of the form in which it exists, passing 
 from the inorganic to the organic, and terminating in its highest 
 one that of man. The more that matter tends to take upon 
 itself this highest form, the more rapidly does the power of asso 
 ciation grow, with constantly increasing power on the part of 
 man to direct the great forces of nature, accompanied by an equally 
 rapid growth of individuality, or power of self-government war 
 ranting us in holding him to a constant increase of responsibility. 
 
 4. The law of the relative increase in the numbers of mankind, 
 and in the, supply of food and other commodities required for their 
 support, will now be found in the following propositions : 
 
 Motion gives force, and the more rapid the motion the greater 
 is the force obtained. 
 
 With motion matter takes upon itself new and higher forms, 
 passing from the simple ones of the inorganic world and through 
 the complex ones of the vegetable world to yet more complex ones 
 of the animal one, and ending in man. 
 
 The more rapid the motion the greater the tendency to changes 
 of form, to increase of force, and increase of power at the command 
 of man. 
 
 The more simple the forms in which matter exists the less is the 
 power of resistance to gravitation ; the greater the tendency to 
 centralization, the less the motion, and the less the force. 
 
OF INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 89 
 
 The more complex the form, the greater becomes the power of 
 resistance to gravitation the greater the tendency to decentraliza 
 tion the greater the motion and the greater the force. 
 
 With every increase of power on one side, there is diminished 
 resistance on the other. The more the motion produced, the 
 greater must, therefore, be the tendency to further increase of mo 
 tion and of force. 
 
 The most complex and highly organized form in which matter 
 exists, is that of man, and here, alone, do we find that capacity for 
 direction required for producing increase of motion and of force. 
 
 Wherever man most exists we should, therefore, find the greatest 
 tendency to the decentralization of matter to increase of motion 
 to further changes of form and to that higher development which 
 commences in the vegetable world, and ends in the production of 
 further supplies of men. 
 
 With every increase in the extent to which matter has taken 
 upon itself the form of man, there should consequently be found an 
 increase of his power to guide and direct the forces provided for 
 his use with constantly accelerating motion, and constantly accele 
 rating changes of form and constant increase in his power to 
 command the food and clothing required for his support. 
 
 That, in the material world, the resistance to gravitation is in 
 the direct ratio of organization, will be obvious to the reader on a 
 moment s reflection. Inorganic matter rising in obedience to the 
 influence of heat, with the slightest reduction of temperature it 
 is again condensed, and falls as rain. In the organic world, the 
 lower forms of vegetable life are found in the little plants that 
 return annually to the dust from whence they came; whereas, the 
 higher ones are found in the oak, that, for centuries, spreads its 
 arms to the wind famishing, year after year, leaves, flowers, and 
 fruits, despite the force of gravitation. In the animal one, the 
 mollusca, the coral insects, and the polypes standing lowest in 
 organization are most obedient to the control of forces by which 
 they are chained to earth; but the obedience diminishes, as we pass 
 upward to the horse, the bee, and the bird. Coming next to man, 
 we find him making his home upon the living waters, or, at his 
 pleasure, diving into the recesses of the ocean at one time circum 
 navigating the globe, and at another providing himself with ma- 
 7 
 
90 CHAPTER III. 5. 
 
 chinery, by means of which he is enabled to descend within the 
 bosom of the great deep, and not only to return from thence him 
 self, but to bring back with him, in opposition to gravitation, such 
 inorganic matter as suits his purposes. 
 
 So is it with the races of men. The lower they stand in moral 
 and physical condition, the greater is their subjection to the cen 
 tralizing forces and hence it is, that in the early stages of society, 
 when they have little power over nature, we see it to have been so 
 easy for the Attilas and Alarics to collect together hundreds of 
 thousands of men, for the purpose of robbing and murdering those 
 who chanced to be better provided than themselves with worldly 
 goods. Hence, too, it is, that we see the great cities of the world 
 exercising such strong attractive force upon those who are disso 
 lutely disposed, and those who would live by plunder rather than 
 by honest industry. 
 
 The direct ratio between motion, force, and function, above 
 affirmed in regard to all organized beings, is fully illustrated in the 
 individual life of man. From birth to manhood his vital func 
 tions digestion, circulation, and assimilation being rapid and 
 vigorous, greatly overmatch the physical and chemical laws which 
 are in direct antagonism with vitality and thus do they "make 
 increase of the body" until the term of development is reached. 
 The circulation the commerce of his system which represents 
 all the activities of assimilation, ranges from 130 pulsations in a 
 minute to 60, in the ages of decline. The history of his youth is 
 a series of triumphs over the resistance of surrounding agencies, 
 until his grand climacteric is attained ; and in all the process of 
 emancipation from the dominion of the opposing forces of nature, 
 the rapidity of the motion within his structure is the measure, and 
 the exponent, of his proper power, life, and liberty. When, however, 
 the scale begins to turn when motion and its attendant sensibility 
 begin to decline when the conversion of digestion, the commerce 
 of circulation, and the appropriation of- nutrition, begin to abate 
 in celerity and force he is beginning to die. Thenceforth, the 
 balance of power against him grows steadily, while the resistance 
 of his vital organism as steadily loses motion and force, until at 
 length his frame is forced to obey the laws of decomposition and 
 gravitation. 
 
 In the material world, motion among the atoms of matter is a 
 
OF INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 91 
 
 consequence of physical heat. It is therefore greatest at the 
 equator, and it diminishes until, as we approach the poles, we 
 reach the region of centralization and physical death. 
 
 In the moral world, motion is a consequence of social heat 
 motion, as has been already shown, consisting in "an exchange 
 of relations" resulting from the existence of those differences that 
 develop social life. Motion is greatest in those communities in 
 which agriculture, manufactures, and commerce are happily com 
 bined, and in which, consequently, society has the highest organiza 
 tion. It diminishes, as we approach the declining despotisms of 
 the East, the regions of centralization and social death. It in 
 creases, as we pass from the purely agricultural States of the South, 
 towards the regions of more diversified industry in the Northern 
 and Eastern ones, and there, accordingly, we find decentralization 
 and life. 
 
 Centralization, slavery, and death, travel hand in hand together 
 in both the material and the moral world. 
 
 5. The view thus presented, differs totally from that now most 
 commonly received, and known as the Malthusian law of popula 
 tion, which may be briefly given in tl}e following words: 
 
 Population tends to increase in a geometrical ratio, while the 
 supplies of food can increase in an arithmetical one only. The 
 former is, therefore, perpetually outstripping the latter, and hence 
 it is, that there is everywhere seen to arise the disease of over 
 population, with its accompaniments, poverty, wretchedness, and 
 death a disease requiring for its remedy wars, pestilences, and 
 famines on the one hand, or, on the other, the exercise of that 
 "moral restraint," which shall induce men and women to refrain 
 from matrimony, and thus avoid the danger resulting from further 
 addition to the numbers requiring to be fed. Reduced to distinct 
 propositions, the theory may now be given as follows : 
 
 1. Matter tends to take upon itself higher forms, passing from 
 the simple ones of inorganic life to the complex and beautiful 
 ones of vegetable and animal life, and finally terminating in man. 
 
 2. This tendency exists in a small degree as relates to the lower 
 forms of life matter tending to take upon itself the forms of po 
 tatoes, turnips, and cabbages, herrings, and oysters, in an arith 
 metical ratio only. 
 
92 CHAPTER III. 5. 
 
 3. When, however, we reach the highest of all the forms of 
 which matter is capable, we find the tendency to assume that form 
 augmenting in a geometrical ratio; as a consequence of which, 
 while man tends to increase as 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 the potatoes 
 and cabbages, the peas and turnips, the herrings and the oysters, 
 increase as 1, 2, 3 and 4 only producing the result that the high 
 est form is perpetually outstripping the lower ones, and causing the 
 disease of over-population. 
 
 Were such things asserted in regard to anything else than man, 
 they would be deemed in the highest degree absurd, and those by 
 whom they were asserted, would be required to explain why it was, 
 that an universal law had here been set aside. Everywhere else, 
 the increase in number is in the inverse ratio of deveiopmentr The 
 little coral insects are required, in quantity innumerable, to build 
 up islands, for animals and men that count by thousands, or by 
 millions. Of the clio boreatis, thousands are required to furnish a 
 mouthful for the mighty whale. The progeny of a pair of carp 
 would, in a single decade, as we are told, amount to millions. The 
 countless ferns prepare the soil for the single oak; and the progeny 
 of a pair of rabbits would, in twenty years, count by millions 
 whereas, that of a pair of elephants, would not amount to dozens. 
 When, however, we reach the highest condition of which matter is 
 capable, we learn the existence of a new and greater law, in virtue 
 of which man increases in a geometrical ratio, while the increase 
 of herrings, rabbits, oysters, potatoes, turnips, and all other com 
 modities required for his use, is limited to the arithmetical one! 
 Such is the extraordinary law propounded by Mr. Malthus, as ex 
 isting in reference to the only being on whom has been impressed 
 the desire for association, as necessary for compliance with the sole 
 condition of his existence; the only one, to whom has been given 
 an infinite variety of capacities fitting him for association with his 
 fellow men, and requiring it for their development; and the only 
 one, too, that having been gifted with the power to distinguish 
 right from wrong, and thus been made responsible for his actions 
 might with reason have required, that he should be exempt from 
 any law requiring him to make his election between abstinence from 
 that association which, of all others, tends most to the improve 
 ment of his head and heart, on one hand, and starvation on the 
 other. Such, however, according to the generally received doctrines 
 
OF INCREASE IN THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. 93 
 
 of modern political economy, is the law of population instituted by 
 an all-wise, all-powerful, and all-benevolent Creator, in reference 
 to the being made in his own likeness, and gifted with power to 
 control and direct all the forces of nature to his use and, strange 
 as it appears, no proposition ever offered for consideration has ex 
 ercised, or is now exercising, upon the fortunes of the human race 
 a greater amount of influence. That such should have been the 
 case has, in part, resulted from the fact that it has been buttressed 
 up by another one, in virtue of which man is supposed everywhere 
 to have commenced the work of cultivation on rich soils neces 
 sarily those of swamps and river bottoms with large return to 
 labor ; and to have found himself compelled, with the growth of 
 population and of wealth, to have recourse to poorer ones, with 
 constant decline in the return to all his efforts a theory that, if 
 true, would fully establish the correctness of that of Mr Malthus. 
 What are its claims to being received as true, will now be shown. 
 
94 CHAPTER IV. 1. 
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 
 
 1. LOOK where we may, we see man to have commenced his 
 career as a hunter, subsisting upon the spoils of the chase, and 
 dependent entirely upon the voluntary contributions of the earth ; 
 and thus to have everywhere been the slave of nature. Later, we 
 find him in the shepherd state, surrounded by animals that he has 
 tamed, and upon whom he is dependent for supplies of food, while 
 deriving from them the skins by which he is protected from the 
 winter s cold. 
 
 In this state of things there can exist but little power of asso 
 ciation, eight hundred acres of land being estimated to be required 
 for enabling a hunter to obtain as much food as could be obtained 
 from half an acre under cultivation. "Why this is so is thus ex 
 plained by Liebig : 
 
 "A nation of hunters on a limited space is utterly incapable of in 
 creasing its numbers beyond a certain point, which is soon attained. 
 The carbon necessary for respiration must be obtained from the 
 animals, of which only a limited number can live on the space 
 supposed. These animals collect from plants the constituents of 
 their organs and their blood, and yield them in turn to the savages 
 who live by the chase alone. They again receive this food, unac 
 companied by those compounds destitute of nitrogen, which, during 
 the life of the animals, served to support the respiratory process. 
 In such men, confined to an animal diet, it is the carbon of the 
 flesh and of the blood which must take the place of starch and 
 sugar. But fifteen pounds of flesh contain no more carbon than 
 four pounds of starch ; and while the savage, with one animal and 
 an equal weight of starch, could maintain life and health for a cer 
 tain number of days, he would be compelled, if confined to flesh, 
 in order to procure the carbon necessary for respiration during the 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 95 
 
 same time, to consume five such animals." Animal Chemistry, 
 Part I, 14. 
 
 That the power of association may increase, it is, then, indis 
 pensable that man should be enabled to obtain increased supplies 
 of vegetable food, and they can be obtained only by the help of 
 cultivation. That, however, implies an approach to individuality 
 which, in such cases, can have no existence. The lands are common 
 stock, and so are the flocks ; and when, by reason of any failure of 
 supplies, it becomes necessary to effect a change of place, the tribe 
 moves bodily, as is seen to have been the case with those of 
 Asia and of the north of Europe and as it is now with those of 
 the Western Continent. Under such circumstances, there can be 
 no approach to that individuality which consists in the power of 
 determining for themselves, whether they will go or remain where 
 they are. If the majority determine to remove, all must do so, for 
 the few who might remain would be butchered by other tribes, 
 greedy for additions to the territory over which they had been 
 accustomed to roam, and from which they had derived but a mise 
 rable subsistence. In this stage of society, man is, therefore, not 
 only the slave of nature, but also of his neighbor men, bound to 
 yield to the tyranny of the majority. 
 
 Absence of power in the individual man, to determine his own 
 course of action or, in that of a minority to judge and act 
 for themselves is thus a necessary consequence of inability to call 
 to their aid the natural forces by which they are everywhere sur 
 rounded, and by whose aid larger supplies of food might be ob 
 tained from diminished surfaces enabling them to live in closer 
 connection with each other. In what manner, however, can the 
 hunter or the shepherd compel nature to work for him ? " His 
 implements are of the rudest description, such as nature offers 
 ready-made to his hand, like the shell that the South Sea Islanders 
 use for a hoe. All the arms and tools that his forefathers had used, 
 while the tribe was passing through its stages of hunter and shep 
 herd life, were of this description. A flint had served for an arrow 
 head, and its sharp edge gave the only cutting instrument they had 
 been able to construct. A bow fashioned by such a knife, the string 
 of which was a thong cut from a deer-skin, was his chief weapon 
 for the chase, or for combat at a distance a club hardened by the 
 fire, armed sometimes with a sharp stone, fastened to it by thongs, 
 
96 CHAPTER IV. 1. 
 
 was the weapon for close strife. A pointed bone, from the leg of 
 the deer, furnished his wife with a needle, and its sinews with the 
 thread, by which she sewed together the skins that clothed her 
 household. It is with such tools only that experience or the tra 
 ditions of his tribe have made him acquainted. One has but to 
 walk into the nearest museum that contains a collection of savage 
 implements, to see how imperfect they are, and, at the same time, 
 to observe with some astonishment how fully they meet the limited 
 wants of those who use them, and through what a long tract of 
 time generations of men made no sensible improvement upon their 
 primitive stock."* 
 
 What, under such circumstance, is his course of operation, is 
 exhibited in the following sketch of that of a single supposed indi 
 vidual and his descendants, during a period of time that the reader 
 may, if he will, extend from years to centuries. By thus taking a 
 supposititious case, and placing the settler on an island, we are 
 enabled to eliminate the causes of disturbance that have, every 
 where in real life, resulted from the vicinity of other individuals 
 equally deficient in the machinery required for the subjugation of 
 nature and therefore driven, by fear of starvation, to robbery and 
 murder of their fellow-men. Having thus, by aid of the system 
 pursued by the mathematician, studied what would be the course of 
 man left undisturbed, we shall then be prepared to enter into an 
 examination of the disturbing causes to which it is due that his 
 course has been, in many countries, so widely different. 
 
 The first cultivator, the Robinson Crusoe of his day, provided, 
 however, with a wife, has neither axe nor spade. He works alone. 
 Population being small, land is, of course, abundant, and he may 
 select for himself, fearless of any question of his title. He is sur 
 rounded by soils possessed in the highest degree of qualities fitting 
 them for yielding large returns to labor; but they are covered with 
 immense trees that he cannot fell, or they are swamps that he can 
 not drain. To pass through them, even, is a work of serious labor, 
 the first being a mass of roots, stumps, decaying logs, and shrubs, 
 while, into the other, he sinks knee deep at every step. The atmo 
 sphere, too, is impure, as fogs settle upon the lowlands, and the 
 dense foliage of the wood prevents the circulation of the air. He 
 
 * Smith s Manual of Political Econemy, p. 43. 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 91 
 
 has no axe, but had he one he would not venture there, for, to do 
 so, would be attended with risk of health, and almost certain loss 
 of life. Yegetation, too, is so luxuriant, that before he could, 
 with the imperfect machinery at his command, clear a single acre, 
 a portion of it would be again so overgrown that he would have 
 to recommence his Sisyphean labor. The higher lands, compara 
 tively bare of timber, are little fitted for yielding a return to his 
 exertions. There are, however, places on the hill, where the thin 
 ness of the soil has prevented the growth of trees and shrubs or 
 there are spaces among the trees that can be cultivated while they 
 still remain ; and, when pulling up by the roots the few shrubs scat 
 tered over the surface, he is alarmed by no apprehension of their 
 speedy reproduction. With his hands he may even succeed in 
 barking the trees, or, by the aid of fire he may so far destroy them 
 that time alone will be required for giving him a few cleared acres, 
 upon which to sow his seed, with little fear of weeds. To attempt 
 these things upon the richer lands would be loss of labor. In some 
 places the ground is always wet, while in others, the trees are too 
 large to be seriously injured by fire, and its only effect would be to 
 stimulate the growth of weeds and brush. He therefore commences 
 the work of cultivation on the higher grounds, where, making with 
 his stick holes in the light soil that drains itself, he drops the grain 
 an inch or two below the surface, and in due season obtains a return 
 of twice his seed. Pounding this between stones, he obtains bread, 
 and his condition is improved. He has succeeded in making the 
 earth labor for him, while himself engaged in trapping birds or 
 rabbits, or in gathering fruits. 
 
 Later, he succeeds in sharpening a stone, and thus obtains a 
 hatchet, by aid of which he is enabled to proceed more rapidly 
 in girdling the trees, and in removing the sprouts and their roots, 
 a very slow and laborious operation, nevertheless. In process of 
 time, he is seen bringing into activity a new soil one whose food- 
 producing powers were less obvious to sight than those at first at 
 tempted. Finding an ore of copper, he succeeds in burning it, and 
 is thus enabled to obtain a better axe, with far less labor than had 
 been required for the inferior one he has thus far used. He obtains, 
 also, something like a spade, and can now make holes four inches 
 deep, with less labor than, with his stick, he could make those of two. 
 Penetrating to a lower soil, and being enabled to stir the earth and 
 
98 CHAPTER IV. 1. 
 
 loosen it, the rain is now absorbed where before it had run off from 
 the hard surface, and the new soil thus obtained proves to be far 
 better, and more easily wrought, than that upon which his labor 
 has heretofore been wasted. His seed, better protected, is less 
 liable to be frozen out in winter, or parched in summer, and he 
 now gathers thrice the quantity sown. At the next step, we find 
 him bringing into action another new soil. He has found that 
 which, on burning, yields him tin, and, by combining this with his 
 copper, he has brass, giving him better machinery, and enabling 
 him to proceed more rapidly. While sinking deeper into the land 
 first occupied, he is enabled to clear other lands upon which vege 
 tation grows more luxuriantly, because he can now exterminate 
 the shrubs with some hope of occupying the land before they are 
 replaced with others equally useless for his purposes. His children, 
 too, have grown, and they can weed the ground, \ and otherwise 
 assist him in removing the obstacles by which his progress is im 
 peded. He now profits by association and combination of action, 
 as before he had profited by the pow.er he had obtained over the 
 various natural forces he had reduced into his service. Xext, we 
 find him burning a piece of the iron soil which surrounds him in 
 all directions, and now he obtains a real axe and spade, inferior in 
 quality, but still much superior to those by which his labor has 
 been thus far aided. With the help of his sons, grown to man s 
 estate, he now removes the light pine of the hill-side leaving still 
 untouched, however, the heavy timber of the river bottom. His 
 cultivable ground is increased in extent, while he is enabled, with 
 his spade, to penetrate still deeper than before, thus bringing into 
 action the powers of the soils more distant from the surface. He 
 finds, with great pleasure, that the light sand is underlaid with clay, 
 and that, by combining the two, he obtains a new one far more 
 productive than that he first had used. He remarks, too, that by 
 turning the surface down, the process of decomposition is facilitated, 
 and each addition to his knowledge increases the return to his 
 exertions. With further increase of his family, he has obtained 
 the important advantage of increased combination of action. 
 Things that were needed to be done to render his land more 
 rapidly productive, but which were to himself impracticable, 
 become simple and easy when now attempted by his numerous 
 sons and grandsons, each of whom obtains far more food than he 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 99 
 
 alone could at first command, and in return for far less severe ex 
 ertion. They next extend their operations downwards, towards 
 the low grounds of the stream, girdling the large trees, and burn 
 ing the brush and thus facilitating the passage of air so as to fit 
 the land, by degrees, for occupation. 
 
 With increase of numbers there is now increased power of asso 
 ciation, manifested by increased division of employments, and 
 attended with augmented power to command the service of the 
 great natural agents provided for their use. One portion of the 
 little community now performs all the labors of the field, while 
 another gives itself to the further development of the mineral wealth 
 by which it is everywhere surrounded. They invent a hoe, by means 
 of which the children are enabled to free the ground from weeds, 
 and to tear up some of the roots by which the best lands those last 
 brought into cultivation are yet infested. They have succeeded 
 in taming the ox, but, as yet, have had little occasion for his services. 
 They now invent the plough, and, by means of a piece of twisted hide, 
 are enabled to attach the ox, by whose help they turn up a deeper 
 soil, while extendmg cultivation over more distant land. The commu 
 nity grows, and with it grows the wealth of the individuals of which 
 it is composed, enabling them, from year to year, to obtain better 
 machinery, and to reduce to cultivation more and better lands. . 
 Food and clothing become more abundant, while the air on the 
 lower lands is improved by the clearing of the timber. The dwell 
 ing, too, is better. In the outset, it was a hole in the ground. 
 Subsequently, it was composed of such decayed logs as the un 
 aided efforts of the first settler could succeed in rolling and placing 
 one upon the other. As yet, the chimney was unknown, and he 
 must live in perpetual smoke, if he would not perish of cold, as a 
 window was a luxury then unthought of. If the severity of the 
 weather required him to close his doors, he was not only stifled, 
 but passed his days in darkness. His time, during a large portion 
 of the year, was therefore totally unproductive, while his life was 
 liable to be shortened by disease produced by foul air within, or 
 severe cold without, his miserable hut. With increase of popula 
 tion all have acquired wealth, resulting from the cultivation of new 
 and better soils, and from a growing power to command the ser 
 vices of nature. With this increase of power there has been a 
 further increase in the power of association, with steady tendency 
 
100 CHAPTER IV. 1. 
 
 to the development of individuality, as the modes of employment 
 have become more and more diversified. They now fell the heavy 
 oak and the enormous pine, and are thereby enabled to construct 
 additional dwellings, each in regular succession better than the 
 first. Health improves, and population increases more rapidly. 
 A part of it is now employed in the field, while another prepares 
 the skins, and renders them more fit for clothing and a third set 
 makes axes, spades, hoes, ploughs, and other implements calculated 
 to aid the labors of the field, and in those of construction. The 
 supply of food increases rapidly, and with it the power of accumu 
 lation. In the first years, there was perpetual danger of famine, 
 but now there being a surplus, a part is stored to provide against 
 failure of the crops. 
 
 Cultivation extends itself along the hill-side, where deeper soils, 
 now laid open by the plough, yield larger returns while down the 
 slope of the hill each successive year is marked by the disappear 
 ance of the great trees by which the .richer lands have heretofore 
 been occupied the intermediate spaces becoming meanwhile en 
 riched by the decomposition of the enormous *roots, and more 
 readily ploughed because of the gradual decay of the stumps. A 
 single ox to the plough can now turn up a greater space than in 
 the outset could be done by two. A single ploughman can now 
 do more than on the ground first cultivated could have been done 
 by hundreds of men armed with pointed sticks. The community 
 being next enabled to drain some of the lower lands, copious har 
 vests of grain are obtained frqm the better soil now first cultivated. 
 Thus far the oxen have roamed the woods, gathering what they 
 could, but the meadow is now granted to their use, the axe and 
 the saw enabling the family to enclose them, and thus to lessen 
 the labor attendant upon obtaining supplies of meat, milk, butter, 
 and hides. Heretofore their chief domestic animal has been the 
 hog, which could live on mast, but now they add beef, and perhaps 
 mutton, the lands first cultivated being abandoned to the sheep. 
 They obtain far more meat and grain, and with less labor than at 
 any former period ; a consequence of their increase in numbers and 
 in the power of association. Numerous generations having already 
 passed away, the younger ones now profit by the wealth they 
 had accumulated, and are thus enabled to apply their own labor 
 with daily increasing advantage obtaining a constantly increas- 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OP THE EARTH. 101 
 
 ing return, with increasing power of accumulation, and decreasing 
 severity of exertion. They now bring new powers to their aid, 
 and the water no longer is allowed to run to waste. Even the 
 air itself is made to work, windmills grinding the grain, and saw 
 mills cutting the timber, which disappears more rapidly ; while the 
 work of drainage is in course of being improved by help of more 
 efficient spades and ploughs. The little furnace makes its appear 
 ance, and charcoal being now applied to the reduction of the 
 iron yielding soil, it is found that the labor of a single day 
 becomes more productive than before had been that of many weeks. 
 Population spreads itself along the faces of the hills and down into 
 the lower lands, becoming more and more dense at the seat of the 
 original settlement ; and with every step we find increasing tendency 
 to combination of action for the production of food, the manufac 
 ture of clothing and of household utensils, the construction of 
 houses, and the preparation of machinery for aiding in all these 
 operations. The heaviest timber that growing on the most fer 
 tile land now disappears, and deep marshes are now drained. 
 Roads are next made to facilitate the intercourse between the old 
 settlement and the newer ones that have been formed around it, and 
 to enable the grower of corn to exchange for wool, or perhaps for 
 improved spades or ploughs, for clothing or for furniture. 
 
 Population again increases, with still further development of 
 wealth and power, and therewith is acquired leisure for reflection 
 on the results furnished by the experience of themselves and their 
 predecessors. From day to day, mind becomes more stimulated 
 into action. The sand in the neighborhood being found to be 
 underlaid with marl, the two are, by aid of the improved ma 
 chinery now in use, brought into combination ; thereby produc 
 ing a soil of power far exceeding that of those heretofore in culti 
 vation. With increased returns to labor all are better fed, clothed, 
 and housed, and all are incited to new exertions, while with im 
 proved health and with the power of working in-doors and out-of- 
 doors, according to the season, they are enabled to apply their 
 labor with greater steadiness and regularity. Thus far, however, 
 they have found it difficult to gather their crops in season. The 
 harvest time being short, the whole strength of the community has 
 been found insufficient to prevent much of the grain remaining on 
 the ground until, over ripe, it was shaken out by the wind, or in 
 
102 CHAPTER IV. 1 
 
 the attempt to gather it. Not unfrequently, indeed, it has been 
 totally ruined by changes of weather after it had been fit for har 
 vesting. Labor has been superabundant during the year, while 
 harvest produced a demand for it that could not be supplied. The 
 reaping-hook, however, now takes the place of the hand, while the 
 scythe enables the farmer to cut his hay. The cradle and the 
 horse-rake follow, all tending to increase the facility of accumula 
 tion, and thus to increase the power of applying labor to new soils, 
 deeper or more distant, more heavily burdened with timber, or 
 more liable to be flooded and thus requiring embankment as well 
 as drainage. New combinations, too, are formed. The clay is 
 found to be underlaid with the soil called lime, which latter, like 
 the iron yielding soil, requires decomposition to fit it for the task 
 of combination. The road, the wagon, and the horse facilitate 
 the work by enabling the farmer readily to obtain supplies of the 
 carbon-yielding soil, called coal, and he now obtains, by burning 
 the lime and combining it with the clay, a better soil than at any 
 former period one yielding more corn, and requiring less severe 
 labor from himself. Population and wealth again increase, and 
 the steam-engine assists the work of drainage, while the railroad 
 and the engine facilitate the transportation to market of his pro 
 ducts. His cattle being now fattened at home, a large portion 
 of the produce of his rich meadow-land is converted into manure, 
 to be applied to the poorer soils that had at first been cultivated. 
 Instead of sending food to fatten them at market, he now obtains 
 from market their refuse in the form of bones, by help of which to 
 maintain the powers of his land. Passing thus, at every step, 
 from the poor to the better soils, there is obtained a constantly 
 increasing supply of food, and other necessaries of life, with 
 corresponding increase in the power of consumption and accumu 
 lation. The danger of famine and disease now passes away. 
 Increased returns to labor and daily improving condition render 
 ing labor pleasant, he is seen everywhere applying himself more 
 steadily as his work becomes less severe. Population further 
 increases, and the rapidity of its increase is seen to be greater 
 with each successive generation while with each is seen an in 
 crease of the power of living in connection with each other, by 
 reason of the power of obtaining constantly increasing supplies 
 from the same surface. With every step in this direction the 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 103 
 
 desire for association and for combination of action is seen to 
 grow with the growth of the power to satisfy it, and thus are their 
 labors rendered more productive and the facilities of commerce 
 augmented with constant tendency to the production of har 
 mony, peace, and security of person and property, among them 
 selves, and with the world accompanied by constant increase of 
 numbers, wealth, prosperity, and happiness. 
 
 Such has been everywhere, where population and wealth have 
 been permitted to increase, the history of man. With growth of 
 numbers there has been increased power of combination among 
 men for obtaining control over the great forces existing in nature 
 setting them free and then compelling them to aid him in the work 
 of producing the food, the clothing, and the shelter required for 
 his purposes, and to facilitate him in obtaining power to extend 
 the sphere of his associations. Everywhere he is seen to have 
 commenced poor and helpless in himself, and unable to combine 
 his efforts with those of his fellow-men and everywhere, conse 
 quently, the slave of nature. Everywhere, as numbers have in 
 creased, he is seen to have become, from year to year, and from 
 century to century, more and more her master and every step in 
 that direction has been marked by rapid development of individu 
 ality, attended by increased power of association, increased sense 
 of responsibility, and increased power of progress. 
 
 That such has been the case with all nations and in all parts of 
 the earth, is so obvious that it would seem almost unnecessary to 
 offer any proof of the fact, nor could it be so but that it has been 
 asserted that the course of things has been directly the reverse 
 that man has always commenced the work of cultivation on the 
 rich soils of the earth, and that then food has been abundant but 
 that, as population has increased, his successors have found them 
 selves forced to resort to inferior ones, yielding steadily less and 
 less in return to labor ; with constant tendency to over-population, 
 poverty, wretchedness, and death. Were this so, there could be 
 no such thing as universality in the natural laws to which man is 
 subjected, for in regard to all other descriptions of matter, we see 
 him uniformly commencing with the inferior, and passing, as wealth 
 and population grow, to the superior with constantly increasing 
 return to labor. He is seen to have commenced with the axe of 
 stone, and to have passed through those of copper, bronze, and 
 
104 CHAPTER IV. 2. 
 
 iron, until he has finally arrived at those of steel to have passed 
 from the spindle and distaff to the spinning-jenny and the power- 
 loom from the canoe to the ship from transportation on the 
 backs of men to that in railroad cars from rude hieroglyphics 
 painted on skins to the printed book and from the wild society 
 of the savage tribe, where might makes right, to the organized 
 community in which the rights of those who are weak in numbers, 
 or in muscular power, are respected. Having studied these facts, 
 and having satisfied ourselves that such has been his course in re 
 ference to all things other than the land required for cultivation, 
 we should be disposed to believe that it must there also prove to 
 have been the case, and that the theory referred to by virtue of 
 which man is rendered more and more the slave of nature as wealth 
 and population grow must be untrue. 
 
 2. Forty years have now elapsed since Mr. Ricardo communi 
 cated to the world his discovery of the nature and causes of rent, 
 and of the laws of its progress,* and during nearly all that time it 
 
 * The theory is thus stated by its author : 
 
 " On the first settling of a country in which there is an abundance of 
 rich and fertile land, a very small portion of which is required to be culti 
 vated for the support of the actual population, or, indeed, can be cultivated 
 with the capital which the population can command, there will be no rent; 
 for 110 one would pay for the use of land when there was an abundant 
 quantity not yet appropriated, and, therefore, at the disposal of whom 
 soever might choose to cultivate it. * * * * * If all land had the 
 same properties, if it were boundless in quantity and uniform in quality, 
 no charge could be made for its use, unless where it possessed peculiar ad 
 vantages of situation. It is only, then, because land is not unlimited in 
 quantity and uniform in quality, and because, in the progress of popula 
 tion land of an inferior quality, or less advantageously situated, is called 
 into cultivation, that rent is ever paid for the use of it. When, in the 
 progress of society, land of the second degree of fertility is taken into 
 cultivation, rent immediately commences on that of the first quality; and 
 the amount of that rent will depend on the difference in the quality of 
 these two portions of land. * * * When land of the third quality is 
 taken into cultivation, rent immediately commences on the second ; and it 
 is regulated as before by the difference in their productive powers. At the 
 same time the rent of the first quality will rise, for that must always be 
 above the rent of the second, by the difference between the produce which 
 they yield with a given quantity of capital and labor. 
 
 " The most fertile and most favorably situated land will be first culti 
 vated, and the exchangeable value of its produce will be adjusted in the 
 same manner as the exchangeable value of all other commodities, by the 
 total quantity of labor necessary in various forms, from first to last, to pro 
 duce it and bring it to market. When land of inferior quality is taken 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OP THE EARTH. 105 
 
 has been received by a large portion of the economists of Europe 
 and America, as being so unquestionably true, that doubt of its 
 truth could be regarded only as evidence of incapacity to com 
 prehend it. Furnishing, as it did, a simple and easy explanation 
 of the poverty existing in the world and by help of a law ema 
 nating from an all-wise, all-powerful, and all-beneficent Creator 
 it relieved the governing classes from all responsibility for the 
 wretchedness with which they were surrounded, and was therefore 
 at once adopted. From that time to the present it has been the 
 established doctrine of a considerable portion of the schools of 
 this country and of Europe ; and yet no two of its teachers have 
 ever quite agreed as to what it was that their master had 
 really meant to teach. Having studied the works of the most 
 eminent among them, and having found an almost universal dis 
 agreement, the student turns, in despair, to Mr. Ricardo himself, 
 and there he finds in his celebrated chapter oji rent, contradictions 
 that cannot be reconciled, and a series of complications such as 
 scarcely ever before was found in the same number of lines. The 
 more he studies the greater is his difficulty, and the more readily 
 does he account for the variety of doctrines taught by men who 
 profess to belong to the same school ; and who all agree, if in little 
 else, in regarding the new theory of rent as the great discovery of 
 the age. 
 
 Looking around, he sees that all the recognized laws of nature 
 are characterized by the most perfect simplicity, and the greatest 
 breadth that they are of universal application and that those by 
 whom they are taught are freed from any necessity for resorting to 
 narrow exceptions to account for particular facts. The simplicity 
 of Kepler s law of " equal areas in equal times" is perfect. Its 
 truth is, consequently, universal, and all to whom it is explained 
 feel assured not only that it is true, but that it must continue to 
 be so in relation to all the planets that may be discovered, numerous 
 though they may be, and however distant from the sun and from 
 us. A child may comprehend it, and the merest novice may so 
 fully master it as to fit himself for teaching it to others. It needs 
 
 into cultivation, the exchangeable value of raw produce will rise, because 
 more labor is required to produce it." Ricardo s Political Economy, 
 chap. ii. 
 
 8 
 
106 CHAPTER IV. 2. 
 
 no commentary, no modification, and therein it differs greatly from 
 that to which the reader s attention now is called. Whatever else 
 may be the merits of the latter, it cannot be charged with either 
 simplicity or universality. 
 
 At first sight it looks, however, to be exceedingly simple. Rent 
 is said to be paid for land of the first quality, yielding a hundred 
 quarters in return to a given quantity of labor, when it becomes 
 necessary, with the increase of population, to cultivate land of the 
 second quality, capable of yielding but ninety quarters in return to 
 the same quantity of labor ; and the amount of rent then paid for 
 No. 1 is equal to the difference between their respective products. 
 No proposition could be calculated to command more universal 
 assent. Every man who hears it sees around him land that pays rent, 
 and sees, too, that that which yields forty bushels to the acre pays 
 more rent than that which yields but thirty ; and that the difference 
 is nearly equal to the difference of product. He becomes at once 
 a disciple of Mr. Ricardo, admitting that the reason why prices are 
 paid for the use of land is that soils are different in their qualities; 
 when he would certainly regard it as in the highest degree absurd 
 if any one were to undertake to prove that prices are paid for oxen 
 because one ox is heavier than another that rents are paid for 
 houses because some will accommodate twenty persons and others 
 only ten or that all ships command freights because some ships 
 differ from others in their capacity. 
 
 The whole system is based, as the reader will perceive, upon the 
 assertion of the existence of the fact, that, in the commencement 
 of cultivation, when population is small and land consequently 
 abundant, the richest soils those whose qualities fit them for 
 yielding the largest return to any given quantity of labor alone 
 are cultivated. This fact exists or it does not. If it has no exist 
 ence, the system falls to the ground. That it has none, and that 
 it is contrary to the nature of things that it should have had, or 
 can ever have it, it is proposed now to show. 
 
 The picture presented by Mr. Ricardo differs totally from that 
 which has above been presented for the consideration of the reader. 
 The former, placing the settler on the lands of highest fertility, 
 requires that his children and his children s children should, each 
 in regular succession to the others, find themselves driven, by sad 
 necessity, to the occupation of those capable of yielding smaller 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 101 
 
 returns to labor and that they should thus become, from genera 
 tion to generation, more and more the slaves of nature. The latter, 
 placing the early settler on the poorer soils, exhibits his successors 
 exercising constantly increasing power to pass to the cultivation of 
 the richer soils and becoming, from generation to generation, more 
 and more the masters of nature, compelling her to do their work, 
 and pressing steadily onward from triumph to triumph, with con 
 stant increase in the power of association, in the development of 
 individuality, in the feeling of responsibility, and in the power of 
 further progress. Which of these pictures is the true one, is toT\ 
 be settled by the determination of the fact, what it is that men in 
 times past have done, and what it is they are now doing, in regard 
 to the occupation of the earth. If it can be shown that, in every 
 country and at every age, the order of events has been in direct 
 opposition to that it is supposed by Mr. Ricardo to have been, then 
 must his theory be abandoned as wholly destitute of foundation. 
 That it has been so, and that everywhere, in both ancient and 
 modern times, cultivation has commenced on the poorer soils and 
 that it has been with the growth of population and wealth alone 
 that man has been enabled to subdue to cultivation the richer 
 ones, will now be shown by a brief examination of the facts as pre 
 sented in the history of the world. 
 
 That examination will be commenced with the United States; 
 and for the" reason that, their settlement having been recent, and 
 being, indeed, still in progress, the course to which the settler has 
 been and is prompted, can readily be traced. If we find him in 
 variably commencing on the high and thin lands, requiring little 
 clearing and no drainage those capable of yielding but small 
 return to labor and as invariably passing from the higher to the 
 lower ones, requiring both clearing and drainage, then will the view 
 presented to the reader as the true one be confirmed by practice 
 
 at least by the practice of America. If, however, we can then fol- 
 
 low the settler into Mexico, and through Brazil, Peru, and Chili 
 into Britain, and through France, Germany, Italy, Greece, and 
 Egypt, into Asia and Australia and show that such has been his 
 invariable course of action, then may it be believed that when 
 population is small, and land consequently abundant, the work of 
 cultivation is, and always must be, commenced upon the poorer, 
 soils that with the growth of population and wealth, the richer 
 
108 CHAPTER IV. 3. 
 
 ones are always brought into activity, with constantly increasing 
 return to the efforts of the laborer and that, with the progress of 
 population and wealth, there is a steady diminution in the propor 
 tion of those efforts required for obtaining the necessaries of life, 
 with constant increase in the proportion that may be applied to 
 adding to its comforts, conveniences, luxuries, and enjoyments. 
 
 3. The first settlers of the English race are seen to have esta 
 blished themselves on the barren soil of Massachusetts found 
 ing the colony of Plymouth. The whole continent was before 
 them, but, like all other colonists, they had to take what, with 
 their means, they could obtain. Other settlements were formed at 
 Newport and New Haven, and thence they may be traced, follow 
 ing the courses of the rivers, but occupying in all cases the higher 
 lands, leaving the clearing of timber and the draining of swamps 
 to their more wealthy successors. Were the reader desired to 
 designate the soils of the Union least calculated for the production 
 of food, his choice would fall upon the rocky lands first occupied 
 by the hardy Puritans ; and were he now to place himself on Dor 
 chester heights, near Boston, and look around him, he would find 
 himself surrounded everywhere by evidences that poor as was in 
 general the soil of Massachusetts, the richest portions of it remain 
 even yet uncultivated; while of those in cultivation the most pro 
 ductive are those that have been subdued to the uses of man in the 
 last half century. 
 
 Looking now to New York we see that the process has been 
 the same. The unproductive soil of Manhattan island and the 
 higher lands of the opposite shores, claimed early attention, while 
 the lower and richer ones close at hand remain, even to the present 
 moment undrained and uncultivated. Following the population, 
 we find them passing along the course of the Hudson to the Yalley 
 of the Mohawk, and there establishing themselves near the head of 
 the stream on lands requiring but little of either clearing or drain 
 age. Passing further west, we see the early railroad following the 
 course of the higher lands upon which are found the villages and 
 towns of the earlier settlers ; but if we follow the new and straight 
 road we find it passing through the richest lands of the State, as 
 jet undrained and uncultivated. 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 109 
 
 Looking next into the history of even those towns and villages 
 we find that they themselves came late in the order of settlement. 
 Sixty years since Geneva had scarcely an existence, and the road 
 thence to Canandaigua was but an Indian path, upon which but two 
 families as yet had settled but looking thence south, towards the 
 high lands bordering on Pennsylvania, we meet everywhere with 
 evidence of occupation. The great purchase of Mr. Pulteney was 
 there made, and a settlement was formed on the Coshocton creek, the 
 lands around being described as very valuable because of their " total 
 exemption from all periodical disorders, particularly the fever and 
 ague" from which, as is so well known, the later settlers on the 
 rich lands of the lower Genesee country so severely suffered.* 
 
 In New Jersey, we find them occupying the higher lands towards 
 the heads of the rivers, while neglecting the lower grounds that 
 cannot drain themselves, f That^State still abounds in fine timber, 
 covering rich lands requiring only to be cleared to yield larger 
 returns to labor than any of those cultivated a century since, when 
 land was more abundant, and population small. On the banks of 
 the Delaware, we find the Quakers selecting the lighter soils which 
 produce the pine, while avoiding the richer and heavier ones of the 
 opposite shore of Pennsylvania. Every settler selects, too, the 
 higher and drier parts of his farm, leaving the meadows, many of 
 which remain even now in a state of nature, while others have been 
 drained within the last few years. The best portions of every farm 
 are, invariably, those which have been most recently brought into 
 cultivation, while the poorest lands of the various neighborhoods 
 are those on which are seen the oldest farm-houses. Passing 
 further through the sandy lands of the State, we find hundreds 
 of little clearings, long since abandoned by their owners, attest 
 ing the character of the soil that men cultivate when population 
 is small, and fertile land most abundant. Having cleared the lands 
 that produce the oak, or drained those which yield the white cedar, 
 
 * On the map of the Genesee tract published in 1790, the settled town 
 ships are marked, and they are found at and near the junction of the 
 Canisteo, Cahoctin, and Tioga rivers, where Corning is now situated 
 around Hornellsville and on the head waters of the Canisteo &c., &c. 
 See Documentary History of New York, vol. ii. (octavo edition), p. 1111, 
 &c. 
 
 f The reader may see this by reference to the map of East Jersey in 1682, 
 recently republished. 
 
110 CHAPTER IV. 3. 
 
 they abandon those which produce the pine of that State, the 
 poorest of all the pines. 
 
 The Swedes settled Lewistown and Christiana, on the sandy soil 
 of Delaware. Crossing the State towards the head of Chesapeake 
 Bay, we find, in the little and decaying towns of Elkton and Charles- 
 town, once the centres of a somewhat active population, further 
 evidence of the poverty of the soils first occupied, when fine meadow- 
 land, on which are now the richest farms in that State, was abundant, 
 but held as worthless. Penn follows the Swedes, and, profiting by 
 their expenditure and experience, selects the high lands on the 
 Delaware, about twelve miles north of the site which he afterwards 
 chooses for his city, near the confluence of that river and the 
 Schuylkill. Starting from this latter point, and tracing the course 
 of settlement, we find it not at first extending downwards towards 
 the rich meadow-lands, but upwards along the ridge between the 
 two rivers, where many miles of early settlements remain to 
 mark the tendencies of early colonists. Passing, right or left, to 
 the river banks, we see, in the character of the buildings, evi 
 dences of later occupation and cultivation. On the maps of that 
 early day, the fertile lands in the vicinity of the Delaware, from 
 New Castle almost to the head of tide-water, a distance of more 
 than sixty miles, are marked as held in large tracts, and dotted 
 over with trees, to show that they are still uncleared while all the 
 upper lands are divided into little farms.* Passing northward 
 and westward, we see the oldest habitations always most distant 
 from the river ; but later times, and increase of population and 
 wealth, have carried cultivation to the water s edge. With every 
 additional mile, we find increasing evidence of the recent cultiva 
 tion of the best soils. Everywhere we now meet farms on the 
 hill-sides, while the lower lands become more wild and rough. 
 Further on, cultivation almost leaves the river bank, and if we 
 would seek it we must pass outward, where, at a distance, we may 
 find farms that have been cultivated for half a century or more. If 
 now, following the old road, winding about, and seeking, appa 
 rently, hills to cross, we inquire the cause of thus lengthening the 
 distance, we learn that it was made to suit the early settlers ; but, 
 if we follow the new roads, they are found keeping near the stream, 
 
 * See Holmes s Map, published in 1681, and recently republished. 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. Ill 
 
 on the low and rich lands last brought into cultivation.* Return 
 ing to the river, and passing on our course, the trees become more 
 and more numerous, and the meadow-land less and less drained or 
 occupied ; until, at length, as we pass up the little branches of the 
 river, cultivation disappears, and the original woods remain un 
 touched, except so far as the wants of the recently established coal 
 trade have tended to their extermination. If we desire to see the 
 land chosen by the early settlers, we have but to ascend the hill 
 side, and on the flat above will be found houses and farms, some of 
 them half a century old, many of which are now abandoned. 
 Crossing the mountains, we see, near their tops, the habitations of 
 early settlers, who selected the land of the pine, easily cleared ; 
 and whose pine-knots afforded at one time tar, and, at another, 
 substitutes for candles that they were too poor to buy. Imme 
 diately afterwards, we find ourselves in the valley of the Susque- 
 hanna, on meadow-lands whose character is proved by the great 
 size of the timber by which they are covered ; but upon which 
 neither the spade nor the plough has yet made its mark. Rich 
 lands thus abound, but the settler prefers the poorer ones, as the 
 
 * " In the regions sufficiently advanced to admit the construction of 
 canals and railroads, every one has it in his power to verify the fact, by 
 observing the contrast in the aspect of the lands bordering their course, 
 and those which line the old highways. The latter will generally be found 
 ascending every hill-top which lies in the neighborhood of their general 
 direction, even when nothing is saved, in point of distance, by going over 
 the hill instead of going round it. It is usually found, indeed, that the 
 length of a railroad connecting two towns at any considerable distance from 
 each other, is less than that of the old roads which formed the route of travel 
 before it was built ; although the former is necessarily under restrictions 
 which prevent attempts to save distance at the expense of elevations in 
 the grade, much more than the ordinary carriage-road. But the highway 
 is lined with cultivated fields, and with houses. It was made to facilitate 
 communication between them, its track worn by the footsteps of men before 
 it was run out by the surveyor, and its purposes compelled it to go where 
 population went, with small regard to the labor which its steep grades would 
 impose upon the beasts of draught that were to toil over it. The railroad, 
 on the contrary, is constructed by engineers, whose problem it is to reduce 
 the power to be expended in drawing heavy loads to a minimum, regard 
 being had both to distance and to elevation. It plunges through swamps 
 and forests, as if to hide itself from the habitations of men. They will 
 grow up upon its edge in due season, for the road has drained the swamps, 
 and let in the siinlight to the gloomy depths of the woods ; but, upon the 
 first opening of a railroad, we ordinarily are struck with the juxtaposition 
 of this work of highest art with those of rudest nature. (Smith, Manual 
 of Political Economy, p. 52.) 
 
112 CHAPTER IV. 3, 
 
 cost of clearing the former would be more than they were worth 
 when cleared.) Descending the little stream, we reach the Susque- 
 hanna; and, with every step of our progress, cultivation is seen 
 descending the hills, the valleys becoming more cleared of timber, 
 and meadows and cattle appearing the most certain signs of 
 increasing wealth and population. 
 
 Passing west up the Susquehanna, the order is again inverted. 
 Population diminishes, and cultivation tends to leave the river bot 
 tom, and to ascend the hill-sides. If, leaving the river and ascend 
 ing the bank, we pass to the foot of the Muncy hills, our road will 
 cross fine limestone land whose food-producing qualities being less 
 obvious to the early settlers, whole tracts of it, containing hun 
 dreds of acres, passed from hand to hand in exchange for a dollar, 
 or even for a jug of whiskey. They preferred the oak-producing 
 soils, whose trees they could girdle, and afterwards destroy by fire. 
 With increasing population and wealth, they are seen returning to 
 the lands at first despised, combining the inferior and superior 
 soils, and obtaining greatly increased returns to labor. Could we 
 now take a bird s-eye view of the country, we might trace with 
 perfect accuracy the course of every little stream, by the timber 
 still standing on its banks, conspicuous among the higher and 
 cleared lands of the neighborhood. Attaining the head of the 
 stream, we are again in the midst of cultivation, and see that, 
 here, as everywhere else, the settlers have selected the high and 
 dry lands upon which they might commence with the plough, in 
 preference to the more fertile soils that required the axe. If, 
 instead of turning southward towards the older counties, we look 
 northward to the newly settled ones, we shall find the centre of 
 population always occupying the highest lands, near the head of 
 the several little streams which there originate. Passing west 
 ward, and crossing the ridge of the Alleghany to the head-waters 
 of the Ohio, the order of things is again inverted. Population at 
 first being scattered, occupies the higher lands, but as we descend 
 the river, the lower ones become more and more cleared ; until at 
 length we find ourselves at Pittsburg, in the midst of a dense 
 population, actively employed in bringing into connection the coal, 
 the limestone, and the iron ore with a view to the preparation of 
 machinery for enabling the farmer of the west to sink deeply into 
 the land of which heretofore he has but scratched the superficial 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 113 
 
 soil ; and to clear and drain the fertile lands of the river bottoms, 
 instead of the higher and drier ones from which he has heretofore 
 derived his supplies of food. 
 
 l^The early settlers of the West uniformly selected the higher 
 lands, leaving the lower and richer ones for their successors. The 
 immediate valleys of streams, fertile as were the soils, were and 
 still are avoided on account of danger to be apprehended from the 
 fevers which even now sweep off so many of the emigrants to the 
 newer States. The facility of getting some small crop, always 
 prompted to the selection of the land most readily brought under 
 cultivation, and none so well answered the purpose as that which 
 was slightly clothed with timber, and clear of undergrowth. The 
 constant fall of leaves had by their decay kept the ground covered 
 with a light mould, and prevented the growth of grass ; and by 
 deadening the trees to let in the sun, they could obtain a small 
 return to labor. The first great object was to have a dry place 
 for the dwelling, and therefore the settler was always found select 
 ing the ridges the same reason which prevented him from com 
 mencing the work of artificial drainage to secure a place for his 
 dwelling, operating with equal force in regard to laud required for 
 cultivation.* ) 
 
 * The following extract from an article in the Merchant s Magazine fur 
 nishes so many facts illustrative of the course of operation throughout this 
 country that it can scarcely fail to be read with interest : 
 
 " The proposition proclaimed by Carey in opposition to the long received 
 theories of Ricardo and Malthus, and recently sustained by Mr. Smith in 
 his Manual of Political Economy, that the inferior lands are first occupied 
 by 1 ic pioneers, is a fact that strikes one, throughout the whole West at 
 the South and The North. The oldest settlements are always found upon 
 the thinly- wooded and comparatively barren hill lands, upon the dry and 
 upland prairies. The sandy plains and pine barrens of Georgia, Alabama, 
 Florida, and Mississippi, received the first emigrants. The first homes of 
 Texas were built on the upland prairies studded with their islands of 
 timber, that gave illimitable ranges to stock, and sustained here and there 
 small patches of corn. The smoke from the first log cabins on the Missis 
 sippi River ascended from the high clay and rocky bluffs on its shores, 
 around which are now the poorest soils. In Arkansas and Missouri the 
 first settlers are found among the pine lands and hills, still in the hunter 
 state, their civilization and their lands but a little more, if any, advanced 
 or improved than they were the day they became squatters thereon. On 
 the Ohio, the truth of the position is more apparent. The original pioneers 
 selected Wheeling, Marietta, Limestone, North Bend, and Vevay, as the 
 first town sites, in the poorest agricultural regions on the river ; and the 
 first population along the whole river spread itself over the hills, and 
 cleared their first fields and patches on the oak knobs and thin soil of the 
 
114 CHAPTER IV. 3. 
 
 Passing into Wisconsin, the traveller finds the first white settler 
 of the State placed on its highest land, known by the title of "The 
 Big Mound" and he follows the early roads along the ridges 
 upon which are found the little towns and villages created by the 
 men who have had there to commence the work of cultivation. 
 Occasionally he crosses a "wet prairie," in which may be found 
 the richest land of the State, and " the terror of the early emi 
 grant."* 
 
 uplands, where twenty acres are not worth one acre of the rich bottoms 
 which the first settlers rejected at a price a little more than the surveyor s 
 fees for locating. And now along the whole extent of the Lower Ohio, the 
 deserted and falling log cabin of the first settler is found by the side of 
 some gushing spring among the hills his little patch grown up to briers 
 and bushes, and surrounded by a forest as desolate and silent as when it 
 was first disturbed with the stroke of the woodman s axe. Or, if it be 
 still inhabited, it is encompassed by a sickly patch of corn, the soil of 
 which is too poor to tempt the speculators to enter it over the squatter s 
 head, which is still covered with a coon-skin cap, and his feet with moc- 
 casons. 
 
 " This country has on its rugged hill-sides hundreds of these crumbling 
 and deserted memorials of the early pioneers. George Ewing, brother of 
 the Hon. Thos. Ewing, of Ohio, was among the first settlers in this region, 
 and located himself on a tract of land when he had the selection of all 
 the richest bottom lands in the country which, at this day, is worth but 
 little more than he paid the government for it, forty years ago ; and the 
 field where he buried the father and mother of one of the most eminent 
 men of his country, is fast returning to its wilderness state. And yet 
 George Ewing was a man of intelligence, and of sound judgment and sa 
 gacity, and though less cultivated, was in native powers not inferior to his 
 brother. He with his father cut the first wagon path into Wheeling, and 
 was among the first white men that crossed the Ohio. He lived first near the 
 rich valley of the Muskingum, then in sight of the teeming lands of the 
 Scioto, and removed successively through the richest regions of Ohio, Ken 
 tucky, and Indiana, always in advance of the tide of emigration, having 
 the first choice of all the lands on the river, and yet, at his death, there 
 was not an acre of any of the lands he had possessed worth double the 
 price he had paid the government for it. These are remarkable facts in 
 the history of the first settlers, and difficult to be accounted for except on 
 the grounds assigned by Carey and Smith." 
 
 * " Many small tracts, known as wet prairie fifteen years ago, and re 
 jected by the first settlers, have become dry by being annually resown, and 
 fed down by domestic animals, without any other than its natural drain 
 age, and exposure to the sun and air, by the destruction of the impervious 
 screen of tall slough grass. 
 
 " The dry prairies are generally very similar in appearance, so far as 
 surface is concerned. Small portions of level prairie are found every 
 where, but to constitute dry prairie it must be rolling. Between the 
 waves on this great ocean of God s own beautiful sod are the sloughs, the 
 terror of the early emigrant, and the most valued possession of his successor, as 
 often affording water, and always an unfailing and most luxuriant natural 
 meadow. These sloughs are the drains of the dry prairie. They are in 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 115 
 
 Descending the Ohio, and arriving at the confluence of that 
 river and the Mississippi, we lose sight of all signs of population, 
 except that of the poor wood-cutter, who risks his health while 
 engaged in providing wood for the numerous steamboats. Here, 
 for hundreds of miles, we pass through the most fertile land, 
 covered with timber of gigantic size ; but, with all its powers of 
 production, it is valueless for all purposes of cultivation. Un em 
 banked, it is liable to overflow from the river, and its neighborhood 
 is destructive of life and health ; and millions of acres possessed of 
 qualities fitting them to yield the largest return to labor, remain 
 uncleared and undrained, while the higher and poorer lands are 
 under cultivation.* 
 
 Descending further, we meet population and wealth in the act 
 of ascending the Mississippi, from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 general nearly parallel, and oftenest at about a right angle with the course 
 of the rivers ; they are from 140 to 160 rods asunder, and sometimes of 
 many miles in length. The soil of the dry prairie is from 12 to 18 inches 
 deep in this region ; the wet prairie in general much deeper : and the 
 alluvion (of the river bottoms), as in all countries, of irregular and often 
 astonishing depth." Proceedings of Pomological Convention, Syracuse, 
 1849. 
 
 * " The Lower Mississippi is bordered upon each side by a broad belt of 
 low land, known as "the Swamp." At Memphis, in the southwestern 
 corner of Tennessee, the bluff touches the eastern side of the river, and 
 then, bearing away to the eastward, approaches the river no more until it 
 reaches a point near Natchez. 
 
 " While the hill country has become cleared and settled with that rapidity 
 which characterizes the advance of the Western States, " the Swamp," 
 notwithstanding its boundless fertility, has remained almost a wilderness. 
 The enterprising planter, who, leaving the worn-out lands of Virginia or 
 the Carolinas, seeks a location where the soil may repay more liberally the 
 labors of the husbandman, shrinks from exposing his slaves to the deadly 
 miasma of its stagnant lagoons, and to the toil of clearing its tangled and 
 wiry brakes. In some places, indeed, wealthy farmers who have boldly 
 and patiently met these dangers and obstacles, have succeeded in opening 
 magnificent farms on which a bale to the acre is but an ordinary crop. 
 Unfortunately, however, a rise of water occasionally overflows the whole 
 farm, covering the fields with driftwood, sweeping away stock, and leaving 
 the work of years a ruin. But the swamp has other denizens, who, fortu 
 nately for themselves, are in more independent circumstances, since they 
 owe nothing to fortune, and cannot, therefore, be expected to pay her any 
 thing. These are the wood-cutters, the lumbermen, the trappers, bee and 
 bear hunters, and fishermen, who have made their cabins by the side of 
 some lake or bayou, and who, secure of a subsistence while the dug-out 
 will float, and their hands can wield axe and rifle, pay a very literal 
 obedience to the injunction of scripture, and "take no thought for the 
 morrow." Correspondence of New York Tribune. 
 
. 
 
 116 CHAPTER IV. 3. 
 
 Embankments, or levies, keep out the river, and the finest planta 
 tions are seen on land, corresponding, in every respect, with the 
 wild and uncultivated region left behind. If, now, the traveller 
 desires to seek the habitations of the early settlers, he must leave 
 the river bank and ascend the hills; (and, with every step, he will 
 find new proof that cultivation invariably commences on the poorer 
 soils^ Interrogating the pioneer settlers why they waste their labor 
 on tne poor soil of the hill-tops, while fertile soils abound, their 
 answer is invariably found to be, that the one they can cultivate as 
 it stands, while the other they cannot. The pine of the hills is 
 small, and easily cleared, and it affords him fuel, while its knots 
 furnish artificial light. To attempt to clear the land that bears the 
 heavy timber would ruin him. If, instead of descending the Mis 
 sissippi, we ascend the Missouri, the Kentucky, the Tennessee, or 
 the Red River, we find, invariably, that the more dense the popu 
 lation, and the greater the mass of wealth, the more are the good 
 soils cultivated that as population diminishes with our approach 
 to their head-waters and land becomes more abundant, cultivation 
 recedes from the river banks, the timber and the undrained meadow- 
 lands increase in quantity and that the scattered inhabitants 
 obtain from the superficial soils a diminishing return to their labor, 
 accompanied with diminished power to command the necessaries, 
 conveniences, and comforts of life. Crossing the Mississippi into 
 Texas, we find the town of Austin, the centre of the first American 
 settlement, placed high up on the Colorado, while millions of acres 
 of the finest timber and meadow-lands in the world, totally unoccu 
 pied, were passed over, as incapable of paying the cost of simple 
 appropriation. Looking to the Spanish colony of Bexar, we find 
 further illustration of the same universal fact, the whole tendency 
 of colonization being towards the head-waters of the streams. 
 
 Turning towards the Southern Atlantic States, we meet everywhere 
 evidence of the same great fact. The richest lands of North Caro 
 lina, to the extent of many millions of acres, remain, to this time, 
 uncleared and undrained while men are everywhere wasting their 
 labor on poor ones yielding three, four, or five bushels to the acre. 
 South Carolina has millions of acres of the finest meadow and other 
 lands, capable of yielding immense returns to labor, and waiting 
 only the growth of wealth and population and so is it in Georgia, 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. lit 
 
 Florida, and Alabama. So entirely valueless are the richest lands 
 of the West, South, and Southwest, that Congress has recently 
 granted them, to the extent of nearly forty millions of acres, to the 
 States in which they lie, and the latter have accepted them. 
 
 The facts are everywhere the same, and, were it possible to find 
 an apparent exception, it would but prove the rule. For the same 
 reason that the settler builds himself a log-house, to provide shelter 
 while waiting until he can have one of stone, he begins cultivation 
 where he can use his plough, and thus avoid the starvation that 
 would result from endeavoring to do so where he cannot; and where 
 fevers, followed by death, would be the inevitable result of the at 
 tempt. In every case on record, in which settlements have been 
 attempted on rich lands, they have either failed totally, or their 
 progress has been slow ; and it has been only after repeated efforts 
 that they have thriven. The reader who desires evidence of this 
 fact, and of the absolute necessity for commencing with the poorer 
 soils, may obtain it by studying the history of the French colonies 
 in Louisiana and Cayenne and comparing their repeated failures 
 with the steady growth of those formed in the region of the St. 
 Lawrence, where numerous and somewhat prosperous settlements 
 were formed at places where the land is now held to be almost 
 utterly valueless, because better soils can be obtained elsewhere at 
 so little cost of labor. He may obtain additional evidence by com 
 paring the gentle, but steady, growth of the colonies planted on 
 the sterile soils of New England, with the repeated failures of 
 colonization upon the richer lands of Virginia and Carolina. The 
 latter could not be reduced to cultivation by men working for them 
 selves ; and hence it is, that we find the richer colonists purchasing 
 negroes, and compelling them to perform the work, while the free 
 laborer seeks the light, sandy lands of North Carolina. No man, 
 left to himself, will commence the work of cultivation on the rich 
 soils, because it is from them that the return is then the least ; and 
 it is upon them, throughout all the new countries of the world, that 
 the condition of the laborer is the worst, where the work is under 
 taken in advance of the habit of association that comes with the 
 growth of wealth and population. The settler who sought the 
 high, light lands obtained food, although the return to his labor 
 was very small. Had he undertaken to drain the rich soils of the 
 
118 CHAPTER IV. 4. 
 
 Dismal Swamp,* he would have perished for want of food, as did 
 those who settled the fertile island of Roanoke. 
 
 4. Crossing the Rio Grande, into Mexico, the reader will find 
 further illustration of the universality of this law. At his left, near 
 the mouth of the river, but at some distance from its bank, he will 
 see the city of Matamoras, of recent date. Starting from that 
 point, he may follow the river through vast bodies of the richest 
 lands in a state of nature with here and there a scattered settle 
 ment occupying the higher ones to the mouth of San Juan, follow 
 ing which to its source, he will find himself in a somewhat popu 
 lous country, having Monterey for its capital. Standing here, and 
 looking towards the north, he sees cultivation advancing among 
 the high lands of Chihuahua, but keeping, invariably, away from 
 the river banks. The city of that name is distant twenty miles 
 even from the tributary of the great river, and more than a hundred 
 from the mouth of the little stream. Passing west from Monterey, 
 through Saltillo, and thence south, his road will lie over sandy 
 plains whose existence is evidence of the general character of the 
 region. Arriving in Potosi, he finds himself in a country without 
 
 * There is, probably not in the world, a richer body of land than that of 
 Lower Virginia and North Carolina, of which the Dismal Swamp forms a 
 part, but, for that reason, it cannot, at present, be cultivated. It is thus 
 described in a recent article of the New York Tribune : 
 
 " Between Norfolk and the sea on the east is the County of Princess Ann, 
 without a single elevation which can be called a hill, but full of swamps 
 and lagoons. Norfolk County lies to the south of the town, and embraces 
 the Dismal Swamp, which extends into North Carolina ; and beyond that, 
 some forty or fifty miles, lies the county around Elizabeth City, on the 
 Albemarle Sound, all low, and cut up with creeks, lagoons, and salt-water 
 marshes. West of Norfolk County is that of Nansemond, so low and level, 
 that steamboats run up the Nansemond River, and, by slight cuts through 
 the land, might run all through the county. Northwest of this, Isle of 
 Wight County extends from James River to Black River, a branch of the 
 Chowan ; and that, as well as Southampton County, the next west, is com 
 posed of the same flat, sandy land and swamps, and sluggish streams. 
 Sometimes the surface is sandy, and just below is a bed of fetid mud, 
 affording well-water that it is not well to drink. This whole county is full 
 of marl. Across the bay north of Norfolk, Elizabeth City County overlies 
 the point of the peninsula formed by the waters of the bay, Hampton Roads 
 and Back Bay, and is almost as level as the water. Ascending the James 
 River, which is in places several miles wide, the water is very shoal on the 
 shores, which are occasionally a little elevated. The timber is mostly pine 
 and oak on the upland, with maple, ash, elm, cypress, and other swamp woods 
 on the lowlands, with a dense growth of swamp bushes." 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 119 
 
 rivers, and almost without the possibility of irrigation, and where 
 any failure of the periodical rains is followed by famine and death; 
 yet, if he cast his eyes downwards towards the coast, he sees a 
 magnificent country, watered by numerous rivers, and in which the 
 cotton and the indigo plant grow spontaneously a country in 
 which the maize grows with a luxuriance elsewhere unknown one 
 that might supply the world with sugar, and in which the only 
 danger to be apprehended from the character of the soil is, that 
 the crops might be smothered by reason of the rapid growth of 
 plants springing up in the rich earth, without aid, or even permis 
 sion, from the man who might undertake to cultivate it; but there 
 he sees no population. The land is uncleared and undrained, and 
 likely so to remain, because those who should undertake the work, 
 with the present means of the country, would starve, if they did 
 not perish by the fevers that there, as everywhere, prevail among 
 the richest soils until they have been subjected to cultivation.* 
 
 Passing on, he sees Zacatecas, high and dry like Potosi, yet cul 
 tivated. Keeping the ridge, he has on his left Tlascala, once the 
 seat of a great and wealthy people, far removed from any stream 
 whatsoever, and occupying the high lands from which descend little 
 streams seeking the waters of both the Atlantic and the Pacific. 
 On his right is the valley of Mexico, a land capable of yielding the 
 largest returns to labor one that in the time of Cortes, produced 
 food in abundance for forty cities. Population and wealth having, 
 however, declined, the remaining people have retired to the high 
 lands bordering the valley, to cultivate the poorer soils from which 
 the single city that still remains draws its supplies of food ; as a 
 
 * " The narrow plain along the sea-coast" such are the words of Mur 
 ray s Encylopcedia of Geography, in describing Mexico " is a tract in which 
 the richest tropical productions spring up with a luxuriance scarcely to be 
 paralleled. Yet, while the climate is thus prolific of vegetation, in the 
 finest and most gigantic forms, it is almost fatal to animal life : two conse 
 quences which, according to Humboldt, are in this climate almost insepa 
 rable. The Spaniards, terrified by this pestilential air, have made this 
 plain only a passage to the higher districts, where even the native Indians chose 
 rather to support themselves by laborious cultivation, than to descend into the 
 plains, where every luxury of life is poured forth in ample and spontaneous 
 profusion." 
 
 " Throughout Mexico and Peru, the traces of a great degree of civiliza 
 tion are confined to the elevated plateaux. We have seen, on the Andes, 
 the ruins of palaces and baths, at heights between 1GOO and 1800 toises 
 (10,230 and 11,510 English feQt.")Humboidt. 
 
120 CHAPTER IV. 4. 
 
 consequence of which corn is higher in price than in either London 
 or Paris, while wages are very low. Fertile land is here super 
 abundant, but the people fly from it ; whereas, according to Mr. 
 Kicardo, it is that which would be first appropriated. 
 
 Passing southward, Tabasco is seen almost unoccupied, although 
 possessing highly fertile lands. Arriving in Yucatan, a land in 
 which water is a luxury, we meet a large and prosperous popula 
 tion, near neighbors to the better soils of Honduras that, when 
 population and wealth shall have sufficiently increased, will yield 
 returns to labor as large, if not larger, than any hitherto known 
 yet now they are a wilderness, affording subsistence but to a few 
 miserable logwood and mahogany cutters. 
 
 Standing here, and looking northward, towards the Caribbean 
 sea, we see the little dry and rocky islands of Montserrat, Nevis, 
 St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and others, cultivated through 
 out while Trinidad, with the richest of soils, remains almost in a 
 state of nature, and Porto Rico, a land excelled by none in fer 
 tility, is but now beginning to be subjected to cultivation. 
 
 Turning next southward, we mark the line of the Panama rail 
 road, pierced through thick jungles which reproduced themselves 
 almost as rapidly as they were cleared. Left to itself it would 
 be overgrown again in a single year, the destruction of dead 
 material being there in the direct ratio of the growth of that which 
 is living. On the side of Costa Rica and Nicaragua are seen 
 lands of incomparable fertility totally unoccupied, while Indian 
 villages may everywhere be seen midway up the mountains, on 
 lands that drain themselves.* 
 
 Looking further south, and marking the position of Santa Fe 
 
 * "The whole of the immense territory of Costa Rica, with the exception 
 of the upper valleys I have mentioned, is an impervious forest, known only 
 to the beasts of prey which rove through its sunless depths, and to a few 
 independent Indian tribes ; but this forest covers riches which will be 
 found, when the natural resources of the country shall have been developed 
 by a large immigration of a stronger race of men, to be inexhaustible. The 
 soil is of a marvellous fertility, and within its bosom contains some of the 
 richest mines. But the immigrants must remember that if this fertility is 
 an earnest of the wealth they may attain, it is also one of the great obsta 
 cles against which they will have to contend, for it is produced by the 
 extreme dampness of the air and by the continuous rains which last seven 
 months in the settled parts of the country, and may be said to last the 
 whole of the year in the districts they would have to redeem from the 
 wilderness." Correspondence of the New York Tribime. 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 121 
 
 de Bogota, and the city of Quito, centres of population, where 
 men cluster together on the high and dry lands while the valley of 
 Oroonoko* remains unoccupied, the reader will see exhibited on a 
 great scale the same fact which, on a small one, has been shown 
 to exist on the banks of rivers of Pennsylvania. That done, 
 taking his station on the peaks of Chimborazo and looking around, 
 he will see the only civilized people of the days of Pizarro, 
 occupying high and dry Peru, drained by little streams whose rapid 
 course forbade the possibility that marshes should be formed in 
 which vegetable matter might decay; to give richness to the soil 
 for the production of timber before the period of cultivation, or of 
 food afterwards. Being poor it was easily cleared. Requiring no 
 artificial drainage, it was early occupied, f 
 
 Turning now towards the East he sees before him Brazil, a land 
 watered by the greatest rivers of the world, to this day a wil 
 derness; yet capable of yielding in the greatest abundance sugar, 
 coffee, tobacco, and all other of the productions of the tropics. Its 
 fields are covered with numberless herds of cattle; and the most 
 precious metals are found near the surface of the earth, but being 
 "destitute of those elevated table lands which cover so much of 
 Spanish America, it affords no eligible situation for European 
 colonists."^ " The largest rivers" says another writer, " are 
 those which bear least upon their bosoms ;" and for the reason 
 that such rivers constitute the drains of the great basins of the 
 world, the soil of which is only to be subjected to cultivation when 
 
 * " Floods of forty feet rise and upwards are frequent at this season in the 
 great rivers of South America ; the llanos of the Orinoco are changed into 
 an inland sea. The Amazon inundates the plains through which it flows, 
 to a vast distance. The Paraguay forms lagoons, which like those of 
 Xarayes, are more than three hundred miles in length, and ooze away 
 during the dry season." GuyoVs Earth and Man, p. 136. 
 
 | " On the other side of the Andes all is changed. Neither the trade- 
 wind nor its vapors arrive at the western coasts. Scarcely do the table 
 lands of Peru and Bolivia receive from the latter benefits, by the storms 
 which burst out at the limits of the two atmospheres. The coast of the 
 Pacific Ocean, from Punta Parina and Amatope to far beyond the tropic, 
 from the Equator to Chili, is scarcely ever refreshed by the rains of the 
 ocean. * * Drought and desert are their portion, and on the 
 border of the seas, in sight of the waves, they are reduced to envy the 
 neighboring countries of the centre of the Continent, the gifts which the 
 ocean refuses to themselves, while lavishing them on others." Ibid, p. 151., 
 
 J McCulloch s Gazetteer. 
 
 Gran Eden. A picture of Cuba, p. 234. 
 9 
 
122 CHAPTER IV. 5. 
 
 population and wealth, and the consequent power of association, 
 shall have greatly grown. With that growth will come the deve 
 lopment of individuality, and then men will become free ; but the 
 strong man is everywhere seen endeavoring to cultivate the rich 
 lands in advance of both population and wealth and therefore 
 seizing upon the poor African, and compelling him to work 
 for low wages, and under conditions destructive to human life. 
 The most useful rivers of Brazil, those which bear most upon their 
 bosoms, are not the Amazon, the Topayos, the Xingu, or the 
 Negro, " flowing through regions which will one day"* says Mur 
 ray, " be the finest in the world ;" but "those between the coast 
 chain and the sea, none of which can attain any long course" 
 and thus it is that we find on a comparison of the several parts of 
 this country, the same great fact that is exhibited on so exten 
 sive a scale by the Eastern and Western sections of the continent. 
 The short steep slope of Peru furnished the earliest civilization of 
 that portion of the earth, and if we look now to the similar slope 
 of Chili we see a people rapidly advancing in population and 
 wealth while the great valley of the La Plata, a land capable of 
 yielding the largest return to labor, remains to this hour steeped 
 in barbarism. Here, as everywhere, we have evidence that cultiva 
 tion begins on the poorer soils. 
 
 5. Crossing the ocean and landing in the south of England, 
 the traveller finds himself in a country in which the streams are 
 short and the valleys limited; and, as a consequence, well fitted for 
 early cultivation. There it was that Caesar found the only people 
 of the island who had made any progress in the art of tillage the 
 habits of life among the natives becoming more rude and barbarous 
 as they receded from the coast. The distant tribes, as he tells us, 
 never sowed their land, but foil-owed the chase or tended their 
 flocks, living upon the spoils of the one or the milk of the other, 
 and having skins for their only raiment. Turning next his steps 
 toward Cornwall, he finds a land noted for its barrenness, exhibit 
 ing everywhere marks of cultivation " of great and unknown 
 .antiquity" and on the outer edge of this barren land, in a part of 
 
 * Encyclopedia of Geography. Article Brazil. 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EAETH. 123 
 
 the country now so remote from all the thoroughfares as scarcely 
 even to be visited, he meets with the ruins of Tintagel, the castle 
 in which King Arthur held his court.* On his route he sees 
 scarcely a hill-top not even now exhibiting evidences of early occu 
 pation, f Inquiring next, for the seats of early cultivation, he will 
 be referred to the sites of rotten boroughs to those parts of the 
 kingdom in which men who can neither read nor write, still live 
 in mud-built cottages, and receive eight shillings a week for their 
 labor and to those commons upon which, to so great an extent, 
 cultivation has recommenced. J Seeking the palace of the Norman 
 Kings, he will find it at Winchester, and not in the valley of the 
 Thames. Inquiring for the forests and swamps of the days of the 
 Plantagenets, he will everywhere be shown cultivated lands of the 
 highest fertility. Should curiosity lead him to desire to see the 
 country whose morasses had nearly swallowed up the army of the 
 conquering Norman, on his return from the devastation of the 
 north that which daunted the antiquary, Camden, even so late as 
 the age of James I. he would be shown South Lancashire, with its 
 rich fields covered with waving grain, and meadows on which pas 
 ture the finest cattle. Asking for the land most recently reduced 
 to cultivation, he will be taken to the fens of Lincoln to the late 
 
 * Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1851. Article, Devon and Cornwall. 
 
 f The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, p. 87. 
 
 t Such are the lands described by Eden, less than sixty years since, as 
 " the sorry pastures of geese, hogs, asses, half-grown horses and half-starved 
 cattle," and existing by thousands of acres, but which wanted only " to be 
 enclosed and taken care of, to be as rich and as valuable as any lands now 
 in tillage." In many cases, however, cultivation is shown to have been 
 extended over lands so entirely worthless, that even now, with all the im 
 provements of modern times they cannot be rendered productive, as will 
 be seen by the following extract from a work above referred to : 
 
 " In many parts of Britain we find distinct marks of former cultivation 
 on land which is now common, and has certainly lain fallow for ages, and 
 it is not impossible but it may have been the work of the Roman plough 
 share. * * Mr. Bruce observed similar traces of cultiva 
 tion on the waste lands in Northumberland, and he is probably right in 
 attributing them to the Romans." Ibid., p. 206. 
 
 " If we cast our eyes over the map of Roman Britain, we perceive 
 considerable tracts of land which the great roads avoided, and in which 
 there were apparently no towns. These were forest districts, represented 
 by the medieval forests of Charnwood, Sherwood, and others, which 
 abounded in beasts of the chase. Some of the more extensive forests were 
 inhabited by wild boars, and some even by wolves." Ibid., p. 207. 
 
124 CHAPTER IV. 6. 
 
 sandy wastes of Norfolk and to Cambridgeshire* all of them 
 yielding now the largest and best crops of England; but which yet 
 were almost wholly valueless until the steam-engine, with its won 
 derful power, was brought to aid the operations of the agriculturist. 
 " The expenditure of a few bushels of coal, 7 says Porter, " places 
 it in the farmer s power to drain his fields of superfluous moisture, 
 at a comparatively inconsiderable expense, "f 
 
 Should the traveller next desire to study the order of the occu 
 pation of the land in towns and villages, he would find, on inquir 
 ing, that those who performed the work of cultivation had sought 
 the hill-sides leaving the lower situations for those who required 
 to use the water that drained from off their lands. J Further, 
 should he wish to compare the present value of what was so 
 recently regarded as poor land, he would learn that it had changed 
 places with what was formerly considered rich land, and now paid 
 a higher rent; thus furnishing additional proof that not only are 
 the best soils last taken into cultivation, but that the command of 
 them is obtained at the cost of far less labor wages having steadily 
 risen with the increase in the amount of rent. 
 
 Passing north into Scotland, if we desire to find the seats of 
 earliest cultivation, it will be required to visit remote districts, 
 now either wholly abandoned, or in which "the grazing of a 
 few black cattle alone tempts to the claim of property in the 
 soil;"|| and, if we seek the earliest dwellings, they will be found 
 
 * " The fen country of Cambridgeshire is now so well drained that almost 
 the whole of it has become highly valuable land, bearing heavy crops of 
 wheat. * * When contemplating it we cannot avoid being 
 
 struck with the success which has attended the application of great skill 
 and consummate energy and perseverance to the work of rendering avail 
 able for agricultural purposes this extensive and once nearly worthless 
 tract." Encyclopaedia Britannica; new edition. 
 
 f Progress of the Nation, p. 155. 
 
 j " In the said manner are two towns, one called Over Combe, in which 
 reside the yeomen, who are occupied in the culture and working of the 
 land which lies on the hill, and the other called Nether Combe, in which 
 dwell the men who are to make cloth, such as weavers, fullers, dyers, and 
 other tradesmen." William of Worcester, between 1430 and 1465, quoted 
 in Scrope s History of Castle Combe. 
 
 "Looking to the rent-rolls (land tax and other documents) of former 
 times, it will be found that, whilst stiff (wheat and bean) land has stood 
 still, or is rather deteriorated in value, the light, or what is called poor 
 land, from an improved system of cropping, has risen most considerably." 
 Poor Law Commissioner s Report. 
 
 || " Other and scarcely less interesting evidences of ancient population 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH, 125 
 
 in districts that in modern times remain " uninvaded by the 
 plough."* The places at which the people of early days were 
 accustomed to assemble and where they have left behind them 
 evidences of their existence, in stone circles, similar to that of 
 Salisbury Plain, in England will invariably be found in those 
 portions of the kingdom now presenting the smallest inducements 
 for occupation or cultivation. f Inquiring for the homes of the 
 chiefs by whom the peace of the country was in former times so 
 frequently disturbed, we find them in the higher regions of the 
 country ; but if we desire to see what has been styled the " granary 
 of Scotland," we are referred to the light and easily cleared and 
 cultivated soils of the Moray Frith. Asking for the newest soils, 
 we are taken to the Lothians, or to the banks of the Tweed, 
 inhabited but a short time since by barbarians, whose greatest 
 pleasure was found in expeditions, for the purpose of plunder, 
 into the adjacent English counties. Seeking the forests and 
 swamps of the days of Mary and Elizabeth, we find the finest 
 farms in Scotland. Desiring to find the poorest people, we are 
 referred to the isles of the west Mull or Skye which were occu 
 pied when meadow lands were yet undrained; to Mona s Isle, 
 
 are still observable in remote nooks of the Western Highlands, where the 
 Dalriadic Scots first effected a settlement in the land which has borne their 
 name for centuries. * * In various districts of the same neigh 
 borhood, and particularly amid the scenes on which a new interest has 
 been conferred as those in which the great Campbell passed some of his 
 earlier years, the curious traveller may descry amid " the desolate heath 
 indications on the hill-side of a degree of cultivation having existed at 
 some former period far beyond what is exhibited in that locality at the 
 present day. The soil on the sloping sides of the hills appears to have 
 been retained by dwarf walls, and these singular terraces occur frequently 
 at such altitudes as must convey a remarkably vivid idea of the extent 
 and industry of an ancient population, where now the grazing of a few 
 black cattle alone tempts to the claim of property in the soil. In other dis 
 tricts the half-obliterated furrows are still traceable on heights which have been 
 abandoned for ages to the fox and the eagle." "Such evidences of ancient 
 population" as the writer adds, "occur in many parts of Scotland, and have 
 given rise to the superstition of " elf furrows, by which," as he says, " they 
 are commonly known." Wilson. Pre-historic Annals of Scotland, p. 74. 
 
 * " Of these primitive pit dwellings numerous traces are discernible on 
 Leuchar moss, in the parish of Skene and in other localities of Aberdeen- 
 shire ; on the banks of Loch Fine in Argyleshire ; in the counties of Inver 
 ness and Caithness ; and in various other districts of Scotland, still unin 
 vaded by the plough." Ibid., p. 123. 
 
 f " On one of the wildest moors in the parish of Tongland, Kirkcud 
 brightshire, a similar example may be seen, consisting of a circle of eleven 
 stones, with a twelfth of larger dimensions in the centre, the summits of 
 the whole appearing just above the moss." Ibid., p. 116. 
 
126 CHAPTER IV. 6. 
 
 celebrated in the days when the rich soil of the Lothians was yet 
 uncultivated ; or to the Orkneys, deemed in former times so valu 
 able as to be received by the King of Norway in pledge for the 
 payment of an amount far greater than the poor islands would 
 now command, did the sale include the land itself as well as the 
 right of sovereignty. Standing on the hills of Sutherland, we are 
 in the midst of lands that have been, from time immemorial, 
 cultivated by starving Highlanders ; but on the flats below are 
 rich crops of turnips growing on soil that was, but a few years 
 since, a waste. Stand where we may on Arthur s Seat, or 
 Stirling s towers ; or on the hills which border the great valley of 
 Scotland we see fertile soils, almost, even when not wholly, 
 undrained and unoccupied, while around may be seen high and 
 dry lands that have been for centuries in cultivation. 
 
 6. Looking to France in the days of Caesar, we see the Ar- 
 verni, the Edui, and the Sequani, descendants of the earliest pos 
 sessors of Gaul, and the most powerful among her tribes, seated 
 on the flanks of the Alps, in a country now far less populous than it 
 was then.* There however it is that we find great centres of trade 
 
 * " Le Morvan," a territory containing a hundred and fifty square 
 leagues, " across which, but forty years since, there was neither a great 
 road nor a departmental road, nor even a single local one of any importance 
 in good condition. There were no bridges. At the most, occasional trees, 
 scarcely squared, were thrown across the streams, but most commonly 
 stones were disposed here and there to facilitate the passage of the tra 
 veller. Although situated in the heart of France, this country was abso 
 lutely impassable by the people of the neighboring ones frightful by 
 reason of the cold, the snow, the character of the soil, and the wildness of 
 its occupants a true pays de loup, in which the traveller feared to find 
 himself involved. This country, nevertheless, then an integral portion of 
 the State of the (Edui, had followed the progress of that people, friends and 
 allies of the Romans and the most civilized of all the Gauls, whose capital, 
 Autun, had merited the title of Soror et cemula Romce. It was traversed by 
 fine military roads of which we yet find the remains in a state of perfect pre 
 servation. Antique medals are there frequently discovered, and widely dis 
 seminated over the country are the ruins of ancient residences, amid 
 which are found the fragments of sculptures and of mosaics, which reveal 
 to us the magnificence of their ancient masters. Their great merit may be 
 appreciated on an examination of the beautiful mosaic of Aulun, recently 
 exhibited in Paris and London by that of Villars, near to Chatillon-en- 
 Bazois and that of Chaigneau in the midst of the forests of Chastellux. 
 The abundance and perfection of this description of works prove the exist 
 ence of great opulence and exquisite taste, fruits of an ancient civilization, 
 w^hich perished in barbaric times, and which modern civilization is far 
 from having equalled." Journal des Economistes, December, 1852. 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. ] 27 
 
 in the rich cities of Bibracte, Yienne, and Noviodunum while the 
 now rich Belgica presented to view but a single place of any note; 
 and that at the place of passage of the river Somme, where stands 
 the city of Amiens. Still higher, amongst the Alps themselves, we 
 see the Helvetii, with their dozen cities and near four hundred 
 villages. Looking west, we see in the savage Brittany, where 
 wolves even yet abound, another portion of the early settlers of 
 Gaul, with their wretched oppidi placed upon rocky promontories of 
 the coast, or in the almost inaccessible gorges of the interior 
 country. Everywhere around, among the highest and poorest 
 lands, even now are seen monuments of their existence, the like of 
 which are never found among the lower and richer lands of France. 
 Seeking on the map for the cities with whose names we are most 
 familiar as connected with the history of that country in the days 
 of the founder of the Capetian race, of St. Louis, and of Philip 
 Augustus Chalons, St. Quentin, Soissons, Rheims, Troyes, Nancy, 
 Orleans, Bourges, Dijon, Yienne, Nismes, Toulouse, or Cahors, 
 once the great centre of the banking operations of France we 
 find them far towards the heads of the streams on which they stand, 
 or occupying the high grounds between the rivers. Looking next 
 for the centres of power at a later period, we meet them in wild 
 and savage Brittany, yet inhabited by a people but little removed 
 from barbarism in Dijon, at the foot of the Alps in Auvergne, but 
 recently, if not even yet, a " secret and safe asylum of crime, amidst 
 inaccessible rocks and wilds, which nature seems to have designed 
 rather for beasts than men" in the Limousin, which gave to the 
 church so many popes that the Limousin cardinals at length were 
 almost enabled to dictate the proceedings of the Conclave, and yet 
 is now among the poorest parts of France or on the flanks of the 
 Cevennes, where literature and art were far advanced at a period 
 when the richer soils of the kingdom remained uncultivated.* 
 
 * " These men" the inhabitants of the country between the Mediterra 
 nean, the Rhone and the Garonne "for the most part vassals of the Count 
 of Toulouse, were in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, infinitely more 
 civilized than those of the rest of Gaul. They carried on a greater commerce 
 with the East, where the signature of their Count had greater credit than 
 the King of France s seal. Their towns had a municipal organization, and 
 had even the external appearances of the Italian republics. * * Their 
 literature was the most refined in all Europe, and their literary idiom was 
 classical in Italy and Spain : their Christianity, ardent and even exalted 
 for they were naturally impassioned did not consist in an implicit belief 
 
128 CHAPTER IV. 6. 
 
 Even yet, after the lapse of so many centuries, its richest soils 
 remain undrained marshy lands abounding throughout the king 
 dom, for the reclamation of which the aid of government is now 
 invoked.* 
 
 Turning next to Belgium we see the rude and poor Luxem 
 burg and Limburg to have been cultivated from a period far 
 beyond the range of history, while Flanders, now so rich, remained 
 until the seventh century an impenetrable desert. As late even as 
 the thirteenth century, the forest of Soignies covered the site of the 
 city of Brussels, and the fertile province of Brabant was in a 
 great degree uncultivated ; yet have we but to pass to the next 
 adjoining province, that of Antwerp, to find, in the now almost 
 abandoned Campine, evidences of cultivation dating back to the 
 commencement of our era. There are found the ancient city of 
 Heerenthals, with its walls and gates and Gheel, which dates back 
 to the seventh century ; and there the traveller passes over the 
 domain of the Counts of Merode, with its castle of Westerloo, 
 one of the oldest in Belgium ; in the ditches of which are yet found 
 implements of war dating back to the period of the Romans. 
 Everywhere, the oldest villages are found on the knolls, or in the 
 sand, near the swamps with which the country was once to so 
 great an extent covered. The wool trade of the country had its 
 origin in the Campine, and it was to the necessity for communica 
 tion between the people of these and other poor lands that the 
 existence of many of the towns and cities was due. In the days 
 of Caesar, the site of the present Maestricht was known only as 
 the place of passage of the Maes and that of Amiens was then but 
 little more than the place of passage of the Somme ; while the 
 Broecksel of a later period, now Brussels, came into notice because 
 of being used by those who required to cross the Senne. 
 
 of the dogmas, and a mechanical observance of the practices of the Roman 
 church. * * To stop this intellectual contagion, nothing less was 
 necessary than to strike the people collectively, and annihilate the social 
 order from which its independent spirit and its civilization proceeded." 
 Hence the crusade against the Waldenses, and Albigeois, which resulted in 
 the incorporation of these provinces into the Kingdom of France, the most 
 disastrous event in the history of Southern France. " The old civilization 
 of these provinces," continues M. Thierry, " received a mortal blow from 
 their union with countries less advanced in cultivation, in manufactures, 
 in policy, and in taste for the arts." History of the Conquest of England, 
 vol. iii. p. 324. 
 
 * Journal des Economistes, Nov. 1855, p. 210. 
 
Or THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 129 
 
 In the early history of Holland, we see a miserable people, sur 
 rounded by forests and marshes covering the most fertile lands 
 but living on islands of sand, and forced to content themselves 
 with eggs, fish, and very small supplies of vegetable food of any 
 kind. Their extreme poverty exempted them from the grinding 
 taxation of Rome, and by slow degrees they increased in numbers 
 and in wealth. Chief among the provinces, however, from an early 
 period, was the narrow district lying between Utrecht and the sea, 
 which eventually gave its name Haupt, or headland, to the 
 entire region and there it is we find the poorest soil, capable of 
 yielding little beside bent, or fern. Unable by means of agricul 
 ture to obtain food, the Dutch sought it from manufactures and 
 trade. Wealth and population continued to grow, and with their 
 growth came the clearing of woods, the draining of marshes, and 
 the subjection to cultivation of the rich soils in the outset so much 
 avoided ; until at length we find in it the richest nation of Europe. 
 
 7. Further north, we meet a people whose ancestors passed 
 from the neighborhood of the Don, through the rich plains of 
 Northern Germany, and finally selected for themselves the barren 
 mountains of the Scandinavian peninsula as the land best suited 
 for them in their then existing condition.* Poor as was the 
 
 * The philosophy of this is thus most accurately exhibited by one of the 
 best travellers of our time, a gentleman who has given much attention to 
 every portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. " What could have induced 
 a migratory population from the Tanais (the Don), on which traditionary 
 history fixes their original seat, after reaching the southern shores of the 
 Baltic, to have turned to the north and crossed the sea to establish them 
 selves on bleak, inhospitable rocks, and in the severe climate of Scandina 
 via, instead of overspreading the finer countries on the south side of the 
 Baltic f * * * We make a wrong estimate of the comparative 
 facilities of subsisting, in the early ages of mankind, in the northern and 
 southern countries of Europe. If a tribe of red men from the forests of 
 America had been suddenly transported in the days of Tacitus to the 
 forests of Europe beyond the Rhine, where would they, in what is called the 
 hunter state, that is, depending for subsistence on the spontaneous pro 
 ductions of nature, have found in the greatest abundance the means and 
 facilities of subsisting themselves ? Unquestionably on the Scandinavian 
 peninsula, intersected by narrow inlets of the sea teeming with fish, by 
 lakes and rivers rich in fish, and in a land covered with forests, in which 
 not only all the animals of Europe that are food for man abound, but from 
 the numerous lakes, rivers, ponds, and precipices in this. hunting field, are 
 to be got at and caught with much greater facility than on the boundless 
 plains, on which, from the Rhine to the Elbe, and from the Elbe to the 
 Vistula, or to the steppes of Asia, to hem in a herd of wild animals in their 
 flight." Laing, Chronicles of the Sea Kings, Introductory Dissertation, p. 39. 
 
130 CHAPTER IV. T. 
 
 general character of the soil, the poorest portions of it were those 
 first settled. Everywhere throughout the country is found a 
 repetition of the facts already described in regard to Scotland the 
 marks of early agriculture being found on high and poor lands 
 that long since have been abandoned. To such an extent has this 
 been the case, that it has afforded countenance to the belief that 
 the peninsula must really have been the seat of the great " North 
 ern Hive," the overflow from which had peopled Southern Europe 
 it having been supposed that no one would have cultivated these 
 very poor soils when it rested with himself to select for his use the 
 very rich ones that, according to M. Ricardo, are always first 
 selected for occupation. The facts here observed are, however, 
 only a repetition of those we see to have occurred in North and 
 South America, in England, Scotland, France, and Belgium. 
 
 Looking next to Russia, we find a recurrence of the same great 
 fact.* "Almost everwhere," says a recent English traveller, "we 
 see the poorest soil selected for cultivation, whilst that of the rich 
 est description remains neglected in its vicinity; for the poorer 
 soil is generally the higher ground, which requires no trouble in 
 draining. "( 
 
 In Germany, according to Tacitus, "but a small part of the open 
 and level country was occupied ;" the natives dwelling "chiefly in 
 forests, or on the summit of that continuous ridge of mountains by 
 which Suevia is divided and separated from other tribes that lie still 
 more remote. "J Looking now to the country watered by the 
 Danube and its tributaries, we see the population abounding at the 
 heads of the streams, but gradually diminishing as we descend the 
 great river, until at length reaching the richest lands, we find 
 them entirely unoccupied. Pausing for a moment in Hungary, we 
 see in " the Puszta" the cradle, or rather, as we are told by a 
 recent traveller, " the keep of Hungarian nationality" and here 
 
 * " The government of Pskow occupies the ninth place in regard to its 
 relative extent of arable land, whilst, in consequence of the bad quality of 
 its soil, it is one of the poorest in regard to its productive forces. On the 
 other hand, the governments of Podolia, Saratow, and Wolhynia, which are 
 the most fertile portions of the empire, occupy a rank far inferior to many 
 others, in regard to their extent of cultivated land." Tegoborski s Russia, 
 vol. i. p. 131. 
 
 I Revelations of Russia, vol. i. p. 355. 
 
 i Manners of the Germans, chap, xliii. 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 131 
 
 we have a wide plain extending from the Theiss to the Danube, con 
 taining 15,000 square miles consisting of a series of sandhills 
 that roll away like waves, until earth and sky are blended together.* 
 
 Beyond the Theiss, rich lands abound, exhibiting no signs of life 
 except "countless flocks of wild birds, cranes, and ducks, and 
 divers, among the reeds there, on a bank, a vulture tearing some 
 carrion to pieces ; and now and then the bold eagle or the hawk 
 flying heavily by, scarcely any of these stirring at our approach. A 
 lonely, desolate scene enough, but a part of those immense marshy 
 districts in Hungary whose drainage, under an efficient agriculture, 
 would reclaim so much good land ; and which are now the causes 
 of such deadly fevers and diseases."! 
 
 Looking into Italy, we see a numerous population in the high 
 lands of Cisalpine Gaul, at a period when the rich soils of Yenetia 
 were unoccupied. Passing southward, along the flanks of the 
 Apennines, we find a gradually increasing population, with an in 
 creasing tendency to the cultivation of the better soils; and towns 
 whose age may almost be inferred from their situation. The Sam- 
 nite hills were peopled, Etruria was occupied, and Yeii and Alba 
 were built, before Romulus gathered together his adventurers on 
 
 * " The expanse, in truth, resembles the great ocean solidified. Mile after 
 mile it stretches away in a dull, depressing uniformity, unbroken by a vil 
 lage, a house, or a tree. Indeed, the name by which the plain is known 
 the Puszta means " empty or "void ;" and it is well described by its name. 
 It is bare, naked, and desolate, and destitute even of a stream of water. 
 Here and there the long pole of a draw-well rises against the sky, like a 
 spectral arm; or like the mast of a stranded ship. Occasionally a herd of 
 cattle strays along in search of herbage, watched by mountain herdsmen. 
 The only other sign of life is a solitary crane or stork, perched on one leg, 
 amidst a bog white with the powder of soda ; or a vulture wheeling high 
 in the air in search of prey. A profound silence rests on the plain ; and 
 when broken by the herdsman s voice, or the bellowing of the cattle, the 
 sound startles the ear, as it speeds, one knows not whence, on the wings 
 of the wind. * * Its denizens are pure and unadulterated Hun 
 garians ; the same men as the Magyars, when, a thousand years ago, they 
 wandered away in search of " fresh fields and pastures new," from the plains 
 of distant Asia. Every man is a horseman, and every one is able and ready 
 to become a soldier in defence of his country. The inhabitants of the 
 Puszta are herdsmen, following great droves of horses, buffaloes, snow-white 
 bullocks, sheep, and swine, from pasture to pasture ; and remaining the 
 whole year round beneath the canopy of heaven. The wildest amongst 
 them are the swineherds, and their greatest distinction is to be a redoubt 
 able fighter. They are pre-eminently the heroes of the plain. Even their 
 very pleasures are warlike and sangtiinary." 
 
 f Thrace s Letters on Hungary, N. 12. 
 
132 CHAPTER IV. 7. 
 
 the banks of the Tiber; and Aquileia filled a place in Roman his 
 tory that was denied to the site of the modern Pisa. 
 
 In the island of Corsica there are three distinct regions; on the 
 lower one of which the sugar-cane, the cotton-plant, tobacco, and 
 even indigo could be grown; and it might be made, as we are told, 
 "the India of the Mediterranean."* The second "represents the 
 climate of Burgundy, Morvan, and Bretagne, in France," all of 
 which latter the reader has seen to have been the seats of early 
 settlement; and here it is, accordingly, that "the greater part of 
 the Corsicans live in scattered hamlets on the mountain side, or in 
 the valleys. "f Looking next to Sicily, we learn that " the natives 
 seem to have been of rude pastoral habits, dispersed either among 
 petty hill-villages, or in caverns hewn out of the rock, like the 
 primitive inhabitants of the Balearic islands and Sardinia;"! and 
 yet, of all the islands of the Mediterranean, none so much abounded 
 in those rich soils which, according to M. Ricardo, should have 
 been first appropriated. 
 
 Turning now to Greece, we meet the same great and universal 
 fact. Earliest amongst the settlements were those of the hills of 
 Arcadia, which long preceded those on the lands of Elis watered by 
 the Alpheus; and the meagre soil of Attica, whose poverty was such 
 as to have been assigned as a reason why it had escaped the deso 
 lating presence of invaders of early ages, was among the earliest 
 occupied ; while the fat Boaotia followed slowly in its rear. On the 
 hill-tops, in various quarters, the sites of deserted cities presented, 
 in the historical times of Greece, evidences of former occupation 
 and cultivation. The short, steep slope of eastern Argolis was 
 early abandoned as incapable of yielding a return to labor, yet 
 there was the seat of "the Halls of Tiryns," and there now are 
 found the ruins of the palace of Agamemnon, and of the Acropolis 
 of Mycena3. The place of the city, as we are told by Aristotle, 
 " was chosen because the lower part of the plain was then so 
 marshy as to be unproductive ;" whereas, in his own time, or 
 almost eight centuries afterwards, the plain of Mycenae had become 
 barren, and that of Argos well drained and fertile. || North of the 
 
 * Gregorovius s Corsica, p. 143. \ Ibid., p. 144. 
 
 J Grote. History of Greece, vol. iii. 368. 
 Grote. History of Greece, vol. ii. 108. 
 II Leake. Travels in the Morea, vol. ii. 366. 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 133 
 
 Gulf of Corinth, we see the Phocians, the Locrians, and the 
 Etolians, clustered together on the highest and poorest lands; 
 while the rich plains of Thessaly and of Thrace remained almost 
 entirely unpeopled. 
 
 Crossing the Mediterranean we see the mountainous and rocky 
 Crete to have been occupied from the earliest ages, while the 
 Delta of the Nile remained a wilderness. Ascending that river, 
 cultivation becomes more and more ancient as we rise, until at 
 length far towards its head we reach Thebes, the first capital of 
 Egypt. With the growth of population and of wealth we find the 
 city of Memphis becoming the capital of the kingdom ; but still 
 later, the Delta is occupied, and towns and cities rise in places that 
 to the earlier kings were inaccessible and with every step in this 
 direction there was increased return to labor. 
 
 Turning eastward from the Nile, we see the most civilized por 
 tion of the people of Northern Africa clustering round the mountains 
 of the Atlas, while the richer lands in the direction of the coast 
 remain in a state of nature. Looking next south, the Capital of 
 Abyssinia is found at an elevation of no less than 8,000 feet above 
 the sea, while lands of unbounded capability remain entirely unculti 
 vated. Everywhere throughout Africa, the greatest amount of 
 population and of wealth, and the nearest approach to civilization, 
 are found on the elevated table lands whose natural drainage fits 
 them for early occupation while everywhere on the rich lands, 
 towards the mouths of the great streams, population is small, and 
 man is found in the lowest state of barbarism. 
 
 8. Passing by the Red Sea and entering the Pacific, we see 
 almost innumerable islands whose lower lands are unoccupied, 
 their superior richness rendering them dangerous to life ; while 
 population clusters round the hills. Farther south, are rich valleys 
 in Australia, uninhabited, or, where inhabited at all, it is by a peo 
 ple standing lowest among the human race ; while on the little high- 
 pointed islands of the coast, but a few miles distant, are found a 
 superior race, with houses, cultivation, and manufactures. Turn 
 ing our steps northward, towards India, we meet Ceylon, in the 
 centre of which are found the dominions of the king of Candy, 
 whose subjects have the same aversion to the low and rich lands, 
 unhealthy in their present state, that is felt by the people of 
 

 134 CHAPTER IV. T. 
 
 Mexico and of Java. Entering India by Cape Coraorin, and fol 
 lowing the great range of t high lands, the back-bone of the 
 peninsula, we find the cities of Seringapatam, Poonah, and Ahmed- 
 nugger; while below, near the coast, are seen the European cities 
 of Madras, Calcutta and Bombay, the creation of a very recent 
 day. Intermediate between the two, are seen numerous cities, 
 whose positions, sometimes far away from the banks of the rivers, 
 and at other times near their sources, show that the most fertile 
 lands have not been those first cultivated. Standing on the high 
 lands between Calcutta and Bombay, we have on the one hand the 
 delta of the Indus, and on the other that of the magnificent Gan 
 ges. Through hundreds of miles the former rolls its course, almost 
 without a settlement on its banks; while on the higher country, 
 right and left, exists a numerous population. The rich Delta of 
 the latter is unoccupied, and if we desire to find the seat of early 
 cultivation we must follow its course until far up towards its head, 
 we meet Delhi, the capital of all India while yet the government 
 remained in the hands of its native sovereigns. Here, as every 
 where, man avoids the low rich soils that need clearing and drain 
 age, and seeks in the higher lands that drain themselves, the means 
 of employing his labor in the search for food and here, as always 
 when the superficial soil alone is cultivated, the return to labor 
 is small. Hence it is that we find the Hindoo working for a 
 rupee, or two, per month ; sufficient only to give him a handful of 
 rice per day, and to purchase a rag of cotton cloth with which to 
 cover his loins. The most fertile soils exist in unlimited quantity 
 on land that is untouched ; and close to that which the laborer 
 scratches with a stick for want of a spade, raking his harvest with 
 his hands for want of a reaping hook, and carrying home upon 
 his shoulders the miserable crop, for want of a horse and a cart. 
 
 Passing northward, by Caubul and Affghanistan, and leaving on 
 our left the barren Persia, whose weak dry soils have been culti 
 vated through a long series of ages, we attain the highest point of 
 the earth s surface ; and here, even among the Himalayas them 
 selves, we find the same order of cultivation the villages being 
 everywhere placed upon slopes upon which their people grow 
 scanty crops of millet, maize, and buckwheat ; while the bottom 
 lands are generally a mass of jungle, unappropriated and unculti- 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 135 
 
 vated.* Immediately around is the cradle of the human race, 
 where head the streams that empty into the Frozen Ocean and the 
 Bay of Bengal, the Mediterranean and the Pacific. It is the land, 
 of all others, suited to the purpose ; that which will most readily 
 afford to the man who works without a spade or an axe, a small 
 supply of food and therefore the one least fitted for his uses when 
 he has acquired power to direct the forces of nature to his service. 
 Here we are surrounded by man in a state of barbarism ; and 
 standing here, we may trace the course of successive tribes and 
 nations passing towards the lower and more productive lands; but 
 compelled in all cases to seek the route least disturbed with water 
 courses and therefore keeping the ridge that divides the waters of 
 the Black Sea and the Mediterranean from those of the Baltic. 
 Standing here we may mark them, as they descend the slope, 
 sometimes stopping for the purpose of cultivating the hilly land 
 that can, with their indifferent machinery, be made to yield a 
 small supply of food ; at others marching on and reaching the 
 neighborhood of the sea, there to place themselves, not on the 
 rich lands, but on the poor soils of the steep hill-side those on 
 which water cannot stand to give nourishment to trees, or to afford 
 annoyance to settlers whose means are inadequate to the draining 
 of marshes and of swamps ; or on little peaked islands, from which 
 the water passes rapidly, as is the case with those of the ^Egean, 
 cultivated from so early a period. Some of these tribes are seen 
 reaching the Mediterranean, where civilization is first found, and 
 soonest lost under the pressure of successive waves of emigration ; 
 while others are passing farther west, and entering Italy, France, 
 and Spain. Others, more adventurous, reach the British isles. 
 Again, after a few centuries of rest, we see them crossing the 
 broad Atlantic, and commencing the ascent of the slope of the 
 Alleghany, preparatory to the ascent and passage of the great 
 range dividing the waters of the Pacific from those of the Atlantic ; 
 and in all cases we mark the pioneers gladly seizing on the clear 
 dry land of the steep hill-side, in preference to the rich and highly 
 wooded land of the river bottoms. Everywhere we see them, as 
 population gradually increases, descending the sides of the hills 
 and mountains towards the rich lands at their feet ; and every- 
 
 * See Hookas Himalayan Journals. 
 
136 CHAPTER IV. 7. 
 
 where, with the growth of numbers, penetrating the earth to reach 
 the lower soils, to enable them to combine the upper clay, or sand, 
 with the lower marl, or lime and thus to compound for themselves, 
 out of the various materials with which they have been provided 
 by the Deity, a soil capable of yielding a larger return than that 
 .upon which they were at first compelled to expend their labor. 
 / Everywhere, with increased power of union, we see them exercising 
 increased power over land. Everywhere, as the new soils are 
 brought into activity, and as their occupants are enabled to obtain 
 larger returns, we find more rapid increase of population, produ 
 cing increased tendency to combination of exertion, by help of 
 which their powers are trebled, quadrupled, and quintupled, and 
 sometimes fifty-fold increased ; enabling them better to provide for 
 their immediate wants, while accumulating more rapidly the ma 
 chinery by means of which further to increase their power of pro 
 duction, and still more fully to bring to light the vast treasures of 
 nature. Everywhere, we find that with increasing population the 
 ^supply of food becomes more abundant and regular, and clothing 
 and shelter are obtained with greater ease famine and pestilence 
 tend to pass away health becomes more universal life becomes 
 more and more prolonged and man becomes more happy and more 
 free. 
 
 In regard to all the wants of man, except the single and impor 
 tant one of food, such is admitted to be the case. It is seen that 
 with the growth of population and of wealth men obtain water, and 
 iron, and coal, and clothing and the use of houses, and ships, and 
 roads in return for less labor than had been at first required. It 
 is not doubted that the gigantic works by means of which great 
 rivers are carried through our cities, enable men to obtain water 
 at smaller cost than was required when each man took a bucket and 
 helped himself on the river bank. It is seen that the shaft which 
 has required years to sink, and to discharge the water from which 
 the most powerful engines are required, supplies fuel at far less 
 cost of labor than has been required when the early settlers 
 carried home the scraps of half-decomposed timber, for want of an 
 axe with which to cut the already fallen log that the grist-mill 
 converts the grain into flour more cheaply than was the case when 
 it was pounded between stones and that the gigantic factory sup 
 plies cloth more cheaply than the little loom ; but it is denied 
 
OP THE OCCUPATION OP THE EARTH. 13 f 
 
 that such is the case in reference to the soils required for cultiva 
 tion. In regard to every thing else, man commences with the 
 worst machinery and proceeds upward towards the best; but 
 in regard to land, and that alone, he commences, acording v lo 
 Mr. Kicardo, with the best and proceeds downward towards the 
 worst ; and with every stage of his progress finds a decreasing 
 return to labor, threatening starvation, and admonishing him 
 against raising children to aid him in his age ; lest they should 
 imitate the conduct of the people of India and of the islands of 
 the Pacific, where land, however, is abundant and food should 
 be cheap, and bury him alive or expose him on the river shore, 
 that they may divide among themselves his modicum of food. 
 
 How far all this is so the reader will now determine for himself. 
 All others of the laws of nature are broad and universally true, 
 and he may now agree with us in believing that there is one law, 
 and one alone, for food, light, air, clothing, and fuel that man, 
 in all and every case, commences with the worst machinery and 
 proceeds onward to the best and that he is thus enabled, with 
 the growth of wealth, of population, and of the power of asso 
 ciation, to obtain with constantly diminishing labor an increased 
 supply of all the necessaries, conveniences, comforts, and luxuries 
 of life. 
 
 In further proof, if proof can yet be required, it may be men 
 tioned that almost everywhere tradition carries back the early 
 settlement of the various portions of the world to the higher 
 lands. The traditions of the Chinese place their ancestors at 
 the heads of the great rivers, in the high table-lands of Asia. 
 The Brahmins derive their origin from the Yale of Cashmere, 
 and throughout Asia that region is recognised by a term equiva 
 lent to that of "the roof of the world." The name of Abram, 
 father of the high land, became in time Abraham, father of a 
 multitude ; and the Northmen placed the city of Odin in Aas- 
 gard, or the castle of Aas, "which word," says Mr. Laing, 
 "still remains in the Northern languages, signifying a ridge of 
 high land."* 
 
 Again : rivers never, as we are told by Agassiz, establish a 
 line of separation between terrestrial animals ; and it is as a con 
 sequence of this that "the watersheds, not the rivers," are " found 
 * Chronicle of the Sea Bangs, Saga 1. 
 
 YOL. I. 10 
 
138 CHAPTER IV. 4. 
 
 to constitute the demarcations of an accurate ethnographical 
 map."* Were it possible that man could commence the work 
 of cultivation on rich bottom lands, such would not be the case ; 
 because as population and wealth increased he would find him 
 self irresistibly impelled towards the higher and poorer lands, as 
 here is shown : 
 
 Mr. Ricardo places his early settlers at the point marked B, 
 being that at which the lands are richest ; and where the natural 
 advantages of situation are greatest, because of the proximity of 
 the river. As their numbers increase, they must ascend the hill, 
 or fly to some other valley, there to resume their labors. Directly 
 the reverse of this, as the reader has seen, is what has occurred 
 in every quarter of the world the work of cultivation having 
 everywhere been commenced on the sides of the hills, marked A, 
 where the soil was poorest, and where the natural advantages of 
 situation were the least. With the growth of wealth and popu 
 lation, men have been seen descending from the high lands bound 
 ing the valley on either side, and coming together at their feet. 
 [Hence it is that rivers are never found to be the dividing lines of 
 J races of animals or of nations. 
 
 The doctrine of Mr. Ricardo is that of increasing dispersion 
 and weakness ; whereas under the real laws of nature there is a 
 tendency towards a constant increase of that power of association 
 and combination to which alone man is indebted for the ability 
 to subjugate the more productive soils. As he descends the 
 hills and meets his neighbor man, efforts are combined, employ 
 ments are divided, individual faculties are stimulated into action, 
 property becomes more and more divided, equality grows, com 
 merce becomes enlarged, and person and property become more 
 secure ; and every step in this direction is but preparation for 
 further progress. 
 
 * Edinburgh Review, January, 1851 : article, Devon and Cornwall. 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EAETH. 189 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 1. POPULATION and wealth tend to increase, and cultivation 
 tends towards the more fertile soils, when man is allowed to obey 
 those instincts of his nature which prompt him to seek association 
 with his fellow-men. They tend to decrease as association de 
 clines, and then the fertile soils are everywhere abandoned ; and 
 with every step in that direction the difficulty of obtaining food 
 is increased. Population it is that makes the food come from 
 the rich soils of the earth j while depopulation drives the unhappy 
 cultivator back to the poorer ones. 
 
 When men are poor, they are compelled to select such soils as 
 they can cultivate, not such as they would. Although gathered 
 around the sides of the same mountain range, the difficulty of 
 obtaining food compels them to remain far distant from each 
 other; and having no roads, they are unable to associate for 
 self-defence. The thin soils yield small returns, and the little 
 tribe embraces some who would prefer to live by the labor of 
 others rather than by their own. The scattered people may be 
 plundered with ease, and half a dozen men, combined for the 
 purpose, may rob in succession all the persons of whom the little 
 community is composed. The opportunity makes the robber, 
 and the most daring among them becomes the leader of the band. 
 One by one, the people who would desire to live by their own 
 labor are plundered ; and thus are they who prefer the work of 
 plunder enabled to pass their time in dissipation. The leader 
 divides the spoil, and with its help is enabled to augment the 
 number of his followers, and thus to enlarge the sphere of his 
 depredations. With the gradual increase of the little commu 
 nity, he is led, however, to commute with them for a certain 
 share of their produce, which he calls rent^ or tax, or taille. 
 Population and wealth grow very slowly, because of the large 
 
140 CHAPTER V. 1. 
 
 proportion which the non-laborers bear to the laborers. The 
 good soils are but slowly improved, because the people are un 
 able to obtain spades with which to cultivate the land, or axes 
 by help of which to clear it. Few want leather, and there is no 
 tanner on the spot to use their hides. Few can afford shoes, and 
 there is no shoemaker to eat their corn, while making those which 
 are required. Few have horses, and there is no blacksmith. 
 -J Combination of effort has scarcely an existence. 
 
 By very slow degrees, however, they are enabled to reduce to 
 cultivation better lands, thus lessening the distance between 
 themselves and the neighboring settlement, where rules another 
 little sovereign. Each chief, however, now covets the power of 
 taxing the subjects of his neighbor, and, as a consequence, war 
 ensues the object of both being plunder, but disguised under 
 the name of glory. Each invades the domain of the other, 
 and each endeavors to weaken his opponent by murdering his 
 rent-payers, burning their houses, and wasting their little farms ; 
 while manifesting, perhaps, the utmost courtesy to the chief him 
 self. The richer lands are now abandoned, and their drains fill 
 up, while the tenants are forced to seek for food among the poor 
 soils of the hills to which they have fled for safety. At the end 
 of a year or two, peace is made, and the work of clearing has 
 again to be performed. Population and wealth having, how 
 ever, diminished, the means of recommencing the work have 
 now again to be created, and that, too, under the most dis 
 advantageous circumstances. With continued peace, the work 
 advances, and, after a few years, population, wealth, and cul 
 tivation regain the point from which they had fallen. New 
 wars, however, ensue, for the determination of the question : 
 Which of the two chiefs shall collect all the (so-called) rent ? 
 After great waste of life #nd property, one of them being 
 slain, the other falls his heir, having thus acquired both plun 
 der and glory. He now wants a title, by which to be distin 
 guished from those by whom he is surrounded. He is a little 
 king ; and as similar operations are performed elsewhere, such 
 kings become numerous. Population extending itself, and each 
 little sovereign now coveting the dominions of his neighbors, 
 new wars are made, and always with the same result the 
 people invariably flying to their hills for safety the best lands 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 141 
 
 being abandoned food becoming more scarce and famine and 
 pestilence sweeping off those whose flight had preserved them 
 from "the tender mercies" of the invading force. 
 
 Small kings now becoming great ones, find themselves sur 
 rounded by lesser chiefs, who glorify themselves in the number of 
 their murders and in the amount of plunder they have acquired. 
 Counts, viscounts, earls, marquises, and dukes next make their 
 appearance on the stage, heirs of the power and of the rights of 
 the robber chiefs of early days. Population and wealth go back 
 ward, and the love of title grows with the growth of barbarism. * 
 Wars are now made on a larger scale, and greater " glory" is 
 acquired. In the midst of distant and highly fertile lands, occu 
 pied by a numerous population, are rich cities, whose people, 
 unused to arms, maybe robbed with impunity always an im 
 portant consideration to those with whom the pursuit of glory is 
 a trade. Provinces are laid waste, and the population is exter 
 minated ; or, if a few escape, they fly to the hills and mountains, 
 there to perish of famine. Peace follows, after years of destruc 
 tion, but the rich lands are overgrown ; the spades and axes, the 
 cattle and the sheep, are gone ; the houses are destroyed ; their 
 owners have ceased to exist ; and a long period of abstinence 
 from the work of desolation is required to regain the point from 
 which cultivation had been driven by men intent upon the grati 
 fication of their own selfish desires, at the cost of the welfare and 
 happiness of the people over whose destinies they have so unhap 
 pily ruled. Population grows again slowly, and wealth but little 
 more rapidly, for almost ceaseless wars have impaired the dispo 
 sition and the respect for honest labor while the necessity for 
 beginning once more the work of cultivation on the poor soils 
 
 * It is interesting to trace with each step in the progress of the decay of 
 the Roman Empire, the gradual increase in the magnificence of titles ; and 
 so again with the decline of modern Italy. In France, they became almost 
 universal as the wars of religion barbarized theipeople. The high-sounding 
 titles of the East are in keeping with the weakness of those by whom they 
 are assumed, as are the endless names of the Spanish grandee with the 
 poverty of the soil cultivated by his dependants. The time is probably 
 approaching when men of real dignity will reject the whole system as an 
 absurdity, and when small men alone will think themselves elevated by the 
 title of Esquire, Honorable, Baron, Marquis, or Duke. Extremes always 
 meet. The son of the duke rejoices in the possession of half a dozen Chris 
 tian names, and the little retailer of tea and sugar calls his daughter 
 Amanda Malvina Fitzallan Smith, or Pratt ; while the gentleman calls his 
 son Robert, or John. 
 
142 CHAPTER V. 2. 
 
 adds to the distaste for labor. Swords or muskets are now held 
 to be more honorable implements than spades and pickaxes ; and 
 the habit of union for any honest purpose being almost extinct, 
 thousands are ready, at any moment, to join in expeditions in 
 search of plunder. War thus feeds itself by producing poverty, 
 depopulation, and the abandonment of the most fertile soils ; 
 while peace also feeds itself by increasing the number of men and 
 the habit of association, because of the constantly increasing 
 power to draw supplies of food from the surface already occu 
 pied, as the almost boundless powers of the earth are developed 
 in the progress of population and of wealth. 
 
 2. The views above given are not in accordance with the 
 doctrine of Mr. Ricardo, yet, look where we may, there is fur 
 nished evidence of their truth. If to India, we may see the rich 
 soil everywhere relapsing into jungle, while its late occupant 
 starves among the forts of the hills. In hither Asia we see the 
 country washed by the Tigris and the Euphrates a land of 
 unbounded fertility, and one that in times long past maintained 
 the most powerful communities in the world now so utterly 
 abandoned, that Mr. Layard found himself compelled to seek the 
 land of the hills when he desired to find a people at home. 
 Hence it is that ague and fever, the constant concomitants of 
 wild and uncultivated lands, are found to be the universal 
 scourge of Eastern travel. 
 
 Coming west, we see the high lands of Armenia to be so 
 well occupied as to give occasion to the continued existence of 
 a city like that of Erzeroum ; while around the ancient Sinope 
 nothing is to be seen but forests of timber, whose gigantic size 
 affords proof conclusive of the fertile character of the soil in 
 which they grow. Passing farther west, and arriving in Con 
 stantinople, we find the great valley of Buyukdere once known 
 as "the fair land" totally abandoned, while the city is sup 
 plied with food for its daily consumption from the hills forty or 
 fifty miles distant ; and the picture there presented is but an 
 exhibition in miniature of the whole Turkish empire. The rich 
 lands of the Lower Danube, once the busy the atre of Roman life 
 and industry, furnish now but a miserable subsistence to a few 
 Servian swineherds and Wallachian peasants. Throughout the 
 
OP THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 143 
 
 Ionian Islands the richest lands, once in a state of high cultiva 
 tion, are now almost entirely abandoned ; and must so continue 
 until there can be again exhibited that habit of association which 
 enables man to combine with his fellow-man for the subjugation 
 of nature. 
 
 Coming now to Africa, we may trace the increase of that habit, 
 and the growth of that power, in the gradual descent of population 
 towards the Nile bringing into activity the rich lands of the 
 Delta ; and with their decline, the abandonment of those lands, 
 the filling up of the canals, and the concentration of the popula 
 tion on the higher and less productive soils. Passing thence to 
 the Roman province, we see the rich lands of the olden time 
 the plains of the Metidja, of Bona, and others almost, even 
 when not quite, abandoned ; while the yet remaining population 
 clusters around the mountains of the Atlas. Looking next to 
 Italy, we see a growing people subduing to cultivation the rich 
 lands of the Campagna and of Latium, to be again gradually 
 abandoned and now affording miserable subsistence to men, 
 many of whom go clothed in skins of beasts and whose number 
 but little exceeds that of the cities which once flourished there. 
 Passing north, we may see the rich lands of the Siennese repub 
 lic in cultivation until the sixteenth century, when the ferocious 
 Marignan drove to the hills the small remnant of the population 
 that escaped the sword and gave to the world a pestilential de 
 sert, in lieu of the highly cultivated farms that before abounded. 
 Farther north may be seen the destruction of the canals of Pisa 
 and the abandonment of its fertile soils, while its inhabitants 
 perish by pestilence within the city walls or transfer themselves 
 to the head of the Arno, to seek there the subsistence no longer 
 afforded by the richer lands near its mouth. 
 
 In France, in the days of the English wars, we see the lower 
 and richer countries ravaged by bands of fierce mountaineers 
 the wild Breton, the ferocious Gascon, and the mercenary Swiss 
 united for the plunder of the men who cultivated the more fertile 
 soils and driving them to seek refuge in the wild and savage 
 Brittany itself. We may see the richest lands of the kingdom 
 rendered utterly desolate la Beauce, one of its most fertile por 
 tions, becoming again a forest while from Picardyto the Rhine 
 not a house, unprotected by city walls, is left standing, nor a farm 
 
144 CHAPTER V. 3. 
 
 that is not stripped. In later times, Lorraine was reduced to a 
 desert and fine forests but recently stood where formerly the 
 richer soils yielded liberal returns to labor. Throughout France 
 we witness the effects of perpetual war, in the concentration of 
 the whole agricultural population in villages, at a distance from 
 the lands they cultivate there inhaling a foul atmosphere, and 
 losing half their time in transferring themselves, their rude 
 implements, and their products, to and from their little proper 
 ties ; whereas the same labor bestowed upon the land itself would 
 give to cultivation the richer soils. 
 
 3. Crossing the Atlantic, we find further evidence of the fact 
 that as population everywhere brings the food from the rich soils, 
 so depopulation everywhere drives men back to the poor ones. 
 In the days of Cortes, the valley of Mexico afforded food for a 
 numerous people, but it is now in a state of desolation its canals 
 choked up and its cultivation abandoned ; while, from the poorer 
 lands that border it, strings of mules bring, from a distance of fifty 
 miles, the provisions by which the people of the city are now 
 supplied. 
 
 Passing north and arriving in the United States, we find fur 
 ther illustration of the law, that to enable men to pass from the 
 cultivation of the poor to the rich lands there must be a growing 
 habit of association, consequent upon diversification in the modes 
 of employment, and development of their various individualities. 
 The State of Yirginia once stood at the head of the Union, but 
 the policy she has advocated has tended to the exhaustion of the 
 lands first cultivated and to the abandonment of her soil the con 
 sequences of which are seen in the constantly increasing unhealthi- 
 ness of the parts first occupied the lower counties of the State. 
 " The entire country," says a recent writer, "is full of the ruins 
 of gentlemen s mansions some of them palatial in size and 
 noble old churches, whose solid walls were built of imported 
 brick, but which could not hold the builders. And as for their 
 descendants," as he asks, "where are they? The splendor, 
 indeed, which filled all the counties of Lower Yirginia has 
 departed. Why ? Because the whole country is miasmatic, and 
 is suffered to remain so. It is dangerous for whites to spend the 
 sickly season there ; and all, accordingly, who can, abandon 
 
OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH. 145 
 
 their homes in August and September, to seek a more healthful 
 location. 
 
 " This miasmatic region covers all the sea-coast of Virginia, 
 North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, 
 Mississippi, and Louisiana, except occasionally an isolated spot ; 
 and extends inland from ten to a hundred miles. It is so bad in 
 the vicinity of Charleston, that it is death to sleep a single night 
 outside of the city ; and even riding across the infected district in 
 the night, on the railroad, has caused all the passengers to vomit 
 like a sea-sick company on shipboard." 
 
 As a consequence of this, Yirginia and Carolina are steadily 
 declining in their position in the Union ; and so must continue to 
 do, until increase in the power of association shall enable them to 
 cultivate their richest lands. Looking to Jamaica, we see the 
 same great fact as a result of the selfsame cause a recent return 
 of the property on the island showing that no less than 128 
 sugar estates have been totally, while 71 have been partially, 
 abandoned. If to these be added the coffee and other estates 
 wholly or partially so, the number amounts to 413 embracing 
 an area of more than four hundred thousand acres. 
 
 Abandonment of the soil by a portion of its inhabitants, brings 
 with it, necessarily, a diminution of the power of combination for 
 the maintenance of drains that are required for the preservation 
 of health and for the construction and support of roads ; and 
 as the burdens increase, the disposition to fly from the land is 
 seen augmenting from year to year. The purely agricultural 
 country must export raw produce and must exhaust its soil ; 
 and such export must bring with it a necessity for the export 
 of man followed by constant decline in the power of associa 
 tion, in the development of individuality, in the ability to main 
 tain commerce, and in the position of the community among the 
 communities of the world. That such is the case is proved by 
 the experience of all antiquity; and if we would see it fully 
 established in modern times, we have but to turn our eyes to 
 Portugal, Ireland, and Turkey in the Eastern hemisphere, and 
 Jamaica, Carolina, and Yirginia in the Western one. 
 
 Whenever population and wealth, and the consequent power 
 of combination, are permitted to increase, there arises a tendency 
 towards the abandonment of the poor lands first cultivated ; as is 
 
146 CHAPTER V. 3. 
 
 proved by the experience of France, England, Scotland, Sweden, 
 and several of our Northern States. Whenever, on the contrary, 
 population, wealth, and the power of association decline, it is the 
 rich soil that is abandoned by men who fly again to poor ones, in 
 hopes to find in their cultivation the means of subsistence for their 
 \ ^families and themselves. With every step in the former direc 
 tion, there is an increase in the value of man and a decline in 
 that of all the commodities required for his use, accompanied by 
 growing facility of accumulation ; whereas with every movement 
 in the latter one, he becomes more and more the slave of nature 
 and of his fellow-man, with constant increase in the value of com 
 modities, and as constant decline in his own. 
 
OF VALUE. 141 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OF VALUE. 
 
 1. WITH the growth of numbers and increase in the power 
 of association, man is everywhere seen passing from the cultiva 
 tion of the poor to that of the richer soils from being the slave 
 of nature towards becoming her absolute master, and compelling 
 her to do his bidding from a state of weakness towards one of 
 strength from being a mere creature of necessity towards 
 becoming a being of power from poverty to wealth and now 
 possessed of numerous objects to which he attaches the idea of 
 VALUE. Why he does so, and how he is accustomed to measure 
 value, we may now examine. 
 
 Our Crusoe, on his island, found himself surrounded by fruits, 
 flowers, and animals of various descriptions some of them more, 
 and others less, calculated to supply his wants ; but nearly all of 
 them beyond the reach of his unassisted forces. The hare and 
 the goat so far excelled him in speed, that he could have no hope 
 for success in the chase while dependent on his legs alone. The 
 bird could soar in the air, while he was chained to earth. The 
 fish could sink at once into the deep water, where, if he at 
 tempted to follow, he would surely perish ; and he might die of 
 hunger in the sight of endless quantities of the rnate^jals of food, 
 while the fly and the ant were rejoicing in the superabundance 
 of their supplies. The tree would furnish him with a house, had 
 he an axe with which to fell it ; or a saw with which to convert it 
 into planks. Destitute of these implements, he finds himself 
 compelled to occupy a hole in the earth, always damp and 
 always exposed to the wind ; while the humble-bee is enabled to 
 provide for herself the most perfect habitation. 
 
 Inferior to all other beings in the physical qualities required 
 for self-preservation and in the instinct which prompts them to 
 
148 CHAPTER VI. 1. 
 
 the use of the faculties with which they have been endowed he 
 is greatly their superior in the fact that he has been gifted with 
 intelligence to appreciate the natural forces by which he is sur 
 rounded ; and with a hand to enable him to carry into effect the 
 ideas suggested by his brain. If a stone can be made to strike 
 a bird, gravitation, as he sees, will bring the latter within his 
 reach. The elasticity of wood enables him, after repeated efforts, 
 to detach a branch from the tree, and next its qualities of weight 
 and hardness are brought into activity as he fells to the ground 
 wild animals of strength greatly superior to his own. Having 
 thus learned the existence of elasticity, he bends a piece of wood, 
 and next the tenacity of animal fibre is brought into action as he 
 converts it into a cord, by the help of which he completes a bow. 
 He makes a canoe, by aid of which he is enabled to float upon the 
 waters, and to pass from point to point in pursuit of game ; and 
 thus, step by step, he is seen obtaining power over various forces 
 always existing in nature, and waiting only his call to enlist 
 themselves in his service. With each he finds a diminution in 
 the labor required for enabling him to obtain the food, the cloth 
 ing, and the shelter by means of which his physical powers are 
 sustained and invigorated, while his mental ones become more 
 and more developed. 
 
 Working, in the early days of his sojourn on the island, with his 
 hands alone, he was compelled to depend upon the fruits spontane 
 ously yielded by the earth to obtain a sufficient supply of which 
 required almost unceasing exertion in wandering over extensive 
 surfaces of land. Obtaining occasionally a little animal food, he 
 attached to it a high degree of value knowing well how great 
 he had uniformly found to be the obstacles standing in the way 
 of its attainment and here it is we find the cause of the exist 
 ence in the human mind of the idea of value, which is simply our 
 estimate of the resistance to be overcome, before we can enter upon 
 v the possession of the thing desired. That resistance diminishes 
 with every increase in the power of man to command the always 
 gratuitous services of nature ; and hence it is that we see in all 
 advancing communities a steady increase in the value of labor 
 when measured by commodities, and decline in that of commodi 
 ties when measured by labor. 
 
 In the outset, vegetable food could be had in return for less 
 
OF VALUE. 149 
 
 exertion than was required for obtaining animal food ; but 
 with the possession of the bow a supply of meat can now be 
 obtained with less effort than would be required for one of fruit. 
 At once there is a change of value birds and rabbits falling as 
 compared with fruits, and the latter rising as compared with the 
 former. Fish, however, are still unattainable, although abound- 
 * ing in the sea around him ; and he would give, perhaps, half a 
 dozen rabbits for a single perch. His inventive faculties are now 
 stimulated by the desire for change of diet, while the increased 
 facility of obtaining supplies of food enables him to devote more 
 time to the improvement of machinery by help of which to com 
 mand the services of nature. Converting a bone into a hook, he 
 attaches it to a cord similar to the one he had used in making a 
 bow, and is now enabled to obtain fish at even less- cost of labor 
 than would be required for similar supplies of other kinds of food. 
 At once the former declines in value as compared with the latter, 
 and the latter rises as compared with the former ; but man rises 
 in value as compared with all, because of the command he has 
 obtained over the various natural forces. At first, his whole day 
 had scarcely sufficed to afford indifferent supplies of the least nou 
 rishing food ; but now, aided by nature, he obtains it in abun 
 dance, and at the cost of only half his time leaving him the 
 remainder to be applied to the making of clothing, the improve 
 ment of his habitation, and the preparation of machinery required 
 for further enlargement of his powers. 
 
 With every step in this direction, there is a diminution in the 
 value of all previously accumulated machinery, because of the 
 steady diminution in the cost of reproduction, as nature is more 
 and more forced to labor in the service of man. In the outset, it 
 was with difficulty he could obtain a cord with which to make a 
 bow but now the bow itself enables him readily to obtain birds 
 and rabbits that furnish him with cords to a greater extent than 
 are required for his purposes ; and thus is the bow itself a cause 
 of depreciation in its own value. So it is everywhere. The coal 
 enables us more readily to obtain supplies of iron ore, with dimi 
 nution in the value of iron ; and the iron enables us to obtain 
 larger supplies of coal, with constant decline in the value of fuel, 
 and increase in the value of man. 
 
 Profiting by his leisure, Crusoe now avails himself of the service? 
 
150 CHAPTER VI. 1. 
 
 of the canoe to extend his knowledge of the coast, and in one of his 
 expeditions discovers on a distant part of the island another per 
 son similarly situated ; except that in some directions he has 
 acquired more, and in others less, power over nature than him 
 self. The latter has no boat, but his arrows are better, as he has 
 been enabled to avail himself of the weight and hardness of the 
 flint with which he arms them ; and can, therefore, kill more birds 
 or rabbits in a day than Crusoe could do in a week. Their value 
 in his eyes is, therefore, less, but that of fish is far greater, because 
 of the greater difficulties to be overcome before a supply can be 
 obtained. Here we have the circumstances preliminary to the 
 establishment of a system of exchanges. The first could obtain 
 more meat in a day, by the indirect process of catching fish to be 
 exchanged with his neighbor, than he could in a week with his inef 
 ficient bow and arrows ; and the second could obtain more fish by 
 the devotion of a day to the shooting of birds than he could in a 
 month while deprived of the hook and line ; and by the process 
 of exchange the labor of both may be rendered more productive. 
 Each, however seeking to give day s labor for day s labor 
 refuses to permit the other to obtain a greater amount of 
 service than he gives in return. The one has fish of various 
 kinds some requiring more and others less time to capture them 
 and he values each in reference to the resistance he has had 
 to overcome in obtaining it ; for which reason he regards a single 
 rockfish as the equivalent of half a dozen perch. The other has 
 animal food of various kinds ; and he, in like manner, regards a 
 turkey as the equivalent of half a dozen rabbits. Yalue in 
 exchange is, therefore, determined by precisely the same rules that 
 had governed each of the parties when working by himself. 
 
 What, now, is their position as compared with that in which 
 they previously had been ? Both have profited by calling to their 
 aid certain natural forces, by help of which their labor has been 
 lightened while its results have largely increased ; and the whole 
 of that increase they have retained for themselves nature asking 
 no compensation for her services. Again ; both having profited 
 by their power to combine their efforts for the improvement of 
 their common condition, each is now enabled to devote himself 
 with less interruption to the particular pursuits for which he finds 
 himself most fitted with steady tendency to increase in the return 
 
or VALUE. 151 
 
 to labor as individuality becomes more and more developed. 
 With both there is an increase in the time that may be appropri 
 ated to the improvement of machinery to be used in aid of further 
 production ; and thus does every step towards obtaining the com 
 mand of nature prove to be merely the precursor of a new and 
 greater one. Had our islander, instead of finding a neighbor, 
 been so fortunate as to obtain a wife, a similar system of exchange 
 would have been established. He would follow the chase, and she 
 would cook the meat and convert the skins into clothing. He 
 would raise the flax, and she would convert it into cloth. The 
 family becoming numerous, one would cultivate the earth, while a 
 second would supply the animal food necessary for their support ; 
 and a third would be engaged in the management of the house 
 hold, in the preparation of food, and in the manufacture of cloth 
 ing. Here would be a system of exchanges as complete, so far as 
 it went, as that of the largest city. 
 
 2. The idea of comparison is inseparably connected with 
 that of value. We estimate a deer as worth the labor of a 
 week, and a hare at that of a day ; i. e. we should be willing to 
 give that quantity of labor for them. The sole inhabitant of 
 an island has thus his system of exchange established, with a 
 measure of value precisely similar to that in use among the vari 
 ous members of a large community. When joined by another 
 person, exchanges arise between them, and are governed by the 
 same laws as when performed among nations whose numbers 
 count by millions. 
 
 In measuring value, the first and most natural idea is to com 
 pare the commodities produced with the resistance that has been 
 required to be overcome in order that they might be obtained 
 or in other words, with the labor of body and mind that has been 
 given for them. In exchanging, the most obvious mode is to give 
 labor for labor. The land of A yields more fruit than he can 
 use, and that of B more potatoes. Neither possesses any value 
 in its present state, and either party may appropriate the one or 
 the other, at his pleasure. It being most convenient for each to 
 gather that which is nearest to him, each is willing that the other 
 should thus work for him, receiving work in return. Each, how 
 ever, desiring to have as large a quantity as he could himself 
 
152 CHAPTER VI. 2. 
 
 obtain with the same amount of effort, watches carefully that he 
 does not give more labor than he receives. 
 
 Our colonists, having thus established between them a system 
 of exchanges, desire, of course, to obtain the best aids to labor 
 that are within their reach ; and it soon becomes obvious to them 
 that in the clearing of lands, the building of houses, and in almost 
 every species of employment, they would be greatly assisted by 
 the possession of an axe, or some species of cutting instrument. 
 Having no iron, they are compelled to avail themselves of such 
 substitute as is at their command flint or other hard stone ; 
 and of this they at length succeed in making an instrument, 
 which, though very rude, so materially aids their operations, 
 that they now build a house in half the time that had been 
 required to construct the first. This produces an immediate 
 change in the value of all previously existing articles in the 
 production of which an axe can be of service. The boat that 
 had cost the labor of a whole year can now be reproduced in half 
 that time ; and as much fuel as had cost a fortnight s labor can 
 now be cut in a week. No further improvement having yet taken 
 place in the mode of taking deer or fish, their value, in labor, 
 remains unchanged. If, now, one of the parties has more fish 
 than he requires, while the other has a surplus of fuel, the latter 
 is required to give twice as much as he would have done before 
 the axes were made ; because he can now reproduce that quantity 
 with the same amount of effort that previously would have been 
 required for half of it. 
 
 All previously existing accumulations, in the form of houses, 
 boats, or fuel, now exchange for only the quantity of labor 
 required for their reproduction, so that the acquisition of the axe 
 by means of which they had been enabled to command the ser 
 vices of nature has increased the value of labor when estimated 
 in houses or fuel, and lessened the value of houses and fuel when 
 estimated in labor. The cost of production has ceased to be the 
 measure of value, the cost at which they can be reproduced hav 
 ing fallen. The fall, however, having been occasioned by the 
 improvement in the means of applying labor, the present values 
 will continue until further changes are effected. The more slowly 
 such improvements are made, the more steady is the value of 
 property as compared with labor ; and the more rapidly they are 
 
OP VALUE. 153 
 
 made, the more rapid is the growth of the power of accumulation, 
 and the decline in the value of all existing machinery when mea 
 sured by labor. 
 
 In this state of things, let us suppose a vessel to arrive, the 
 master of which desires supplies of fruit, fish, or meat, for which 
 he offers axes, or muskets, in exchange. Our colonists, valuing the 
 commodities they have to part with by the amount of labor they 
 have cost to produce, or by the quantity necessary for their repro 
 duction the fruit at less than potatoes, and hares and rabbits at 
 less than deer will not give the produce of five days labor in 
 venison, if they can obtain what they require for potatoes that 
 could be obtained in exchange for that of four. 
 
 In estimating the value of the commodities offered to them in 
 exchange, they will pursue a course exactly similar measuring 
 the amount of difficulty standing in the way of obtaining them by 
 any other process. It has cost them the labor of months to make 
 a rude axe, and if they can obtain a good one at similar cost, it 
 will be more advantageous to do so than to employ the same 
 time in the production of another similar to the one they already 
 have. Such instruments, however, they can make for themselves 
 but muskets they cannot ; and they will attach more value to 
 the possession of a single musket, than to that of several axes. 
 They might give the provisions obtained by the labor of several 
 months for the one ; but they would be willing to give all the 
 accumulations of a year for the other. 
 
 Let us suppose that each is enabled to supply himself with a 
 musket and an axe, and examine the effect. Both parties being 
 exactly equal each possessing the same machinery their labor 
 would be of equal value, and the average produce of a day of 
 the one would continue to exchange for that of a day of the other. 
 
 The house that had cost, at first, the labor of a year, could be 
 reproduced, with the assistance of the first rude axe, by that of 
 half a year ; but a similar one might now be built in a month. It 
 is, however, so inferior to those that can now be constructed, that 
 it is abandoned, and ceases to have any value whatsoever. It 
 will not, perhaps, command the efforts of a single day. The first 
 axe in like manner declines in value. The increased capital of 
 the community has thus been attended with a diminution in the 
 value of all that had been accumulated previously to the ship s 
 
 VOL. I. 11 
 
154 CHAPTER VI. 2. 
 
 arrival ; while that of labor, as compared with houses, has risen 
 two months now providing shelter vastly superior to that which 
 had been at first obtained in exchange for that of twelve. 
 
 The value of the provisions that had been accumulated expe 
 riences a similar fall. A week s labor of a man armed with a 
 musket is more productive of venison than that of months with 
 out its aid ; and the value of the existing stock is measured by 
 the effort required for its reproduction and not by what its pro 
 duction had cost. Labor being now aided by intellect, a smaller 
 quantity of muscular exertion is required for the production of a 
 given effect. 
 
 In mere brute force, a man is equal to the traction of 200 
 pounds at an uniform rate of four miles an hour whereas a horse 
 can draw 1800 at a similar rate ; and, therefore, of men unaided 
 by intellect it requires no less than nine to equal a single horse. 
 Intelligence, however, enables him to master the horse ; and now, 
 adding the powers of the latter to his own, he can move ten times 
 as great a weight, while the quantity of labor required for obtain 
 ing food to keep in operation this increased amount of muscular 
 effort is not even doubled. With further knowledge he obtains 
 the command of the wonderful power of steam ; and now, with 
 the help of half a dozen men to furnish fuel, he controls a power 
 equal to hundreds of horses, or thousands of men. The force by 
 which this labor is accomplished, is in THE MAN ; and, as that 
 force is brought to bear upon the matter by which he is sur 
 rounded, the value of his labors is increased, with constant 
 increase in his power of further progress. The master of the 
 vessel obtained for an axe, produced by a mechanic in a single 
 day, provisions that had required months for their collection and 
 preservation, because the labors of the mechanic had been aided 
 by intelligence ; whereas the poor and lonely settlers were, almost 
 altogether, dependent upon that quality in which they were excelled 
 by the horse and many other animals mere brute force. 
 
 Throughout the operations of the world the result is the same. 
 The savage gives skins, the product of many months of exertion, 
 for a few beads, a knife, a musket, and a little powder. The peo 
 ple of Poland give wheat, produced by the labor of months, for 
 clothing produced by that of a few days, assisted by capital in 
 the form of machinery, and the intellect required to guide it. 
 
OF VALUE. 155 
 
 Those of India give a year s labor for as much clothing or provi 
 sions as could be had in the United States for that of a month. 
 The people of Italy give a year s exertions for less than those of 
 England obtain in half a year. The mechanic, aided by his 
 knowledge of his trade, obtains in a single week as much as the 
 laborer can earn in two ; and the dealer in merchandise, who has 
 devoted his time to obtaining a thorough knowledge of his busi 
 ness, gains in a month as much as his neighbor, less skilled in it, 
 can do in a year. 
 
 In order that quantity of labor may be a measure of value, 
 there must be an equal power to command the services of nature. 
 The product of two carpenters in New York or Philadelphia can 
 generally be exchanged for that of two masons ; and that of two 
 shoemakers will not vary much in value from that of two tailors. 
 The time of a laborer in Boston is nearly equal in value to that 
 of another in Pittsburg, Cincinnati, or St. Louis ; but it will not 
 be given for that of a laborer in Paris or Havre the latter 
 not being aided to the same extent by machinery, and being 
 therefore more dependent on mere brute force. The value of 
 labor, as compared with that of the commodities required for man s 
 support, varies to a small extent in the various portions of 
 France, as is the case with that of the different parts of England 
 and of India ; but between the man of Paris and his competitor 
 of Sedan, or Lille, the variation is trifling, compared with that 
 which exists between a workman in any part of France, and one 
 in the United States. The circumstances which affect the power 
 of man over nature in Paris and Lille are, in a great measure, 
 common to all the people of France ; as are those which affect 
 that of a workman in Philadelphia to all the people of the Union. 
 Here we find the same effect at the same time, but at different 
 places, that has before been shown to be produced at the same 
 place, but at different times. The improved machinery of our 
 colonists having increased their powers, their third year was more 
 valuable than that of the two previous ones had been ; and in like 
 manner a single year s labor in the United States is worth more 
 than that of two in France. Labor grows in value in the direct 
 ratio of the substitution of mental for muscular force of the 
 peculiar qualities by which man is distinguished from the animal, 
 for those which he possesses in common with so many animals ; 
 
156 CHAPTER VI. 3. 
 
 and in the same precise ratio does the value of all commodities 
 decline. 
 
 3. The house and the axe, the capital that had been accu 
 mulated, fell in value when, by the aid of improved implements, 
 labor had been rendered more productive the necessary conse 
 quence of an increased facility of accumulation. With every step 
 in this direction, the laborer finds an increase in the reward for 
 bodily or mental exertion, as is seen in the fact that the clothing 
 which, half a century since, would have purchased the labor of 
 weeks, could not now command that of as many days. Half a 
 century since, a steam-engine would have required the labor of a 
 life to pay for it, but at present it could be exchanged for that of 
 very few years of a common workman of the United States. In 
 fact, like the house first built by the settler, so great would be 
 found its inferiority to those now produced, that a purchaser at 
 any price whatsoever could with difficulty be found. 
 
 The value of commodities or machinery at the time of produc 
 tion is measured by the quantity and quality of labor required to 
 produce them. Every improvement in the mode of production 
 tends to increase the power of labor, and to diminish the quantity 
 required for the reproduction of similar articles. With every such 
 improvement there is a diminution in the quantity that can be 
 obtained in exchange for those previously existing ; and because 
 no commodity can be exchanged for more labor than is required 
 for its reproduction. In every community in which population 
 and wealth increase, such changes are taking place, and each 
 is seen to be but preparatory to new and greater ones, with 
 constantly increasing tendency to decline in the labor value of 
 existing commodities, or machines, that have been accumulated. 
 The longer, therefore, that any one, in the mode of producing 
 which improvements have been made, has been in existence even 
 where there has been no change in its powers from use the 
 smaller is the proportion which its present value bears to that 
 which it originally possessed. 
 
 The silver produced in the fourteenth century was exchanged 
 for labor at the rate of sevenpence halfpenny for that of a week. 
 Since that time it has steadily diminished in its power of com 
 manding the services of men, until, at the present time, twelve or 
 
OF VALUE. 157 
 
 fifteen shillings are required to obtain as much of them as, five 
 centuries, since could be had for *l^d. The various persons 
 through whose hands has passed the silver that existed in the 
 fourteenth century, have thus experienced a constant depreciation 
 in the quantity of labor that their capital would command. An axe 
 made fifty years since, of equal quality with the best of the present 
 time and which had remained unused would not now exchange 
 for half as much as it would have done on the day of its production. 
 
 4. Diminution in the value of capital is attended by a dimi 
 nution in the proportion of the product of labor given for its use 
 by those who, unable to purchase, desire to hire it. Had the 
 first axe been the exclusive property of one of our colonists, he 
 would have demanded more than half of the wood that could be 
 cut, in return for granting the loan of it. Although it had cost 
 him a vast amount of labor, it would do but little work ; and 
 large as was the proportion of its product he was thus enabled 
 to demand, the quantity that he would receive would still be very 
 small. His neighbor, on the other hand, would find it far 
 more to his advantage to give three-fourths of the product of 
 his labor for the use of the axe, than to continue to depend on his 
 hands alone ; as with it he could fell more trees in a day than 
 without it he could do in a month. The arrival of the ship 
 having given them better axes at smaller cost, neither would 
 now give for their use so large a proportion as he would before 
 have done. The man who, fifty years since, desired the use of 
 such an instrument for a year, would have given the labor of 
 far more days, than he would now, when by that of a single day 
 he might become the owner of one of greatly superior power. 
 When A possessed the only house in the settlement, he could 
 have demanded of B, for permission to use it for any given time, 
 a much larger number of days labor than B would be willing to 
 give, when the possession of an axe enabled him to construct a 
 similar one in a month. At the time that a week s labor would 
 command only ^d. of silver, the owner of a pound of that metal 
 could demand a much larger proportion in return for its use, than 
 can now be done, when the laborer obtains that quantity by the 
 exertions of little more than a fortnight. Every improvement by 
 which production is aided, is attended not only by a reduction in 
 
158 CHAPTER VI. 5. 
 
 the labor value of previously existing machinery; but, also, by a 
 diminution in the proportion of the product of labor that can 
 be demanded in return for granting the use of it. 
 
 The more perfect the power of association, and the greater the 
 motion of society, the greater must be the tendency towards the 
 development of individuality, the more rapid the increase of pro 
 duction, the greater the facility of accumulation, the greater the 
 tendency to decline in the value of all existing accumulations and 
 the smaller the proportion of the products of labor that can be 
 claimed in return for their use. In order that association may 
 increase, there must, as the reader has seen, be difference; and 
 that results from diversity of employments. The greater that 
 diversity, the more rapid must be the growth of the power of 
 accumulation, the greater the tendency to diminution in the pro 
 portion of the capitalist and increase in that of the laborer, and 
 the greater the tendency to decline in the rate of rent, profit, or 
 interest. In all the purely agricultural countries of the world, 
 the rate of these is high ; and it tends to increase because of dimi 
 nution in the power of accumulation, consequent upon exhaus 
 tion of the soil being precisely the reverse of what is observed 
 in all those countries in which diversity of employment is increas 
 ing and individuality is becoming more and more developed. 
 
 Value is the measure of the resistance to be overcome in obtaining 
 those commodities or things required for our purposes of the power 
 of nature over man. The great object -of MAN, in this world, 
 is to acquire dominion over NATURE compelling her to do his 
 work ; and with every step in that direction labor becomes less 
 severe while increasing in its reward. With each, the accumula 
 tions of the past become less valuable with constant decline in 
 their power to command the services of the laborers of the pre 
 sent. With each, the power of association grows with constant 
 increase in the tendency to the development of the various facul 
 ties of the individual man, and equally constant increase in the 
 power of further progress ; and thus it is, that while combination 
 of action enables man to overcome the resistance of nature, each 
 successive triumph is attended by increased facility for further 
 combinations, to be followed by new and greater triumphs. 
 
 5. The reader who desires now to verify for himself the cor- 
 
OF VALUE. 159 
 
 rectness of the views thus far presented to him, may readily do 
 so without leaving the room in which he sits. Let him com 
 mence by looking around him, and seeing what are the things 
 to which he attaches the idea of value. Doing this, he finds that 
 among them is not included the air that he is constantly inhal 
 ing, and without which he could not live. Reading by day, he 
 finds that he attaches no value to the light ; nor, if it is summer 
 time, does he value the heat. If it is by night that he reads, he 
 attaches value to the gas that affords him light ; and if it is win 
 ter, to the coal or wood by whose combustion he is warmed. 
 Inquiring next, why it is that he attaches that idea to one and 
 not to the other, he finds that it is because the first is gratuitously 
 supplied by nature, in abundant quantity, and at the place and 
 time at which it is needed ; whereas, to obtain the last, there is 
 required a certain amount of human labor. Coal is supplied by 
 nature in unlimited quantity, and as gratuitously as the air, but 
 some effort is needed to place it at the spot at which it is to be 
 consumed. The materials of which candles are made are as 
 abundantly supplied but to change them in form and place so as 
 to make them fit to supply the wants of man, requires a certain 
 quantity of labor ; and it is because of the necessity for overcom 
 ing the obstacle impeding the gratification of our desires, that we 
 value the coal and the candle, while attaching no value whatever 
 to the light of day, or to the heat of summer. 
 
 Asking himself, next, how much is the value he attaches to the 
 chair on which he sits, the table at which he writes, the book he 
 reads, or the pen with which he writes ; he finds that it is limited 
 by the cost of reproduction and that the greater the time which 
 has elapsed since they were made, the greater has been the decline 
 in their value below the cost of production. The pen, just now 
 produced, can be replaced only by the expenditure of the same 
 amount of labor that has been required for its production ; and its 
 value is unchanged. The chair and the table, now perhaps ten 
 years old, have fallen much below their original value ; because, in 
 that time machinery has^ been invented by which steam has been 
 applied in various processes connected with the manufacture of 
 such commodities ; which, therefore, have declined in value as 
 compared with labor, while labor has risen as compared with them. 
 The book he reads is. perhaps, still older, and since it was printed 
 
160 CHAPTER VI. 5. 
 
 there have been many improvements in the manufacture tending 
 greatly to diminish the quantity of human effort required for its 
 reproduction. The chemist has furnished bleaching powders by 
 help of which the color of the paper has been improved. The 
 railroad, by diminishing friction, has lessened the cost of trans 
 porting rags and paper. The power of steam has superseded the 
 labor of the human arm, and has enabled the papermaker to turn 
 out from within the same walls as many reams, as before he could 
 manufacture quires. Steam, again, aids in converting metal into 
 types ; and the steam-press, that yields thousands of sheets per 
 hour, has superseded the hand-press that yielded only hundreds. 
 With every such increase in the mastery over nature acquired by 
 man, there has been a decline in the value of existing books as 
 measured by labor, and an increase in the value of labor as com 
 pared with books as the reader may readily satisfy himself by 
 looking around his library and comparing the value he now 
 attaches to standard works that are constantly being reproduced, 
 with that in which he had held them ten or twenty years before. 
 A copy of the Bible, of Milton, or of Shakspeare, can now be 
 obtained for the labor of a single day of a skilled workman, bet 
 ter in quality than could, half a century since, have been obtained 
 in return for that of a week ; the necessary consequence of which 
 has been a decline in the value of all existing copies of such 
 works, whether in private libraries or in the hands of booksellers 
 the cost of reproduction being the limit beyond which value cannot 
 extend.* 
 
 Again, of the books in his possession all those that were bound 
 forty years since, are in leather ; whereas of the recent ones nearly 
 all are probably in cloth. In the earlier period, cotton cloth 
 required for its production a large amount of human labor, and 
 
 * Why, it may be asked, is it that a copy of the Valdarfer Boccacio sells 
 for thousands of guineas, being probably a thousand times more than the 
 price it had at first commanded? In answer, the real value of the book 
 is to be found in the pleasure or instruction to be derived from its perusal ; 
 and that is now obtainable at a tenth of the cost of labor required in the 
 early days of the printing art. All such values as that above referred to, 
 are as purely imaginary, and as dependent upon fashion, as were some of 
 those of Holland in the days of the tulipomania. Value is limited by the 
 cost of reproduction ; and where a commodity cannot be reproduced, as in 
 the case of the Boccacio, or in those of pictures by Guido, or sculptures by 
 Phidias, its value has no limit but in the fancy of those who desire to pos 
 sess it, and have the ability to pay for it. 
 
OF VALUE. 161 
 
 its value was great so much so that twelve or fifteen yards were 
 all that the laborer could purchase by the efforts of a week. 
 Since then, however, various natural forces have been brought to 
 aid the efforts of the clothmaker steam having superseded the 
 fingers that before had spun the wool, and the arms that before 
 had woven the cloth ; while the chemist has done the same by the 
 light of the sun, and has enabled the bleacher to accomplish in an 
 hour what before had required the labor of a week ; and the con 
 sequence of this increased power over nature has been, that a yard 
 of cloth that half a century since would have been a sufficient 
 compensation for the labor of half a day, may now be had in 
 return for that of an hour. The trader who may have re 
 tained on his shelves a piece of cloth made half a century since, 
 must have found it steadily declining in value, with the reduc 
 tion of the cost at which it could be reproduced. Let him con 
 tinue to retain it, and, as new powers are impressed into the ser 
 vice of man, he may witness its further fall, until he will estimate 
 it as being only the equivalent of a fiftieth part of the labor for 
 which it would originally have paid. The utility of cotton has 
 greatly increased, but the value of cotton cloth has as greatly 
 diminished ; and all because nature, who works gratuitously, has 
 from year to year been more and more made to do what previously 
 was performed by human labor requiring a constant supply of 
 food and clothing to keep the machine in order for doing the work. 
 
 6. "Labor," says Adam Smith, "was the first price, the 
 original purchase-money paid for all things ;" and it constitutes in 
 his opinion " the ultimate and real standard " by which their 
 values can be "estimated and compared."* Comparing, then, 
 the price paid with the commodity obtained, labor would be, 
 according to this authority, the standard of value for things of 
 every description ; whether the cultivated land itself, or the com 
 modities obtained in return for the Jabor given to its cultivation. 
 In another place, however, he tells his readers that the price paid 
 for the use of land " is not at all proportioned to what the land 
 lord may have laid out upon the improvement of the land, or to 
 what he can afford to take, but to what the former can afford to 
 give," and "is naturally a monopoly price." We have here a 
 * Wealth of Nations, book 1, chap. v. 
 
162 CHAPTER VI. 6. 
 
 cause of value in land additional to the labor expended upon it, 
 or for its benefit ; and thus does he establish for it a law entirely dif 
 ferent from that propounded as the cause of value in " all things." 
 Mr. McCulloch informs his readers that "labor is the only 
 source of wealth ;" and that "neither water, leaves, skins, nor any 
 of the spontaneous productions of nature, has any value, except 
 what it owes to the labor required for its appropriation." "Na 
 tural powers may, however," as he continues, "be appropriated 
 
 * or engrossed by one or more individuals, to the exclusion of oth- 
 , ers, and those by whom they are so engrossed may exact a price 
 for their services ; but does that," he inquires, "show that these 
 services cost these engrossers anything ? If A has a waterfall on 
 his estate he may probably get a rent for it. It is plain, however, 
 that the work performed by the waterfall is as completely gratui 
 tous as that which is performed by the wind that acts on the 
 blades of a windmill. The only difference between them consists 
 in this : that all individuals having it in their power to avail them 
 selves of the services of the wind, no one can intercept the bounty 
 of nature, and exact a price for that which she freely bestows ; 
 whereas A, by appropriating the waterfall, and, consequently, 
 acquiring a command over it, has it in his power to prevent its 
 being used, or to sell its services."* 
 
 We have here the same contradiction already exhibited as exist 
 ing in the Wealth of Nations. Labor is, we are assured, the only 
 
 v source of wealth the only cause of value ; and yet, the chief item 
 among the values of the world is found in the hands of those per 
 sons who, according to our author, "intercept the bounty of 
 nature, and exact a price for that which she freely bestows" and 
 that price they are enabled to demand because of having been 
 enabled to " acquire a command " over certain natural forces, and 
 to prevent them from being used by any who are unwilling to pay 
 their owner "for their services." There are ; thus, according to 
 both of these authorities, two. causes of value > k,bpr and mono 
 poly the first standing alone as regards all "the spontaneous 
 productions of nature;" and the two being combined in reference 
 to land, the great source of all production. 
 
 In like manner, Mr. Ricardo assures nis readers that the price 
 paid for the use of land is to be divided into two portions : first, 
 * Principles of Political Economy, part 1, chap. i. 
 
OF VALUE. 163 
 
 that which may be demanded in return for the labor which has 
 been " employed in ameliorating the quality of the land, and in 
 erecting such buildings as are necessary to secure and preserve 
 the produce;" and, second, "that which is paid to the landlord 
 for the use of original and indestructible powers of the soil" 
 which latter is so much additional to what could be demanded in 
 return for the use of any other of the various instruments of pro 
 duction. 
 
 Mr. J. B. Say informs us that 
 
 " The earth is not the only material agent with productive 
 power, but it is the only one, or nearly so, that can be appropri 
 ated. The water of rivers and of the sea, which supplies us with 
 fish, gives motion to our mills, and supports our vessels, has pro 
 ductive powers. The wind gives us force, and the sun heat, but 
 happily no man can say, The wind and the sun belong to me, 
 and I will be paid for their services. "* 
 
 Mr. Senior, on the contrary, insists that air and sunshine, the 
 waters of the river and the sea, "the land and all its attributes," 
 are equally susceptible of appropriation, f In order, in his view, 
 that a commodity may have value in the eyes of men, it is required 
 that it shall be useful, susceptible of appropriation, and of course 
 transferable, and limited in supply -all_of which qualities are, as 
 he supposes, possessed by land, the owners of which are there 
 fore enabled to charge monopoly prices for its use. 
 
 Mr. Mill says, that the rent of land is a "price paid for a 
 natural agency;" that no such price is paid in manufactures; 
 that the reason why the use of land bears a price is simply the 
 limitation of its quantity ; and that if air, heat, electricity, 
 chemical agencies, and the other powers of nature employed by 
 manufacturers were sparingly supplied, and could, like land, be 
 engrossed and appropriated, a rent would be exacted for them 
 also." Here again we have a monopoly value additional to the 
 price that could be demanded by the owner, as compensation for 
 the labor bestowed upon, or for the benefit of, the land. 
 
 The reader has seen that of those portions of the earth which 
 man converts into bows and arrows, canoes, ships, houses, books, 
 cloth, or steam-engines, the value is determined by the cjist of 
 reproduction that that, in all advancing communities, is less^ 
 
 * j-lcon. Pol., liv. 2, clm}>. ix, f Outlines of Polit. Econ., p. 131. 
 
164 CHAPTER VI. 6. 
 
 than the cost of production and that the decline in the former V^v 
 \ below the latter is always most rapid when (population and the 
 J consequent power of association increase most rapidly}) When, 
 however, we look to those portions of it which he uses for the 
 purposes of cultivation, we find, according to all these writers, a 
 law directly the opposite of all this the value of land being equal 
 to the cost of producing it in its existing form, phis the value of 
 \a monopoly power increasing with the growth of numbers, and 
 most rapidly when the growth of population and of the power of 
 association is most rapid. 
 
 To admit the correctness of this view, would be to admit that 
 while the clay through which the farmer guided his plough was 
 subjected to one set of laws, it became the subject of other and 
 directly opposite ones, so soon as it had passed tyirough the pot 
 ter s hands, and had been converted into china or earthenware 
 that there was no such thing as universality in the laws that govern 
 matter and, consequently, that the great Architect of the uni 
 verse has given us a system abounding in discords ; and in the 
 working of which we could look for no approach to harmony. 
 Whether or not this really is so, is to be determined by an exami 
 nation of the facts of the case, as exhibited in the value of land 
 compared with the labor that would now be required for its 
 reproduction in its existing form. Should that result in proving 
 the firmer to be greater than the latter, then the doctrine of all 
 these writers must be admitted to be correct; but, should it 
 prove that land will nowhere exchange for as much labor as 
 would be required for such reproduction, it will then have to 
 be admitted that value is, in all and every case, but a mea 
 sure of the amount of physical and mental effort required to 
 overcome the obstacles standing in the way of the accomplish 
 ment of our desires that the price charged for the use of land 
 is, like that charged for the use of all other commodities and 
 things, but compensation for the accumulations resulting from the 
 labors of the past that that price tends everywhere to diminish 
 in its proportion to the product obtained by help of the machine 
 and, that there is but*, one system of laws for the government of 
 all matter, let the form in which it exists be what it may. 
 
 Twelve years since, the annual value of the land and of the 
 mines of Great Britain, including therein the share of the Church, 
 
OF VALUE. 165 
 
 was estimated by Sir Robert Peel at 41,800,000 which, at 
 twenty-five years purchase, would give a principal sum of nearly 
 twelve hundred millions of pounds. Estimating the wages of 
 laborers, miners, mechanics, and those by whom their labors are 
 directed, at 50 pounds per annum each, the land would, then, 
 represent the labors of twenty-four millions of men for a single 
 year ; or of one million for twenty-four years. 
 
 Let us now suppose the island reduced to the state in which it 
 was found by Caesar ; covered with impenetrable woods, (the tim 
 ber of which is of no value because of its superabundance,) and 
 abounding in marshes and swamps, heaths and sandy wastes ; 
 and then estimate the quantity of labor that would be required to 
 place it in its present position, with its lands cleared, levelled, 
 enclosed, and drained ; with its turnpikes and railroads, its 
 churches, school-houses, colleges, court-houses, market-houses, 
 furnaces, and forges ; its coal, iron, and copper mines, and the 
 thousands and tens of thousands of other improvements required 
 for bringing into activity those powers for the use of which rent 
 is paid ; and it will be found that it would require the labor of 
 millions of men fojr_centuries^even although provided with all the 
 machinery of modern times the best axe and the best plough, 
 the steam-engine, the railway, and its locomotive. 
 
 The same thing may now be exhibited on a smaller scale. A 
 part of South Lancashire, the forest and chase of Rossertdale, 
 embracing an area of twenty-four square miles, contained eighty 
 souls at the beginning of the sixteenth century ; and the rental, 
 in the time of James I., little more than two centuries since, 
 amounted to 122 13s. 8d. It has now a population of eighty- 
 one thousand; and the annual rental is 50,000, equivalent, at 
 twenty-five years purchase, to 1,250,000. Without having 
 seen this land, there can be no hesitation in saying, that if it were 
 now given to Baron Rothschild in the state in which it existed in 
 the days of James, with a bounty equal to its value on condi 
 tion of doing with the timber the same that had been done with 
 that which then stood upon the ground he binding himself to 
 give to the property the same advantages as those for which rent 
 is now paid ; his private fortune would be expended in addition 
 to the bounty long before the work had been half completed. 
 The amount received as rent is interest upon the value of labor 
 
166 CHAPTER VI. 6 . 
 
 expended, WUMMS the differerence between the productive power 
 of Rossendale and that of the newer soils which can now be 
 brought into activity by the application of the same labor that 
 has been there given to the work. tdUjj&us^+***t- iJbLiu J 
 
 The cash value of farms in the State of New York was returned 
 by the marshal, under the last census, at $554,000,000 ; and add 
 ing thereto the value of roads, buildings, and other works of im 
 provement, we shall obtain a sum probably double in amount 
 or the equivalent of the labor of a million of men working three 
 hundred days in the year, for four years and receiving a dollar a 
 day for their labor. Were the land restored to the condition in 
 which it stood in the days of Hendrick Hudson, and presented 
 in free gift to an association of the greatest capitalists of Europe, 
 with a bonus in money equal to its present value, their private 
 fortunes and the bonus would be found to be exhausted before the 
 existing improvements had been, even to the extent of one-fifth, 
 executed. 
 
 The farming land of Pennsylvania was returned, under the census, 
 at $403,000,000, cash value. Doubling this, to obtain the value 
 of real estate and its improvements, we obtain $806,000,000 or 
 the equivalent of the labors of six hundred and seventy thousand 
 men for four years ; being not one-tenth of what would be required 
 to reproduce the State in its present condition, were it restored to 
 that in which it stood at the date of the arrival of the Swedes who 
 commenced the work of settlement. 
 
 William Penn followed them, profiting by what they had 
 already done. When he obtained the grant of all that land 
 which now constitutes Pennsylvania, and westward as far as the 
 Pacific Ocean, it was supposed he had a princely estate. He 
 invested his capital in the transport of settlers, and devoted his 
 time and attention to the new colony ; but, after many years of 
 turmoil and vexation, found himself so much embarrassed in his 
 affairs, that in the year 1708 he mortgaged the whole for 6600 
 sterling, to pay the debts incurred in settling the province. He 
 had received the grant in payment of a debt amounting, with 
 interest, to 29,200, and his expenditure, interest included, was 
 52,373 ; while the whole amount received in twenty years was 
 only 19,460 leaving him minus, altogether, 62,113. Some 
 years later, the government made an agreement with him to pur- 
 
or VALUE. 167 
 
 chase the whole at 12,000, but a fit of apoplexy prevented the 
 completion of the agreement. At his death, he left his Irish 
 estates to his favorite child, as the most valuable part of his 
 property the American portion being worth far less than the 
 cost of production. The Duke of York obtained a similar grant 
 of New Jersey, but, many years afterwards, it was offered for sale 
 at about 5000 being much less than had been expended upon it. 
 
 The owners of unoccupied lands in the United States have 
 found, to their cost, that the "natural agent" had no value. 
 Led away in the same manner with William Penn, the Duke of 
 York, the grantees of Swan River Settlement, and many others, 
 they supposed that land must become very valuable ; and many 
 men of great acuteness were induced to invest large sums therein. 
 Robert Morris, the able financier of the Revolution, was the one 
 who pushed this speculation to the greatest extent, taking up im 
 mense quantities at very low prices often as low as ten cents an 
 acre ; but experience has shown his error. His property, although 
 much of it was excellent, has never paid the charges upon it ; and 
 such has been the result of every operation of the kind. Nume 
 rous persons, owners of thousands and tens of thousands of acres, 
 who have been paying county and road taxes, and have been thus 
 impoverishing themselves ; would now gladly receive the amount 
 of their expenses and interest losing altogether the original cost. 
 Their difficulty has not resulted from any absence of fertility, but 
 from the fact that -the cost of reproduction being a steadily dimi 
 nishing one better farms are obtainable in return to a smaller 
 amount of labor. 
 
 The Holland Land Company purchased large quantities at 
 exceedingly low prices, and their property was well managed ; 
 but the proprietors sunk a vast amount of capital. No portion 
 of the United States has improved more rapidly than that part of 
 the State of New York in which it was chiefly situated ; none has 
 derived greater advantage from the construction of the Erie 
 Canal ; and yet the whole of the original purchase-money was 
 sunk. Had they given away the land, and employed otherwise 
 the same amount of capital that was expended on it, the result 
 would have been thrice more advantageous. 
 
 It would be easy to multiply cases in proof of the position, that 
 property in land obeys the same law with that of all other descrip- 
 
168 CHAPTER VI. 6. 
 
 tions ; and that this applies to towns and cities as well as land. 
 With all their advantages of situation, London and Liverpool, 
 Paris and Bordeaux, New York and New Orleans, would ex 
 change for but a small portion of the labor that would be required 
 to reproduce them, were their sites again reduced to the state in 
 which they were found by the people by whom they were first 
 commenced. Throughout the Union, there is not a county, town 
 ship, town, or city, that would sell for cost ; or one whose rents 
 are equal to the interest upon the labor and capital expended 
 on their improvement. 
 
 . Every one is familiar with the fact that farms sell for little more 
 than the value of the improvements. When we .come to inquire 
 what "improvements" are included in this estimate, we find that 
 the heaviest are omitted nothing being put down for clearing 
 and draining the land, for the roads that have been made, or 
 for the court-house and the prison that have been built with the 
 taxes annually paid ; for the church and the school-house 
 that have been built by subscription ; for the canal that passes 
 through a piece of fine meadow-land, the contribution of the 
 owner to the great work ; or for a thousand other conveniences 
 and advantages that give value to the property, and produce the 
 disposition to pay rent for its use. Were all these things esti 
 mated, it would be found that the selling price is cost, minus a 
 very large difference. 
 
 The United States Government has recently made a purchase 
 of many millions of acres, for which it has contracted to pay to 
 the Indian proprietors what appears a very low price ; and yet the 
 whole value of that land is due to the fact that our own people 
 have been making roads leading to and from it, digging canals, 
 and building vessels of all kinds, by means of which its products 
 may cheaply go to market. Half a century since, the land of 
 Missouri was equally valueless ; and that of Indiana and Illinois, 
 Michigan and Wisconsin, was little better. Sixty years since, such 
 was the case as regarded Kentucky and Ohio ; and seventy years 
 since, it was so with Western Pennsylvania and New York. A 
 century since, the eastern portions of those States were in the same 
 situation ; and the total value of the land of New England, at that 
 date, was probably not as great as is now that of the little piece 
 upon which stands the city of Boston. By slow degrees, the lands 
 
OF VALUE. 169 
 
 nearest the ocean have been acquiring value, until farm-land sells 
 in some places at two or three hundred dollars an acre ; and with 
 every step in this direction, those more distant have gradually 
 risen from nothing to ten, twenty, and fifty cents then, to the 
 government price of a dollar and twenty-five cents and then, to 
 ten, fifteen, and twenty dollars ; but, rapid as has been the rise, 
 the price that could now be obtained for all the real estate north 
 of Mason and Dixon s line, and of the Ohio, would not pay for 
 one-fifth of the labor that would be required to reproduce it in 
 its present form, were it again reduced to a state of nature. 
 
 With every step in the progress of man towards obtaining do 
 minion over nature towards enabling himself to reduce to his 
 service the forces by which he is everywhere surrounded there 
 is a diminution in the cost of reproducing the commodities and 
 things required for his use ; with constant decline in their value 
 as compared with labor, and increase in the value of labor as 
 compared with them. That this is so, as regards axes, spades, 
 ploughs, and steam-engines, wheat, rye, cotton and other cloth, 
 the reader has had abundant evidence ; and that it is so, as regards 
 land, is proved by the fact that it may be everywhere purchased at 
 less than the cost of production. 
 
 7. With the decline in the value of axes and spades, there is 
 everywhere a diminution in the proportion of the product charged 
 for their use ; and that diminution is always most rapid when 
 the improvement in their quality is greatest. Such, too, is the 
 case with land, the rent of which steadily declines in the propor 
 tion it bears to the product of labor ; and most rapidly where the 
 march of improvement is most rapid. In the days of the Planta- 
 genets, the land-owner of England took all, and gave what he 
 pleased to his serf. Since then, as labor has become more pro 
 ductive, there has been a steady decline in the proportion claimed 
 by the owner of land, until it has fallen to an average of one-fifth 
 leaving four-fifths to the man who works it, as compensation for 
 his labor. The movement here, is, as we see, precisely the same 
 that has been observed in regard to the hire of axes, the freight 
 of ships, and the interest of money ; and furnishes additional proof 
 of the universality of the Jaws, which govern matter whatever 
 the form under which it exists. 
 
 VOL. I. 12 
 
170 CH AFTER VI. 7. 
 
 The error of all the economists to whom reference has been 
 made, and indeed of all writers on social science, consists in this : 
 that, instead of studying what it is that men have always done, 
 and what they now do, in regard to land, they study in their clo 
 sets what they ought to do, and what they imagine they them 
 selves would do, under similar circumstances. When, for instance, 
 Adam Smith wrote the passage in which he assumed that the 
 most fertile and best situated lands" having been first occupied, 
 men could thereafter obtain less profit from the cultivation of those 
 remaining, that were inferior in soil and situation giving 
 that as a reason for the diminution in the proportion of the capi 
 talist that always attends advance in wealth and population ; he 
 totally overlooked the facts presented by the history of his own 
 country ; all of which show that men have, everywhere throughout 
 its limits, commenced with the poorer soils of the hills, and have 
 worked to, and not from, the richer ones of the river bottoms. 
 
 It was natural that he, and his successors in England and in 
 France, should think, that when men had the choice between rich 
 and poor soils, they would, of course, take the former, as capable 
 of yielding the largest returns to any given quantity of labor. 
 Had they, however, reflected that the early settlers of their 
 respective countries had been obliged to work with their hands 
 alone, and had therefore had little power to compel nature to labor 
 for them whereas nature herself, as exhibited in the rich bottom 
 lands, was all-powerful and capable of manifesting a most deter 
 mined resistance to their efforts it could scarcely have failed to 
 become obvious to them that it was upon the poor and thin soils 
 of the hills that the work of cultivation must of necessity have been 
 commenced ; and reference to history would have enabled them to 
 satisfy themselves that such had been the universal fact. 
 
 To this assumption is due that error which has everywhere been 
 made in reference to the cause of value in land ; as will be obvious 
 to the reader, when he sees that similar errors must have arisen in 
 reference to all other commodities and things, if subjected to the 
 same course of reasoning. Let us, for instance, suppose it to 
 have been assumed, that nature had everywhere furnished ready- 
 made axes, and that all the effort required of man had been 
 that of making his selection between the first, second, third, 
 tenth, or twentieth quality and then examine the result. 
 
OF VALUE. 171 
 
 Under such circumstances, it might be fairly assumed that the first 
 settlers would take the best those that would cut the largest 
 quantity of timber in the shortest time and that, when they had 
 all been taken up, their successors would be forced to take the 
 second quality ; and so on in succession, until, with the growth of 
 numbers, some persons would find themselves reduced to work 
 with those of the tenth or twentieth class. What now would be 
 the value of those of the first quality ? Obviously, the cost of 
 appropriation, plus the difference between the natural powers of 
 axe No. 1 and axe No. 10, or 20 ; and the more rapid the increase 
 of population, the greater would be the demand for additional 
 supplies the greater the necessity for resorting to those of inferior 
 power the more rapid the decline in the average return to labor 
 and the more rapid the growth of value in the axes first ap 
 propriated. The resistance presented by nature being a con 
 stantly growing one, the accumulations of the past would be 
 attaining a constantly increasing power over the labors of the 
 present. 
 
 Directly the reverse of all this we know to be the fact. Man 
 commences the work of cutting timber with a sharpened shell, and 
 thence he passes to a flint ; next, he obtains copper, after which 
 comes iron, and then steel ; and with every step in this direction, 
 there is an increased return to labor_j_w.ith constant diminution in 
 the value of all existing axes, as the cost of reproduction steadily 
 declines. The resistance here offered by nature to the gratification 
 of man s desires is constantly diminishing, and the laborers of the 
 present are obtaining constantly increased power over the accu 
 mulations of the past. In the first of these cases, the value of 
 axes must have been composed of the labor of appropriation, plus 
 that of the natural agent that had been appropriated. In the 
 second, it is the same labor of appropriation, minus that which is 
 economized by the substitution of the gratuitous forces always 
 existing in nature, and more and more compelled to labor in the 
 service of man. 
 
 Experience having shown a perfect similarity in the course of 
 action in regard to the land and all the machinery into which 
 parts of it are at times converted, whether axes or steam-engines, 
 houses or ships the isolated man having commenced with poor 
 machinery of production, and the associated one having been en- 
 
172 CHAPTER VI. 8. 
 
 abled to command the services of that of a higher order the 
 same results should always follow, as like causes produce like ef 
 fects. That they do follow, is shown in the fact, that the value of 
 land obeys the same law as that of axes declining in its power to 
 command the services of the laborers, and enabling the laborer to 
 command its services in return for a constantly decreasing propor 
 tion of the increased product of land and labor, claimed by the 
 landlord as rent. Such being the case, it must be obvious that 
 the latter possesses no more power to charge for the labor of the 
 natural agent, employed in the production of wheat, than does the 
 owner of the axe to charge for those of the natural agents em 
 ployed in cutting timber ; and that all that the one receives, is 
 compensation for a portion of the labor that has been employed 
 in reducing the land to cultivation, and otherwise improving it ; 
 while the other receives in like manner compensation for his ser 
 vices in mining and smelting the ore, and making the axe. It is 
 population, and the consequent power of association, that enable 
 men to obtain food from the rich soils, and to pass from the axe 
 of stone to that of steel ; and it is depopulation, with its conse 
 quent diminution in the power of combination, that drives them 
 back to the poor soils in quest of food, and forces them to depend 
 upon the axe of stone where before they had one of steel. With 
 the first, there is a constant increase in the power of man over 
 nature, with decline of values as compared with labor. With the 
 second, there is as constant increase in the power of nature over 
 man, with decline in the value of labor, as compared with machi 
 nery of every kind. 
 
 8. It may, however, be said : Here are two fields upon which 
 has been bestowed an equal quantity of labor, the one of which 
 will command twice the rent, and will sell for twice the price, of 
 the other ; and it may be asked If value results exclusively from 
 labor, how does it happen that the owner of the one is so much 
 richer than he who owns the other ? 
 
 In reply to this question, it is easy to show that similar facts 
 exist in relation to those other commodities and things whose 
 value is, by all, admitted to result exclusively from labor. The 
 glass-blower puts into his furnace a large quantity of sand, and kelp 
 or other alkali, and takes from it glass ; but the qualities of the 
 
OF VALUE. 173 
 
 latter are very various, although produced from the same mass of 
 raw materials. Some of it passes in the market as No. 1, and 
 some as Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5 ; while a part may be of so inferior a 
 quality as to be almost worthless ; and yet the labor employed on 
 all the parts has been exactly equal. ATI of it has the same limit 
 of value the cost of reproduction. The resistance offered by 
 nature to the production of that of the first quality being great, it 
 is equal in value to a large amount of labor ; whereas the resist 
 ance to the production of that of the lowest quality being small, 
 it exchanges against but a small amount of human effort. The 
 value of all is due to the necessity for overcoming that resistance, 
 and not, in any manner, to the natural properties known to exist 
 in the glass itself. 
 
 A farmer raises a hundred horses, and upon each expends a 
 similar quantity of food and labor. Arrived at maturity, they 
 present to view a great variety of qualities, some having great 
 speed and but little bottom, while others have bottom and but 
 little speed. Some are good in harness, while others are worth 
 little but under the saddle. Some are heavy, and others are light. 
 Some have great power of traction, while others have little ; and 
 some are high, while others are low. Their values are likewise 
 different a single one, perhaps, commanding as large a price as 
 .could be obtained for a dozen others. Nevertheless, all those 
 values are .. but jneaHr.es.jQf .. the resistance to be overcome in pro 
 ducing horses possessed of certain qualities ; and all are but the 
 ^ rew_ards-j of labor and skill applied to this particular department 
 J of production. From year to year acquiring greater knowledge, 
 the farmer learns that by care in the selection of his stock for 
 breeding, he may diminish the resistance at first experienced ; and 
 with each succeeding one is enabled to obtain a larger propor 
 tion of animals of the highest quality with steady increase in 
 the return to his physical and intellectual efforts ; and as steady 
 decline in the value of all the stock remaining from previous 
 years. *" 
 
 " Jenny Lind could get a thousand dollars for singing a single 
 evening : she has doubtless sung at the opera, where young 
 females who sang in the chorus received less than a single dollar. 
 Suppose, however, that some enterprising Barnum should deter 
 mine that he would train up a new Jenny Lind, or at least a tole- 
 
174 CHAPTER VI. 8. 
 
 rable rival for her, for his own profit. He would at once see it 
 necessary to multiply his chances of success, by making the expe 
 riment with a large number of persons some hundreds or thou 
 sands. He would be at enormous charges for years for their 
 musical education ; and if at last he produced one prodigy of 
 song, who could earn by her vocal powers the revenue of Jenny 
 Lind, he would also have on his hands a number of inferior song 
 stresses, who might draw crowded houses but for the superior 
 attraction of his prima donna ; and scores of chorus-singers, 
 whose earnings would not repay the outlay for their board, cloth 
 ing, and education ; to say nothing of the scores who died, lost 
 their voices, or came to utter failure before earning any thing."* 
 
 Why is Jenny Lind so highly valued ? Because of the obstacles 
 to be overcome before an equal voice can be reproduced. So, 
 too, is it with the fine horse, with the fine specimens of glass, and 
 with the land that yields large returns to labor. To what extent 
 are they valued ? To that of the cost of reproduction, and no 
 more ; and that tends to decline with every step in the growth of 
 population and wealth. The same laws thus apply to all matter, 
 whatsoever the form in which it exists. 
 
 In certain states of society, the horse preferred will be the one 
 
 * Smith s Manual of Polit. Econ., p. 131. " This illustration, says Mr. 
 Smith, "is borrowed substituting Jenny Lind for Rubini from an able 
 article by M. Quijano, in the Journal des Economistes, for May and June, 
 1852, in which the imaginary capitalist, who has succeeded in raising a Ru 
 bini, answers a remonstrance against the extravagant price put upon his 
 singing, by pointing to the fact that the average compensation of the 2048 
 performers of all kinds in the twenty-five theatres, opera-houses, and cir 
 cuses of Paris is but $328 per annum, and would be less, but for the fact 
 that the government grants in aid of the theatres amount to about one-third 
 of the aggregate salaries of their performers. 
 
 " Quijano makes use of this illustration incidentally, the main purpose of 
 his article being to show that the enormous value of the Clos Vougeot an 
 estate producing a famous wine is to be accounted for in the same way, 
 and that it does not disprove the doctrine that land derives all its value from 
 labor. How many fortunes have been wasted in vain endeavors to find the 
 proper spot, and make a vineyard which will produce such wine ! Suppose 
 the fact be communicated to a vine-grower, that somewhere within a district 
 ten thousand square miles in extent, a few acres existed which by proper 
 cultivation would equal Clos Vougeot in the quality of its wines, and the 
 offer to be made, either to communicate the secret of their precise location 
 for a sum equal to the present market value of that vineyard, or to sell the 
 same number of acres, to be selected by himself, at the average value of the 
 entire tract which offer would it be wise for him to accept ? In accepting 
 the first, what is it that he pays for, except the labor saved in making a 
 multitude of unprofitable experiments ? 
 
OF VALUE. 1?5 
 
 fit for the purposes of war; whereas, in others, it will be that 
 best fitted for those of peace. At some periods, the warrior 
 will have the preference ; while in others, the qualities of the 
 statesman or the merchant will be most valued, and the warrior 
 will be neglected. So is it with land, the present value of which 
 represents but a portion and generally a very small one of 
 its cost. 
 
 Labor is frequently wasted upon it, because its qualities are not 
 of the particular description required at the moment. The settler 
 who begins by draining swamps, throws away his labor, and dies 
 of fever. The land is rich, but its time has not come. The man 
 who bores into granite, searching for coal, throws away his 
 labor. The land will be valuable when granite quarries are 
 required, but its time has not come. The man who attempts to 
 raise marl while surrounded by rich meadow-land, yet uncleared, 
 loses his time. The land & rich, but its time has not come. All 
 soils have qualities tending to render them useful to man, and all 
 are destined ultimately to become ^utilized ; but, it being the decree 
 of nature that the best those fitted to yield the largest return to 
 labors-shall be obtained for his use only at the cost of long-con 
 tinued and combined exertion ; their attainment is the reward held 
 out to him as the inducement to steady industry, prudence, and 
 economy, and to a constant observance of that great law of Chris 
 tianity which requires every man to respect in others those rights 
 of person and property that he desires others to respect in him 
 self. Where these exist, he is seen passing steadily and regularly 
 from poor soils to those which are more productive, with constant 
 increase of population, wealth, prosperity, and happiness, and 
 steady decline of value in all the_ lands., first, cultivated ^except 
 wherejthe constant application of labor has tended to render them 
 more_^pniiiuctive^ The last historian of the world, prior to its 
 dissolution, will have to say of the soils, as Byron said of the 
 skies of Italy : 
 
 " Parting day 
 
 Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues 
 
 With a new color as it gasps away, 
 
 The last still loveliest, till tis gone and all is gray." 
 
 The value of land Js a consequence of the improvement which 
 labor has effected upon it, and it constitutes an important item of 
 
176 CHAPTER VI. 0. 
 
 wealth. Wealth tends to augment with population, and the power 
 of accumulation increases with constantly acceterating pace as new 
 soils are brought into cultivation each yielding in succession a 
 larger return to labor. Rent tends, therefore, to increase in 
 amount, and to diminish in its proportion, with the growth of 
 wealth and population. The former is greatest in England, the 
 wealthiest country of Europe. Diminishing as we pass thence 
 to the poorer countries of France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, 
 it at length disappears totally among the Rocky Mountains arid 
 the islands of the Pacific, where land is valueless. 
 
 9. Robinson Crusoe was surrounded by objects capable of 
 being rendered useful to him either as food or clothing, or as ma 
 chinery by help of which he might procure the various commodities 
 required for the satisfaction of his wa^nts ; but in his then condi 
 tion he was unable to command their aid. The bird on the wing, 
 and the squirrel that jumped from tree to tree, were as fully com 
 petent to satisfy his appetite for food as those he had caught in 
 his trap ; but they had for him no UTILITY. The water abounded 
 in fish, but he had no hook with which to take them. It would 
 float a canoe, but having no knife, or axe, with which to fell a tree 
 or hollow it out its supporting power was to him as useless as if 
 it had not existed. It was capable of producing steam that could 
 be made to do the work of thousands of laborers, but he possessed 
 none of the machinery by help of which he might command its 
 services. The air abounded in electricity, susceptible of being 
 rendered useful ; but its uses were to him unknown. He being 
 weak and nature being strong, the resistance offered by her, to 
 the gratification of his desires, was too great to be overcome by 
 his unassisted powers. 
 
 With time, however, we find him calling to his aid the various 
 qualities of wood its elasticity, hardness, and weight ; next, 
 obtaining a cutting instrument by which other forces are made to 
 contribute to his purposes ; again, hollowing out a tree and re 
 ducing to his service the supporting power of water ; and thus 
 gradually utilizing the various forces existing in nature and await 
 ing demand for their services. 
 
 The capability of being rendered useful to man belongs to every 
 atom of matter of which the earth is composed existing as much 
 
OF VALUE. 177 
 
 in the coal that lies thousands of feet below the surface, as in that 
 which now burns in the grate ; and as much in the ore while 
 remaining in the mine, as in that which has been converted into 
 stoves, grates, or railroad bars. To render them useful requires 
 in most cases a considerable amount of physical and intellectual 
 effort ; and it is because of the necessity for that effort that man 
 is led to attach the idea of value to the commodities and things 
 that have been so obtained. 
 
 Being in some cases supplied to him in abundance, in the pre 
 cise form, and at the precise place at which they are required as 
 is the case with the air we breathe they are then wholly without 
 value. In others, they are furnished by nature in the form in 
 which they are used, as in the case of water and electricity ; but 
 even these require change of place, and have, therefore, a value 
 in our estimation equal to the effort required for overcoming the 
 resistance to their attainment. In a third and the most nume 
 rous class of cases they require to be changed in place and in 
 form; and have jthen a much higher value, because of the in 
 creased resistance to be overcome. 
 
 That man may be enabled to effect these changes, he must first 
 utilize those faculties by which he is distinguished from the 
 brute. In the isolated man they are latent, association being 
 needed for stimulating them into the motion required for the 
 production of force. Had Baon, Newton, Leibnitz, or Des 
 Cartes, been placed alone upon an island, their capacity for being 
 useful to their fellow-men would have been just the same that we see 
 it to have been ; but their faculties would have lain dormant, and 
 without utility. As it was being enabled to associate with others 
 like and unlike themselves their various idiosyncrasies were stimu 
 lated to activity, and individuality became more and more deve 
 loped with constant increase in the knowledge accumulated, and 
 in the power of further accumulation. 
 
 That " knowledge is power," we are every day assured ; and 
 if we desire evidence of the fact, we need only to observe, on the 
 one hand, how great are the poverty and weakness of various 
 communities of the earth, occupying lands abounding in all the 
 qualities required for enabling their owners to become rich and 
 strong which yet remain unimproved for want of that power of 
 combination so indispensable to the development of the intel- 
 
178 CHAPTER VI. 9. 
 
 lectual faculties ; and, on the other, how great are the wealth and 
 strength of others, whose lands appear to be deficient in almost 
 all the qualities required for the production of either wealth or 
 strength. Few countries offer to their inhabitants a poorer 
 soil for cultivation than is found in our Eastern States and 
 they have little coal, while altogether deficient as regards most 
 of the metallic products of the earth ; and yet New England occu 
 pies a high position among the communities of the world, because 
 among her people the habit of association is found existing to an 
 extraordinary extent with corresponding activity of their facul 
 ties. Turning our eyes to Brazil, we find a picture directly the 
 reverse nature there furnishing a soil rich for all the purposes of 
 cultivation, and abounding in the most valuable minerals and 
 metals all of which remain almost altogether useless, for want 
 of that activity of mind which results necessarily from the asso 
 ciation of man with his fellow-men. 
 
 The capacity for obtaining command over the various powers 
 of nature, is a force existing in man latent, while he is compelled 
 to live and work alone, but more and more stimulated into acti 
 vity as he is more and more enabled to work in combination with 
 his fellow-men. 
 
 The capability of being useful to man exists, as has already 
 been said, in all matter ; but, in order that it may have utility, 
 man must have the power required for overcoming the resisting 
 force of nature and that he cannot have in a state of isolation. 
 Place him in the midst of a large community where employment 
 is infinitely diversified, and his faculties become developed. 
 With individuality comes the power of association, always ac 
 companied with that rapid motion of the intellect whence results 
 power over nature ; and every step in that direction is but the 
 preparation for a new and greater one. A century since, he was 
 surrounded everywhere by electricity, capable of being rendered 
 useful to him ; but he was totally deficient in the knowledge re 
 quired for compelling it to do his work. Franklin made one 
 step in identifying lightning with what had before been known as 
 electricity ; and since then, Arago, Ampere, Biot, Henry, Morse, 
 and many others, have been engaged in the effort to obtain the 
 knowledge of its qualities required for controlling its movements 
 and utilizing its powers. That having been acquired, instead of 
 
OF VALUE. 179 
 
 looking upon the aurora, and upon the lightning, as mere objects 
 of stupid wonder, we now regard them but as the manifestation 
 of the existence of a great force that can be made to carry our 
 messages, plate our knives and forks, and propel our ships. ^ 
 
 The. utility of things is the measure of man ji^oicer over nature 
 . and this grows with the power of combination among men. 
 Their value, on the other hand, is the measure of nature s power 
 over man and this declines with the growth of the power of com 
 bination. The two thus move in opposite directions, and are . 
 always found existing in the inverse ratio of each other. 
 
 The waste of food resulting from the various processes to which 
 corn is subjected, with a view to improvement in the appear 
 ance of the bread made from it, is estimated at one-fourth of the 
 whole quantity and this, upon the twenty millions of quarters 
 required for Great Britain, is equal to five millions. Were all 
 this economized, the utility of corn would be greatly increased 
 but the corresponding increase in the facility with which food 
 could be obtained, would be attended with large decline of value ; 
 and so is it, as we see, with all other commodities and things. 
 As improved steam-engines enable us to obtain constantly increas 
 ing power from the same quantity of coal, the utility of coal in 
 creases but its value declines, because of the increased facility of 
 obtaining iron for the construction of new engines, by help of 
 which to obtain more coal. As the old road becomes more use 
 ful from its more constant use by a growing population, its 
 value declines ; and this it does, because of the growing facility 
 of obtaining new and better roads. The man who has to descend 
 a hill to the distant spring pays largely in labor for a supply of 
 water for his family ; but when he has sunk a well, he obtains a 
 supply quadrupled in quantity in return to a twentieth part of 
 the muscular effort. The utility having increased, the exchange 
 able value has greatly diminished. Next, he places a pump in 
 the well, and here we find a similar effect produced. Again, 
 with the growth of population and wealth, we find him associat 
 ing with his neighbors to give utility to great rivets, by directing 
 them through streets and houses ; and now he is supplied so 
 cheaply that the smallest coin in circulation pays for more than 
 his predecessors could obtain at the cost of a whole day s labor 
 as a consequence of which his family consumes more in a day than 
 
180 CHAPTER VI. 9. 
 
 had before, of necessity, sufficed for a month ; and has its bene 
 fits almost free of charge. 
 
 With every increase in the facility of obtaining food from the 
 earth, by reason of passing from the poorer to the better soils, 
 man obtains a constantly increasing power to utilize still richer 
 ones and the more rapid that increase, the more rapid is the 
 decline in the value of the soils first cultivated. Such, too, is the 
 case with the precious metals, whose value declines as their utility 
 increases. The vast mass of gold and silver hoarded in France is 
 useless to the community ; and to the fact that it is hoarded is due 
 the high value in which the precious metals are there held. Were 
 it all set free, money would become more abundant, and interest 
 would tend to fall, while labor would rise. Looking around, we 
 see everywhere, that it is in the countries in which those metals 
 render the smallest service to man, that they are the most valued 
 and that, here, their value in labor and land declines as we 
 pass towards that community in which they render the largest 
 service New England; and especially in the manufacturing 
 States of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Such being the 
 case, we can readily see why it is that they tend everywhere from 
 those countries in which interest is high, and to those in which it 
 is low. In the latter, their labor value is steadily diminishing ; 
 and this diminution is necessarily accompanied by a constant in 
 crease of ability to apply them to the various purposes for which 
 they are fitted; sometimes to gilding books and at others con 
 verting them into knives, forks, spoons, or otherwise changing their 
 forms, so as to fit them for serving the purposes, or gratifying the 
 tastes, of their owners. It is where, and when, interest tends down 
 ward, that their use for all such purposes most rapidly extends 
 thus proving that, with increased utility, value diminishes ; and 
 where, and when, interest tends upward, that their use most rapidly 
 declines furnishing further proof that utility and value are always 
 in the inverse ratio of each other. 
 
 The utility of matter increases with the growth of the power of 
 association and combination among men ; and every step in that 
 direction is accompanied by a decline in the value of commodities 
 required for their use, and an increase in the facility with which 
 wealth may be accumulated. 
 
OF WEALTH. 181 
 
 OF WEALTH. 
 
 1. ROBINSON CRUSOE had made a bow, and had thus acquired 
 wealth. In what, however, did that wealth consist ? In the pos 
 session of the instrument ? Assuredly not ; but in the power that 
 it gave him over the natural properties of the wood and the cord 
 enabling him to substitute the elasticity of the one, and the 
 tenacity of the other, for the muscular contraction by help of 
 which, alone, he had thus far been enabled to obtain supplies of 
 food. Having made a canoe, he found his wealth increased, 
 because by help of his new machine he could command the ser 
 vices of water and, as nature always works gratuitously, all the 
 addition he was now enabled to make to his supplies, was obtained 
 wholly free of cost. Having erected a pole in his canoe, and 
 placed upon it a skin by way of sail, he was enabled to command 
 the services of the wind, and thus still further to increase his 
 power to move from place to place ; and so did his wealth stead 
 ily increase. 
 
 Let us suppose, however, that instead of having been led by 
 observation of the properties of wood to make a bow, he had 
 found one, and had been so deficient in knowledge as to be 
 unable to use it ; would his wealth in this case have been in 
 creased ? Certainly not. The bow would have been as useless 
 as the trees with which the land was covered. Or, suppose he 
 had found a canoe, and had been as ignorant of the properties of 
 water, or of wood, as we may well suppose to have been the case 
 with the wild men of Germany and of India ; would he not have 
 remained as poor as he before had been ? That such would have 
 been the case, cannot be doubted. If so, then wealth cannot con 
 sist in the mere possession of an instrument, unconnected with the 
 knowledge how to use it. Were a thousand bows given to a man 
 who had been blind from birth, he would be no richer than before 
 
L82 CHAPTER VIT. 1. 
 
 an4 were we to transfer to the savages of the Rocky Moun 
 tains, all property in the mills and furnaces of the Union, they 
 would find therein no addition to their wealth for their lia 
 bility to perish of hunger, or of cold, would remain unchanged ; 
 although they had thus become the owners of machinery capable 
 of producing all the implements required for enabling them to 
 obtain food and clothing in abundance, were they but possessed 
 of knowledge Books and newspapers would not be wealth to 
 the man who could not read, but food would be and he might 
 gladly give a whole library for as much grain as would support 
 him for a single year. 
 
 For thousands of years, the people of England were in posses 
 sion of almost boundless supplies of that fuel, a bushel of which is 
 capable of raising one hundred thousand pounds a foot in a 
 minute, and thus doing as much work as could be done by hun 
 dreds of men ; and yet that fuel was not wealth, because of the 
 want of knowledge how to utilize its powers. The force was 
 there, latent ; but it was not until the days of Watt, that man was 
 enabled to compel it to labor in his service. So it has been with 
 the anthracite coal-mines of Pennsylvania. That fuel was purer 
 and better than any other and capable, therefore, of doing a 
 greater amount of work ; but, for that reason, it required a higher 
 degree of knowledge for the development of its latent powers. 
 The greater the power to be useful the greater the amount of 
 utility latent in a commodity, or thing the greater is always the 
 amount of resistance to be overcome, in subjecting it to the control 
 of man. That once done, the power thus acquired, centres 
 in THE MAN, whose value steadily rises, as the utility of the raw 
 material by which he is surrounded, becomes more and more 
 developed. 
 
 The first poor cultivator commences, as we have seen, his ope 
 rations on the hill-side. Below him are lands that have, for ages, 
 received the washings of those above, as well as the leaves of 
 trees, and the fallen trees themselves, all of which have, from time 
 immemorial, decayed and become incorporated with the earth 
 thus forming soils fitted to yield the largest returns to labor ; yet 
 for that reason are they inaccessible. Their character exhibits 
 itself in the large trees with which they are covered, and in their 
 capacity for retaining the water required for aiding the process 
 
OF WEALTH. 183 
 
 of decomposition ; but the poor settler has no power either to 
 clear them of their timber, or to drain them of the superfluous 
 moisture. He begins on the hill-side ; but with the increase of 
 his family, and the improvement of his machinery of cultivation, 
 we find him descending the hill, and obtaining not only more 
 food for himself, but also the means of feeding the horse, or 
 the ox, required to assist him in his labors. Aided by the 
 manure yielded to him by the better lands, we see his successors 
 next retracing his steps, improving the hill-side, and compelling 
 it to yield a return twice greater than had been at first obtained. 
 With each step down the hill, they obtain still larger reward for 
 labor ; and from each they return, with increased power, to the 
 cultivation of the original poor soil. They have now horses and 
 oxen ; and while, by their aid, they extract from the new soils the 
 manure that had for ages accumulated, they have also carts and 
 wagons to carry it up the hill ; and with every additional step, 
 their rewards become increased, while their labors are lessened. 
 They go back to the sand and raise the marl, with which they 
 cover the surface ; or return to the clay and sink into the lime 
 stone, by aid of which they double their products. They are all 
 the time making a machine which feeds them while making it, 
 and which increases in its powers the more there is taken from it. 
 At first, it was worthless ; but now having fed and clothed them 
 for years it has become so greatly useful, that those who might 
 desire to use it would pay largely for the permission so to do. 
 
 The earth is a great machine given to man to be fashioned to 
 his purpose. The more he fashions it, the better it feeds him, 
 because each step is but preparatory to a new one more product 
 ive than the last requiring less labor and yielding larger return. 
 The labor of clearing is great ; yet the return is small, the earth 
 being covered with stumps, and filled with roots. With each 
 year the latter decay, and the ground becomes enriched ; while the 
 labor of ploughing is- diminished. At length, the stumps having 
 disappeared, the return is doubled, while the labor is less by one- 
 half than at first. To forward this process, the owner has done 
 nothing but crop the ground nature having done the rest. The 
 aid she thus grants him, yields far more food than had been at 
 first obtained in return to the labor of clearing the land. 
 This, however, is not all. The surplus thus yielded has given 
 
184 CHAPTER VII. 1. 
 
 him the means of improving the poorer lands furnishing manure 
 with which to enrich them and thus has he trebled, or quadrupled, 
 his original return without further effort ; that which he saves in 
 working the new soils, sufficing to carry the manure to the older 
 ones. He is thus obtaining a daily increased power over the 
 various treasures of the earth. 
 
 With every operation connected with the subjection of the 
 earth to the control of man, the result is the same the first step 
 being, invariably, the most costly one, and the least productive.* 
 The drain commences necessarily near the stream, where the labor 
 is heaviest ; yet it frees from water but little land. Further distant, 
 the same quantity of labor, profiting by what has been already 
 done, frees thrice the extent ; and now the most perfect system of 
 thorough drainage may be established with less effort than had 
 been at first required for one of the most imperfect kind. To 
 bring the lime into connection with the clay, upon fifty acres, is 
 lighter labor than had been the clearing of a single one ; yet the 
 process doubles the return for every acre of the fifty. The man 
 who requires a little fuel for his own use, expends much labor in 
 opening the neighboring vein of coal. To enlarge this, so as to 
 double the product, is a work of comparatively small effort ; as is 
 the next enlargement, by which he is enabled to use a wagon, 
 giving him a return fifty times greater than had been obtained 
 while still dependent upon his own unassisted powers. To sink 
 a shaft to the first vein below the surface, and erect a steam- 
 engine, are expensive operations but then to sink to a second, 
 and tunnel to a third, are trifles in comparison with the first ; yet 
 each is equally productive. The first line of railroad runs by 
 houses and towns occupied by a few hundred thousand persons 
 Little branches are next made, costing altogether far less labor 
 than the first, but bringing into connection with it probably thrice 
 the amount of population. The trade increasing, a second track, 
 a third, or a fourth, may be required. The original one facilitating 
 
 * The French proverb Ce n est que le premier pas qui coute is true in 
 regard to all the relations of life ; but in none is it more emphatically so than 
 in reference to the occupation of land. Such being the case, it will readily 
 be seen how destructive of the best interests of man must be a system which^ 
 looking to the constant exhaustion of the soil, produces a perpetually in 
 creasing necessity for commencing the work of cultivation on new lands, to 
 be in their turn exhausted. 
 
OF WEALTH. 185 
 
 the passage of the materials and the removal of the obstructions, 
 three new ones may now be made for less than had been expended 
 upon the first. 
 
 All labor thus given to fashioning the great machine is but the 
 prelude to its further application, with increased returns and rise 
 of wages ; and hence it is that portions of the machine, as it ex 
 ists, invariably exchange, when brought to market, for far less 
 labor than they have cost. The man who cultivated the thin 
 soils was happy to obtain a hundred bushels for his year s work 
 but with the progress of himself and his neighbors down the hill, 
 into the more fertile soils, wages have risen, and two hundred 
 bushels may be now required. His farm will yield a thousand 
 bushels but it requires the labor of four men, who must have 
 two hundred bushels each ; and the surplus is but two hundred 
 bushels. At twenty years purchase, this gives a capital of four 
 thousand bushels, or the equivalent of twenty years wages ; 
 whereas it may have cost in the labor of himself, his sons, and 
 his assistants the equivalent of a hundred years of labor, or per 
 haps far more. During all this time, however, it has fed and 
 clothed them all ; and the farm has been produced by insensible 
 contributions made from year to year, unthought of and unfelt. 
 
 It is now worth twenty years wages, because its owner has for 
 years taken from it a thousand bushels annually ; but when it had 
 lain for centuries, accumulating power to serve the purposes of 
 man, it was worth nothing. Such is the case with the earth 
 everywhere. The more there is taken from it the more there is 
 found to exist. When the coal-mines of England were untouched, 
 they were valueless. Now their value is almost countless ; yet 
 the land contains abundant supplies for thousands of years. Iron 
 ore, a century since, being held in low esteem, leases were granted 
 at almost nominal rents. Now, notwithstanding the great quanti 
 ties that have been removed, such leases are deemed equivalent to 
 the possession of large fortunes ; although the amount of ore else 
 where known to exist, is probably a hundred times increased. 
 
 The rich lands above described the coal, the lime, and the ore 
 were, a century since as much as they are now, possessed of the 
 power to contribute to the comfort and enjoyment of man ; yet 
 they were not wealth, because he himself was deficient in the 
 knowledge required for enabling him to compel them to labor in 
 
 YOL. I. 13 
 
186 CHAPTER VII.^ 2. 
 
 his service. Their utility was latent, waiting the action of the 
 human mind for its development. 
 
 In the man of that day we find, however, a state of things pre 
 cisely similar. His powers were then as great as are those of the 
 men of the present day ; but they, too, were latent. His brain 
 was ready to serve him, had he made the demand for its services ; 
 but that he could not do. It, too, would have labored gratui 
 tously ; not only so, but by lessening the demand upon his mus 
 cular powers, it would largely have diminished the quantity of 
 food required for repairing the waste consequent upon exertion. 
 The time required for the supply of his necessities would thus have 
 been reduced, with corresponding increase in the quantity at his 
 command for further study of the powers of nature and for 
 preparation of the machinery needed for subjecting them to his 
 service. 
 
 Wealth consists in the power to command ike always gratuitous 
 services of nature whether rendered by the brain of man, or by 
 the matter by which he is surrounded, and upon which it is 
 required to operate. The greater the power of association the 
 greater the diversity of the demands upon the human intellect 
 the greater, as we have seen, must be the development of the 
 peculiar faculties or individuality of each member of the 
 society ; and the greater the capacity for association. With the 
 latter comes increase of power over nature and over himself; and 
 the more perfect his capacity for self-government, the more rapid 
 must be the motion of society the greater the tendency towards 
 further progress and the more rapid the growth of wealth. 
 
 The supply of power waiting the demands of man is, as has 
 been said, unlimited. To the world at large, it is what the accu 
 mulations in the robbers cave were to Ali Baba, who needed but 
 the magic word to make the doors fly open, and thus to become 
 master of their wealth. To enable man to do the same, and thus 
 to do, in his case, all that the genii, in the other, had power to do, 
 he has only to qualify himself for crying "open sesame," by com 
 bining his efforts with those of his fellow-men. 
 
 2. The greater the tendency towards combination of action 
 among men, the greater is the rapidity with which knowledge is 
 diffused, power is gained, and wealth accumulated. That there 
 
OF WEALTH. 187 
 
 may be combination, there must be difference and that the latter 
 may exist, there must be diversity of employment. Where that 
 is found, man is seen to be obtaining constantly increasing power 
 over nature and over himself thus acquiring freedom in the 
 direct ratio of the development of his latent powers. 
 
 In the early periods of society, when men cultivate the poor 
 soils, there can be little association, and, consequently, little com 
 bination of action. Having neither horse nor cart, the solitary 
 settler is dependent, mainly, upon his hands arid arms for power 
 to harvest his little crop. Carrying a hide to his place of ex 
 change, distant many miles, he seeks to obtain for it leather, shoes, 
 or cloth. Population increasing, roads are made, and richer soils 
 are cultivated. The store and the mill coming nearer to him, he 
 obtains shoes and flour with the use of less machinery of exchange ; 
 and having now more leisure for the preparation of his machine, 
 the returns to labor are increased. More people now obtaining 
 food from the same surface, new places of exchange appear. 
 The wool being, on the spot, converted into cloth, he exchanges 
 directly with the clothier. The saw-mill being at hand, he 
 exchanges with the miller. The tanner gives him leather for 
 his hides, and the paper-maker exchanges paper for his rags. 
 His power to command the use of the machinery of exchange is 
 thus a constantly augmenting one ; whereas his necessity for its 
 use is a constantly decreasing one there being, with each suc 
 cessive year, a greater tendency towards having the consumer 
 and the producer take their places by each other s side. With 
 each, he finds increase of power to devote his time and mind to the 
 process of fashioning the great instrument to which he is indebted 
 for food and wool ; and thus it is that increase of the consuming 
 population is essential to the progress of production. 
 
 The loss from the use of machinery of exchange, is in the ratio 
 of the bulk of the article to be exchanged. Food stands first ; 
 fuel next ; stone for building, third ; iron, fourth ; cotton, fifth ; 
 and so on diminishing until we come to laces and nutmegs. 
 The raw material being that in the formation of which the earth 
 has most co-operated, and by the production of which the land 
 is most improved the nearer the place of exchange or conver 
 sion can be brought to the place of production, the less must be 
 the loss in the process, and the greater the power of accumulat- 
 
188 CHAPTER VII. 2. 
 
 ing capital to aid in the production of further wealth. That this 
 must necessarily be so, will be obvious to all who reflect that, in 
 physical science, it is a law, that whatever tends to diminish the 
 quantity of machinery required, tends to the diminution of friction, 
 and to the increase of power. 
 
 The man who raises food on his own land, is building up the 
 machine for doing so to more advantage in the following year 
 His neighbor, to whom it is given, on condition of sitting still, 
 loses a year s work on his machine, and all he has gained has 
 been the pleasure of idling away his time. If he has employed 
 himself and his horses and wagon in bringing it home, the same 
 number of days that would have been required for raising it, he 
 has misemployed his time, for the farm is unimproved. He has 
 wasted labor and manure. As nobody, however, gives, it is obvi 
 ous that the man who has a farm, and obtains his food elsewhere, 
 must pay for raising it, and also for transporting it ; that although 
 he may have obtained as good wages in some other pursuit, his 
 farm, instead of being improved by a year s cultivation, is dete 
 riorated by a year s neglect ; and that he is a poorer man than he 
 would have been had he raised his own food. 
 
 The article of next greatest bulk is fuel. While warming his 
 house, he is clearing his land. He would lose by sitting idle, if 
 his neighbor brought his fuel to him, and still more if he had to 
 spend the same time in hauling it ; because he would be wearing 
 out his wagon, and losing the manure. Were he to hire himself 
 and his wagon to another, and for the same quantity of fuel he 
 could have cut on his own property, he would be a loser, for his 
 farm would be uncleared. 
 
 In taking the stone from his own fields to build his house, he 
 gains doubly, for as his house is built, his land is being cleared. 
 If he remains idle, and lets his neighbor bring him stone, he 
 loses for his fields remain unfit for cultivation. If he per 
 forms as much work for a neighbor, receiving the same apparent 
 wages, he is a loser, by the fact that he has yet to remove the 
 stones and, until they shall be removed, he cannot cultivate 
 his land. 
 
 With every improvement in the machinery of exchange, there 
 is a diminution in the proportion which that machinery bears to 
 the mass of commodities susceptible of being exchanged because 
 
OF WEALTH. 189 
 
 of the extraordinary increase of product consequent upon the in 
 creased labor that may be given to building up the great machine. 
 It is a matter of daily observation, that the demand for horses and 
 men increases as railroads drive them from the turnpikes and 
 the reason is, that the farmer s means of improving his land in 
 crease more rapidly than men and horses for the work. The man 
 who has, thus far, sent to market his half-fed cattle, accompanied 
 by horses and men to drive them and wagons and horses loaded 
 with hay, or turnips, with which to feed them on the road, and to 
 fatten them when at market now fattens them on the ground, 
 and sends them by railroad ready for the slaughter-house ; and 
 thus is his demand for machinery of exchange greatly diminished. 
 He keeps his men, his horses and wagons, and the refuse of his 
 hay and oats, at home ; the former employed in ditching and 
 draining, while the latter fertilizes the soil he has thus far cul 
 tivated. His production doubling, he accumulates rapidly, 
 while the people around him have more to eat, more to spend in 
 clothing, and can accumulate more themselves. He wants labor 
 ers in the field, and these require clothes and dwellings. The 
 shoemaker and the carpenter, finding that there is a demand 
 for their labor, now join the community eating the food on the 
 ground on which it is produced ; and thus is the machinery of 
 exchange improved. The quantity of flour consumed on the spot 
 inducing the miller to come and eat his share, while preparing 
 that of others, the labor of exchanging is again diminished, leav 
 ing more to be given to the land. The lime being now turned 
 up, tons of turnips are obtained from the same surface that before 
 gave bushels of rye. The quantity to be consumed increasing 
 faster than the population, more mouths are needed on the spot ; 
 and next the woollen-mill comes. The wool no longer requiring 
 wagons and horses, they are now turned to transporting coal ; 
 enabling the farmer to clear his woodland, and to reduce to cul 
 tivation the fine soil that has, for centuries, produced nothing but 
 timber. Production again increasing, the new wealth now takes 
 the form of a cotton-mill ; and with every step in that direction 
 the farmer finds new demands on the great machine he has con 
 structed, attended with constant increase of power to build it up 
 higher and stronger, and to sink its foundations deeper. He now 
 supplies beef and mutton, wheat, butter, eggs, poultry, cheese, and 
 
190 CHAPTER VII. 2. 
 
 every other of the comforts and luxuries of life, for which the climate 
 is suited ; and all of these from the same land which, when his pre 
 decessors commenced the work of cultivation on the light soil of the 
 hills, had given scarcely the rye required for the support of life. 
 
 We have here the establishment of a local attraction tending 
 to neutralize the attraction of the capital, or great commercial 
 city ; and where such local centres most exist, there, invariably, 
 is found the greatest tendency to the development of individuality, 
 and the combination of action and the most rapid progress in 
 knowledge, wealth, and power. The more nearly the social sys 
 tem approximates, in its arrangements, to that we see to have been 
 established for the maintenance of order throughout the great system 
 of which our planet forms a part, the greater will be the motion, and 
 the more perfect the harmony and the more will man be enabled 
 to control and direct the various forces provided for his use ; and 
 the more rapidly will he pass from being a creature of necessity 
 towards attaining his true position, that of a being of power. 
 
 With every step in this direction, there is, as has been shown, 
 a decline in the value of all existing accumulations ; because, on 
 the one side, of the steady diminution in the resistance offered by 
 nature to the gratification of man s desires ; and, on the other, of 
 the steady increase in the power of man to overcome the resist 
 ance which yet remains. That this must necessarily be the case, 
 will be obvious to all who reflect that if coal, iron, cloth, or any 
 other commodity, could be supplied as freely as is now the atmo 
 spheric air, the former could have no more value in our eyes than we 
 are now accustomed to attach to the latter. Existing accumula 
 tions are the result of past labors. Whatever tends to increase 
 the power of the present man, tends to give him increased con 
 trol over the accumulations of the past, and to diminish the pro 
 portion of the product of labor that can be demanded by the 
 owner of the latter for their use. All, therefore, who desire to 
 diminish the control of capital over labor, and thus increase the 
 freedom of man, should desire to promote the growth of wealth. 
 
 Wealth grows with the growth of the power of association and 
 the development of individuality. Individuality is developed 
 as employments become diversified ; and hence it is that man has 
 always become more free as the farmer and the artisan have 
 tended more to take their places by each other s side. 
 
OP WEALTH. 191 
 
 3. We are accustomed to measure the wealth of individuals, 
 or of communities, by the value of the property they hold ; whereas 
 wealth grows, as we see, with the decline of values, which are only 
 a measure of the resistance to be overcome before similar property, 
 or commodities, can be reproduced. This view might, therefore, 
 seem to be in opposition to the general idea of wealth, but, when 
 examined, the difference will be seen to be only apparent. The 
 positive wealth of an individual is to be measured by the power 
 he exercises ; but his relative wealth, by the amount of effort that 
 would be required to be given by others before they could acquire 
 similar power. A man, owning a house that affords him shelter, 
 and a farm giving him food and clothing, has positive wealth, 
 although neither of them has any value in the estimation of other 
 parties. If asked to fix a price at which he would part with 
 them, he would estimate the amount of effort that would be 
 required of others before they could acquire similar power and 
 that would be the measure of his wealth as compared with another 
 who had neither house nor farm. His positive wealth consists in 
 the extent of his power over nature. His relative wealth is the 
 measure of his power, as compared with that exercised by his fel 
 low-men. 
 
 At this moment, however, an improvement takes place in the 
 mode of making bricks and clearing lands, and forthwith there is 
 a diminution of his comparative, but without alteration in his 
 positive wealth the house still continuing to shelter him, and the 
 farm to feed him, as before. The decline in the former is a con 
 sequence of increase in the wealth and power of the whole com 
 munity of which he is a member and that decline becomes more 
 rapid as improvements multiply ; because with each successive one, 
 there is a diminution in the obstacles offered by nature to the pro 
 duction of houses and farms, and an increase in the number pro 
 duced, with steady improvement in the condition of the commu 
 nity. The positive wealth of the individual remains unchanged, 
 and yet his relative wealth is steadily diminishing ; and this is 
 equally true, whether considered with reference to intellectual or 
 material accumulations. The man who can read, has wealth ; and 
 the more ignorant those around him, the greater is its value. 
 Place him among others who can both read and write, and he be- 
 
192 CHAPTER VII. 4. 
 
 comes poorer than before, by comparison, although his positive 
 wealth remains undiminished. 
 
 The wealth of a community is in the ratio of its power to com 
 mand the services of nature ; and the greater that power, the less 
 will be the value of commodities, and the greater the quantity 
 that may be obtained in return for any given amount of labor. 
 With every step in this direction, there will be a diminution in 
 the proportion borne by the time required for producing the neces 
 saries of life, to that which may be given to the preparation of ma 
 chinery required for obtaining further control over nature ; or to 
 the purposes of education, recreation, or enjoyment. The pro 
 gress of man is, therefore, in the ratio of the decline in the value 
 of commodities, and of the increase in his own. 
 
 4. The tendency of modern political economy having been 
 towards excluding from consideration all phenomena not directly 
 connected with the production and consumption of material 
 wealth, there had arisen a necessity for giving to the new science 
 a title that should be more in harmony with this limitation in its 
 field of action ; and hence it is, that we have had various propo 
 sitions looking to the adoption of Chrematistics, Catallactics, or 
 other words which should expressly exclude the idea that the mind 
 and morals of man were within the range of the economist. 
 These names have never, it is true, been adopted ; but the mere 
 suggestion of them by distinguished economists, is evidence of the 
 thoroughly material character of the system ; and that such is its 
 character has recently been shown, in a paper of great ability, by 
 one of the most distinguished French economists, who tells his 
 readers that 
 
 " The greater part of the books on political economy, even to 
 the last and best among them, have been written under the im 
 pression that there was no real wealth, nor were there any values 
 susceptible of being regarded as wealth, but those which took a 
 material form. Smith," as he continues, "sees no wealth except 
 that which consists of material things.* Say commences by 
 
 * Adam Smith was less liable to this charge than any other of the writers 
 here referred to. No one can read his book without being satisfied that he 
 throughout looked to moral and intellectual improvement as being within the 
 sphere of political economy. That such was the case is clearly shown by the 
 extract given in a note on one of the next succeeding pages. 
 
OF WEALTH. 193 
 
 classing under the head of wealth lands, metals, corn and other 
 grain, clothing, &c., without adding to this enumeration any 
 description of values not realized in a material form. Whenever, 
 according to Malthus, the question of wealth arises, our attention 
 is called almost exclusively to material objects. The only labors, 
 according to Rossi, with which the science of wealth has to do, 
 are those which contend with matter for the purposes of adapting 
 it to the supply of our wants. Sismondi does not recognise as 
 wealth those products to which industry has not given a material 
 form. Wealth, according to M. Droz, consists of all those mate 
 rial things which serve to satisfy our wants. The true idea, adds 
 he, is that we must- find it in those material things that are useful to 
 man. Finally," says M. Dunoyer, " the author of these pages can 
 not forget, that he has but recently had to maintain a long discus 
 sion with several economists, his colleagues of the Academy of 
 Moral Sciences, without having succeeded in persuading them 
 that there existed any other wealth than that to which they have 
 so improperly applied the term material."* 
 
 Modern political economy, having made for itself a being which 
 it denominated man, and from the composition of which it excluded 
 all those parts of the ordinary man that were common to him and 
 the angel retaining carefully all those common to him and the 
 beast of the forest found itself forced, necessarily, to the exclusion 
 from its definition of wealth, of every thing pertaining to the feel 
 ings, affections, or intellect. In its view, man is an animal that will 
 procreate, and can be made to work, but, in order that it may do 
 so, it must be fed ; and it is as a necessary consequence of this, 
 that not only those named above, but numerous other distinguished 
 economists, have found themselves driven to the necessity of treat 
 ing as unproductive, all employments of time or mind that do not 
 take a material form. Magistrates and men of letters, teachers, 
 men of science, artists, and others the Humboldts and the 
 Thierry s, the Savignys and the Kents, the Aragos and the Davys, 
 the Canovas and the Davids are regarded by this school as un 
 productive, except so far as they produce things ; and this leads, 
 says, most justly, M. Dunoyer, to the inconsistency that 
 
 " In the midst of this concert for declaring unproductive those 
 pursuits which act directly upon mankind, these economists are 
 * Journal des Ecojiomistes, February, 1853. 
 
194 CHAPTER VII. 5. 
 
 unanimous in finding them productive when considered in their 
 consequences that is to say, in the utilities, the faculties, the 
 values, which they succeed in producing in men. It is thus that 
 Adam Smith, after having said in certain parts of his work that 
 men of letters, men of science, and other laborers of the same 
 description, are workmen whose labors produce nothing ; says else 
 where, expressly, that the useful knowledge acquired by the mem 
 bers of a society (knowledge that they could not have acquired ex 
 cept by aid of these unproductive laborers) is a product fixed and 
 realized, so to say, in the persons who possess it, and forms an essen 
 tial part of the wealth of the society, a part of its fixed capital. It 
 is thus that J. B. Say, who says of the same class of laborers that 
 their products are not susceptible of being accumulated, and that 
 they add nothing to the social wealth, formally declares, on an 
 other occasion, that the learning of the public functionary y the skill 
 of the workman, (evidently creations of the very men whose pro 
 ducts are not susceptible of being preserved,) form an accumu 
 lated capital. It is thus that M. Sismondi, who at one moment 
 describes, as unproductive, the labors of teachers and others at 
 another declares, as positively, that men of letters and artists (in- 
 contestably the work of those teachers) constitute a part of the 
 national wealth. It is thus that M. Droz, who says, on one occa 
 sion, that it would be absurd to consider virtue as properly included 
 under the term wealth, closes his book by saying that it would be 
 to commit a great error if we should regard as a non-producer 
 the magistracy which secures the triumph of justice, the learned man 
 who diffuses knowledge, &c."* 
 
 5. By the definition of wealth above given, such inconsist 
 encies are avoided, and the word is brought back to its original 
 signification of general happiness, prosperity, and power not 
 the power of man over his fellow-man, but over himself, his facul 
 ties, and the numerous and wonderful forces provided for his use. 
 Such, to no inconsiderable extent, was the idea of Adam Smith, 
 as will be seen in the passage given below in which he shows 
 how greatly happiness, wealth, and progress, would be promoted 
 by the adoption of a policy in accordance with those " natural 
 inclinations of man" which lead him to combine with his fellow- 
 * Ibid. p. 166. 
 
OF WEALTH. 195 
 
 men for the development of the various faculties of all the mem 
 bers of society facilitating the extension of commerce, and 
 emancipating him from the exactions of the trader and the 
 soldier. * 
 
 Dr. Smith was no advocate of centralization. On the contrary, 
 he fully believed in a policy tending to. the creation of local cen- 
 
 * "That order of things which necessity imposes, in general, though not 
 in every particular country, is in every particular country promoted by the 
 natural inclinations of man. If human institutions had never thwarted those 
 natural inclinations, the towns could nowhere have increased beyond what 
 the improvement and cultivation of the territory in which they were situated 
 could support; till such time, at least,^as the whole of that territory was 
 completely cultivated and improved. Upon equal, or nearly equal, profits 
 most men will choose to employ their capitals rather in the improvement 
 and cultivation of land, than either in manufactures or in foreign trade. The 
 man who employs his capital in land has it more under his view and com 
 mand, and his fortune is much less liable to accidents, than that of the trader, 
 who is obliged frequently to commit it, not only to the winds and the waves, 
 but to the more uncertain elements of human folly and injustice, by giving 
 great credits, in distant countries, to men with whose character and situa 
 tion he can seldom be thoroughly acquainted. The capital of the landlord, 
 on the contrary, which is fixed in the improvement of his land, seems to be 
 as well secured as the nature of human affairs can admit of. The beauty of 
 the country, besides the pleasures of a country life, the tranquillity of mind which 
 it promises, and, wherever the injustice of human laws does not disturb it, the 
 independency which it really affords, have charms that, more or less, attract 
 everybody ; and as to cultivate the ground was the original destination of 
 man, so, in every stage of his existence, he seems to retain a predilection for 
 this primitive employment. 
 
 "Without the assistance of some artificers, indeed, the cultivation of land 
 cannot be carried on but with great inconveniency and continual interrup 
 tion. Smiths, carpenters, wheelwrights and ploughwrights, masons and brick 
 layers, tanners, shoemakers, and tailors, are people whose service the farmer 
 has frequent occasion for. Such artificers, too, stand occasionally in need 
 of the assistance of one another ; and as their residence is not, like that of 
 the farmer, necessarily tied down to a precise spot, they naturally settle in 
 the neighborhood of one another, and thus form a small town or village. 
 The butcher, the brewer, and the baker soon join them, together with many 
 other artificers and retailers, necessary or useful for supplying their occa 
 sional wants, and who contribute still further to augment the town. The 
 inhabitants of the town, and those of the country are mutually the servants 
 of one another. The town is a continual fair or market, to which the inha 
 bitants of the country resort in order to exchange their rude for manufac 
 tured produce. It is this commerce which supplies the inhabitants of the 
 town both with the materials of their work and the means of their subsist 
 ence. The quantity of the finished work which they sell to the inhabitants 
 of the country necessarily regulates the quantity of the materials and pro 
 visions which they buy. Neither their employment nor subsistence, there 
 fore, can augment, but in proportion to the augmentation of the demand 
 from the country for finished work ; and this demand can augment only in 
 proportion to the extension of improvement and cultivation. Had human 
 institutions, therefore, never disturbed the natural course of things, the pro 
 gressive wealth and increase of the towns would, in every political society, be 
 consequential and in proportion to the improvement and cultivation of the 
 territory or country." Wealth of Nations, book 3, chap. i. 
 
196 CHAPTER VII. 5. 
 
 tres of action ; and he did not believe in that one which looked 
 to prevent association, by compelling all the farmers of the world 
 to resort to a single and distant market when they desired to con 
 vert their food and wool into cloth. Such, however, was the 
 policy of his country ; and therefore did it become necessary 
 for Mr. Malthus to prove that the pauperism which was the 
 necessary consequence of centralization, had its origin in a great 
 natural law, which forbade that the quantity of food should keep 
 pace with the demands of an increasing population. Next came 
 Mr. Ricardo, to whom the world is indebted for the idea that 
 cultivation had always commenced on the rich soils of the earth 
 and that the men who were then flying from England to the 
 colonies, were going from the cultivation of poor soils to that of 
 rich ones ; when directly the reverse had ever been the case. His 
 doctrine, and that of all his followers, is therefore that of disper 
 sion, centralization, and large cities ; whereas that of Dr. Smith 
 looked to association, to local self-government, and to countries 
 abounding in villages and towns, in which should be performed 
 the exchanges of the surrounding country. 
 
 The whole tendency of modern political economists has been in a 
 direction opposite to that indicated as the true one, by the author 
 of the Wealth of Nations ; and therefore it has been, that their 
 science has become limited to the single consideration, how it is 
 that material wealth may be increased leaving altogether out of 
 view the consideration of the morality, or the happiness, of the 
 communities they desired to teach. Hence it is that it has gra 
 dually taken so repulsive a form, and that one among its most 
 eminent teachers has found himself called upon to say to his 
 readers, that the political economist is required to look to the 
 growth of wealth alone, and to limit himself to the discussion of 
 the measures by help of which he thinks it may be promoted 
 allowing "neither sympathy with indigence, nor disgust at profu 
 sion or at avarice neither reverence for existing institutions, nor 
 detestation of existing abuses neither love of popularity, nor of 
 paradox, nor of system, to deter him from stating what he 
 believes to be the facts, or from drawing from those facts what 
 appear to him to be the legitimate conclusions. "* 
 
 Happily, true science is required to make no such calls upon 
 * Senior: Outlines of Political Economy, p. 130. 
 
OF WEALTH. 197 
 
 its teachers. The more it is studied, the more must the "indi 
 gence" they see around them excite their "sympathy," and the 
 more free must they become in its expression because the more 
 fully must they become satisfied that the existence of such a state 
 of things is a consequence of human, and not of divine, laws ; the 
 greater must be the " disgust " excited by both "profusion and 
 avarice," as tending to the production of "indigence"; the 
 greater must be their reverence" for all institutions tending to 
 promote the growth of that habit of association by help of which, 
 alone, man acquires the power over nature in which consists 
 his wealth; the greater the "detestation of existing abuses" 
 tending to perpetuate the existing poverty and wretchedness ; 
 and the stronger their determination honestly to labor for their 
 extirpation. 
 
 Wealth grows with the growth of the power of man to satisfy 
 that first and greatest want of his nature the desire for associa 
 tion with his fellow-men. The more rapid its growth, the greater 
 is the tendency towards the disappearance of "indigence," on the 
 one hand, and "profusion and avarice," on the other towards 
 the termination of existing " abuses," tending to limit the exer 
 cise of the power of association, to restrain the development of 
 individuality, and to impair the feeling of strict responsibility 
 towards God and man and towards having society assume that 
 form which is most calculated for facilitating the progress of the 
 latter towards the high position for which he was originally in 
 tended ; and therefore the form most calculated to inspire respect 
 and "reverence." 
 
198 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OP THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 
 
 1. CRUSOE was obliged to work alone. In time, however, 
 being joined by Friday, society commenced ; but in what did this 
 society consist ? In the existence of another person on his island ? 
 Certainly not. Had Friday come so near as to be enabled to see 
 him every day, but had refrained from talking with him, or ex 
 changing services with him hunting and fishing alone, and con 
 suming alone the produce of his labors there would still have 
 been no society. This he did not do, but, on the contrary, talked 
 with him, exchanged services with him, cooked the fish when Cru 
 soe had caught it, and in a thousand ways combined his efforts 
 with those of his fellow-prisoner on the island and thus produced 
 society, or, in other words, association ; which is but the act of 
 exchanging ideas and services, and is properly expressed by the 
 single word commerce. Every act of association being an act of 
 commerce, the terms society and commerce are but different modes 
 of expressing the same idea. 
 
 That commerce may exist there must be difference, whether in 
 the organic or inorganic world. Had Crusoe and Friday been 
 limited to the exercise of any one, and the same, faculty, there 
 could have been no more association between them than there 
 could now be between two particles of oxygen, or of hydro 
 gen. Bring those two elements together, and combination 
 will, at once, take place ; and so is it with man. Had Crusoe 
 had the use of his eyes alone, and Friday been possessed of hands, 
 while deprived of sight, combination between them would imme 
 diately have taken place. Society consists in combinations result 
 ing from the existence of differences of various individualities 
 among the persons of whom it is composed ; and the more perfect 
 the proportion borne by the various elements, each to the other, 
 the greater must be the tendency to combination, as has been 
 
OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 199 
 
 already shown. Among purely agricultural communities associa 
 tion scarcely exists ; whereas, it is found in a high degree where the 
 farmer, the lawyer, the merchant, the carpenter, the blacksmith, 
 the mason, the miller, the spinner, the weaver, the builder, the 
 smelter of ore, the refiner of iron, and the maker of engines, are 
 seen constituting portions of the community. 
 - So is it in the inorganic world the power of combination grow 
 ing with the increase of differences, but always in harmony with 
 the law of definite proportions, to which chemistry is indebted for 
 a precision that without it could never have been attained. Place 
 a thousand atoms of oxygen in a receiver, and they will remain 
 motionless ; but introduce a single atom of carbon, and excite 
 their affinities for each other, and at once motion will be pro 
 duced a certain portion of the former combining with the latter, 
 and producing carbonic acid. The remainder of the oxygen will 
 continue motionless. If, however, successive atoms of hydrogen, 
 nitrogen, and carbon be introduced, new combinations will be 
 formed, until at length motion will have been produced through 
 out the whole ; but in each successive case of combination the pro 
 portions will be as definitely fixed as they had been in the first ; 
 and so is it throughout the inorganic world. 
 
 Such being the case in regard to all other matter,* it must be 
 so in regard to those combinations in which man is concerned, 
 indicated by the term Society the tendency to motion being 
 in the direct ratio of the harmony of the proportions of the seve 
 ral parts of which it is composed. So, in fact, it is associa 
 tion increasing with the increase of differences, and diminishing 
 with any diminution therein, until motion at length ceases to ex 
 ist ; as has been the case in all those countries that have declined 
 in wealth and population. 
 
 Combination in the inorganic world takes place in accordance 
 with fixed and immutable laws. There, however, the bodies that 
 combine have always, and in all places, the same power of combi- 
 
 * Speaking of the law of definite proportions, M. Comte says : " The fail 
 ure of the theory with regard to organic bodies, indicates that the cause of 
 this immense exception cannot be investigated ; and such an inquiry belongs 
 as much to physiology as to chemistry." Positive Philosophy, vol. i. p. 14. 
 Knowing, as we do, how recent are both these sciences, it is no matter of 
 surprise that a part of their relations to each other remains yet to be disco 
 vered. 
 
200 CHAPTER VIII. 2. 
 
 nation the atom of oxygen of the days of the Pharaohs having 
 been precisely the same in composition as that of those of Lavoi 
 sier and Davy. With man the case is different. Capable of 
 progress, his faculties become developed, each in succession, as 
 his mind is stimulated into action by the habit of association 
 with his fellow-man. With him, therefore, the power of combi 
 nation is a growing one, and should increase from day to day, 
 and from year to year, as differences increase in number ; and 
 as society more and more obtains those proportions which are re 
 quired as in the case of the oxygen and the carbon for taking 
 up each faculty of the individual men of whom it is composed ; 
 and this we shall see to be the case. 
 
 2. In the inorganic world every act of combination is an act 
 of motion, the various particles exchanging with each other their 
 respective properties. So is it in the social one every act of asso 
 ciation being an act of motion ; ideas being given out and taken in ; 
 services being rendered and accepted, and commodities or things 
 being exchanged. All force results from motion, and it is where 
 there is the greatest movement in society, that man is seen exert 
 ing the greatest power for the subjugation of the various natural 
 forces by which he is every where surrounded. What then are 
 the laws of motion ? If it is true, that there is but one system of 
 laws for the government of all matter, then those which govern 
 the movements of the various inorganic bodies should be the same 
 with those by which is regulated the motion of society ; and that 
 such is the case can readily be shown. 
 
 A body moved by a single force proceeds always in the same 
 direction until stopped by some counteracting one. The latter, 
 as we know, is found in gravitation, and so long as the force 
 exercised by man is so counteracted, all his motions must be 
 liable to constant intermission, as we see them everywhere to 
 have been. In the early period of society he obtains power to 
 grind his grain by means of raising and then dropping a stone 
 or he moves through the water by help of an oar or he knocks 
 an animal in the head by means of a club all of these operations 
 being the result of the application of a single force ; and all of 
 them consequently intermitted motions requiring a constant re 
 petition of the same force that had been required in the first pas- 
 
OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 201 
 
 sage from a state of rest to one of motion. There is thus a con 
 stant waste of power, and the motion produced is small. 
 
 That such is the case he feels, and therefore is it that we see 
 him constantly endeavoring to obtain continuous motion andj 
 this he does, by imitating as far as possible the mechanism he sees 
 to govern the movements of the heavenly bodies. Desiring to 
 move a body, and its form permitting him so to do, he causes it 
 to revolve on its own axis, and thus brings gravitation to aid him 
 in his efforts, where before it had resisted him as when he rolls 
 a ball, a hogshead, or a bale of cotton. There being, however, 
 numerous bodies whose forms forbid that they should be rolled, he 
 is next seen constructing an instrument that will revolve upon its 
 own axis, as does the earth ; and between two such machines he 
 places the bodies he desires to move thus obtaining far more con 
 tinuous action. Finding himself yet, however, greatly limited by 
 friction, he lays down an iron rail, and is thus enabled to obtain 
 continuous action with high velocity ; and the momentum in 
 creases in the direct ratio of the velocity a body falling at the 
 rate of a thousand feet in a minute, giving a force precisely ten 
 times greater than would be given by it if falling at the rate of 
 a hundred feet in the same space of time. 
 
 Examining now the progress of man towards obtaining power * 
 over nature, we find it to be in the direct ratio of the substitution 
 of continued for intermitted motion. From the sharpened shell 
 used by Robinson Crusoe, he passes, as we have seen, to the 
 knife, the saw, the cross-cut saw, and finally to the circular one, 
 that can be driven at the highest velocity ; and, this done, he ob 
 tains from the application of the same amount of muscular power 
 results thousands of times greater than at first. 
 
 In the process of drainage, the farmer is only seeking to es 
 tablish continuity of motion. Knowing that when water is stag 
 nant, it is destructive of vegetable life and seeing himself sur 
 rounded by great bodies of the richest land, waiting only for the 
 production of motion in the water with which it has been satu 
 rated he digs canals and lays pipes, and cuts away the trees to 
 admit the sun ; and having thus enabled motion to take place, he 
 obtains crops thrice increased in quantity. 
 
 Again, he substitutes the circular motion of the reaping-hook 
 for the more angular one of the hand thence passing to the 
 
 YOL. I. 14 
 
202 CHAPTER VIII. 2. 
 
 scythe and finally, to the constant motion of the reaping machine, 
 by help of which he cuts more grain in an hour, than with his 
 hands he could pull up in a week. The printer in like manner 
 passes from the wooden block and hammer, to the more conti 
 nuous action of the screw ; and thence, by various stages, through 
 the reciprocating motion of the hand-press, to the wonderful in 
 strument now in use, by help of which we obtain in a single day, a 
 greater return than was obtained by Caxton in a year. The ma 
 nufacturer, in his turn, so arranges his mill, that his wool and his 
 cotton enter at one door, and go out at an opposite one, becom 
 ing at each remove, more and more changed in form, until the raw 
 material that entered at the one, goes out at the other, ready for 
 
 / use. In every pursuit of life, man thus seeks to obtain continuous 
 motion; and his progress toward wealth and power is every 
 where seen to be in the direct ratio of the accomplishment of that 
 
 ^object. 
 
 Looking throughout the world, we find nature every where 
 applying force by aid of continued motion. To develop electri 
 city, a circuit must be formed, and this circuit is what we find 
 around us everywhere, whether studying the motion of the winds, 
 the formation of the dew, the circulation of the blood through the 
 arteries which carry it from the heart, or through the veins by 
 which it is returned to the place whence it came. The more 
 rapid the motion, too, the more is it continuous, and the greater 
 is the force exerted. The Rhine, taking its rise among the snowy 
 peaks of the Alps, passes rapidly towards the ocean, and as it 
 carries off the water that has been dissolved, new condensations 
 are being formed at a higher elevation thus furnishing, for the use 
 of man, a motion that is constant during the heats of summer, and 
 the colds of winter. The Ohio and the Mississippi having their 
 heads among the comparatively slight elevations bordering, on the 
 east and north, the great valley of the west have a fnore sluggish 
 motion ; and, as a consequence, those streams are almost useless 
 for nearly half the year. Look where we may, throughout nature, 
 we see that power exists in the ratio of the continuity of motion ; 
 and that similar continuity is what man is everywhere endeavour 
 ing to obtain. 
 
 In the movements of the isolated settler, however, there can be 
 no continuity. Dependent for supplies upon his powers of appro- 
 
OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 203 
 
 priatfon, and compelled to wander over extensive surfaces, he 
 finds himself not unfrequently in danger of perishing for want of 
 food. Even when successful, he is compelled to intermit his 
 search, and provide for effecting the change of place required for 
 bringing his food, his miserable habitation, and himself together. 
 There arrived, he is forced to be, in turn, cook and tailor, mason 
 and carpenter. Deprived of artificial light, his nights are wholly 
 useless, while his power productively to apply his days, is depend 
 ent altogether upon the chances of the weather. 
 
 Discovering, however, at length, that he has a neighbor, ex 
 changes arise between them ; but, occupying different parts of the 
 island, they find themselves compelled to approach each other 
 precisely as do the stones with which they pound their grain ; 
 and when they separate, the same force is again required 
 to bring them once more together. Further, when they meet, 
 difficulties exist in settling the terms of trade, by reason of the 
 irregularity in the supply of the various commodities with which 
 they desire to part. The fisherman has had good luck, and has 
 taken many fish ; but chance has enabled the hunter to obtain 
 a supply of fish, and now he wants only fruit, which the fisherman 
 has not. Difference being, as we already know, indispensable 
 to association, the want of difference would here oppose a bar to 
 association difficult to be surmounted ; and that difficulty is seen 
 to exist in every community in which there are found no differ 
 ences. The farmer has rarely occasion to exchange with his 
 brother farmer the planter has never need to exchange with his 
 brother planter, nor does the shoemaker require to exchange with 
 another shoemaker ; and to the absence of diversity of employ 
 ments it is due, that in the infancy of society there are so many 
 obstacles standing in the way of commerce, as to render the trader, 
 who aids in their removal, a most important member of the com 
 munity. 
 
 In time, however, wealth and population grow, and with that 
 growth there is an increase of motion in the community the 
 husband now exchanging services with the wife, the parents with 
 the children, and the children with each other one providing fish, 
 a second meat, and a third grain ; while a fourth converts the wool 
 into cloth, and a fifth the skins into shoes. Motion now becomes 
 more continuous, and with this increase of movement there is a 
 
204 CHAPTER VIII. 2. 
 
 steady increase in the power of man over nature, attended by di 
 minution of her resistance to his further efforts. Everywhere 
 around, are seen other families, each revolving on its own axis, 
 while the community of which they form a part, is steadily re 
 volving around a common centre ; and thus, by degrees, we see 
 established a system corresponding with that which maintains in 
 
 Border the wonderful system of the universe. At every step we 
 witness an increased rapidity of motion, with increase of force on 
 the part of man exhibited in the fact that, great as are his num 
 bers, he obtains steadily increasing supplies of corn from a surface 
 that gave to the original settler the most scanty supplies of the 
 poorest food. 
 
 With each step gained, we find a tendency to greater velocity at 
 the next one ; and as to man has been granted the capacity for 
 
 ^further progress, such must necessarily be the case. To the first 
 little community, the construction of a simple footpath was a mat 
 ter requiring great exertion ; but now, with the growth of popula 
 tion and wealth, it is seen obtaining in succession turnpike roads, 
 plank roads, railroads and locomotive engines ; and with less 
 trouble than had been at first required to make the path by which 
 the products of the chase had been conveyed on human shoul 
 ders. Here we have the accelerated motion that is witnessed in 
 a body when falling towards the earth. In the first second, it may 
 fall but a single foot ; but at the end of ten seconds it is found to 
 have fallen 100 at the end of the second ten, 400 of the third, 
 900 fourth, 1600 fifth, 2500 and so on until at the end of 
 a thousand seconds it has fallen a million of feet. Had it been 
 stopped at the end of each foot and required to take a new depar 
 ture, it would have fallen through a distance of but a thousand 
 feet ; but by reason of the constantly increasing momentum result 
 ing from continuous motion, it has fallen through a thousand 
 times that distance. Such, too, must be the case with society. 
 In the outset, there is little motion and little power of progress ; 
 but as its members are more and more enabled to associate, the 
 power of further advance is found to grow with constantly in 
 creasing rapidity. The improvements of the last ten years have 
 been greater than those of the preceding thirty, and they had been 
 greater than those of the century that had preceded it; and in 
 that century man had obtained more power over nature than had 
 
OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 205 
 
 * 
 
 been acquired in the long period that had elapsed since the days 
 of Alfred, or of Charlemagne. 
 
 In order, however, that there may be continuous motion in so 
 ciety, there must exist security of person and of property; but when 
 men are poor, and widely scattered, neither of these can readily 
 be obtained. There existing then no law but that of force, the 
 strong man is seen to have been everywhere disposed to trample 
 upon, and plunder, those who were weak sometimes seizing on 
 land, and compelling them to work it for his profit ; at others, 
 placing himself across the road, and forbidding all intercourse 
 except upon terms to be settled by himself ; again, by requiring 
 each laborer to pay rent, tax, or faille; or, lastly, by dispossessing 
 them of houses, farms, and implements and, perhaps, selling 
 husbands and wives, parents and children, into slavery, as further 
 addition to the spoils of "glorious war." In all these cases, 
 there is, as the reader will observe, a retardation of motion, at the 
 cost of those who live by labor, for the benefit of those who live by 
 appropriation of the produce of the labor of others. 
 
 The value of all commodities is the measure of the resistance to 
 be overcome before they can be obtained. As that resistance 
 diminishes, there is a decline in their value, and an increase 
 in that of man. Whatever tends to promote increase in the 
 motion of society, tends to diminish the value of the former, 
 and to increase that of the latter. Whatever, on the contrary, 
 tends to retard the movements of society, and prevent the growth 
 of the power of association, or commerce, tends equally to pre 
 vent decline of values ; to retard the growth of wealth ; to arrest 
 the development of individuality ; and to diminish the value of 
 man. I 
 
 3. In the picture thus far presented of the movements of 
 early colonists, they have been represented as heads of the only 
 two families on an island, each enjoying perfect security of person 
 and property both enabled to appropriate to their own uses and 
 purposes the whole produce of their labor and both, therefore, 
 enabled to pass steadily onward towards increased wealth, pros 
 perity, and happiness. Such, however, has not been the course 
 of things in any of the countries of the world. In all there have 
 existed causes of disturbance, tending greatly to arrest the pro- 
 
206 CHAPTER VIII. 3. 
 
 gress of man ; but in accordance with the law of the composition 
 of forces, it has been deemed right to show what would have been 
 the course of events, had no such causes existed. That done, we 
 may now examine into those disturbances, with a view to ascer 
 tain how each and every of them has tended to produce the course 
 of action recorded in our historical books. 
 
 Let us, with that view, add to the number of occupants of the 
 island a third, remarkable for his strength of arm able, if he 
 will, to dictate laws to his fellow-colonists and willing to live 
 by their labor instead of his own. Placing himself midway be 
 tween them, he s*ays to A, the occupant of one side of the island 
 and possessor of a canoe, Bring your fish to me. It will give 
 you less trouble than you would find in carrying them across the 
 island, and I will arrange the terms of the exchange between you 
 and B." To the latter, he says, " Bring me your birds, rabbits, 
 and squirrels, and I will negotiate the terms on which you shall 
 have fish." 
 
 To this they might object, that they were perfectly competent 
 to manage their own exchanges, and that they would thus save 
 the expense of employing an agent ; and, were they united, they 
 might oppose to the gratification of his wishes an effectual resist 
 ance. Any such effort at association being likely, however, to 
 defeat him in his desire to live at their expense, it becomes essen 
 tial that he should, as far as possible, prevent any thing like com 
 bination of action between them. He, therefore, stirs up strife ; 
 and discord produces weakness and poverty, where association 
 would have been productive of wealth and strength. The more 
 widely they are held apart, the larger is the proportion of the pro 
 duct of their labor that he himself appropriates ; and thus, while 
 they become from day to day more dependent upon his will, he 
 increases steadily in wealth and power. 
 
 Their families, however, increasing, it occurs to some of the 
 more intelligent among them that their situation might be im 
 proved by the adoption of measures tending to enable them to 
 combine their efforts and work together. Although A has only 
 a bow and arrows, there exists no reason why his son might not 
 have a canoe ; and the ocean around him abounds in fish. 
 Although B has only a canoe, it would be easy for his son to 
 obtain a bow and arrows ; and, thenceforth, father and son could 
 
OP THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 207 
 
 exchange fish for meat, without the necessity for crossing the 
 island, at great cost for transportation, and subject to the de 
 mands of the trader who has thus placed himself across the road. 
 Such an increase in the power of association, and in the continu 
 ity of motion, does not, however, suit the purposes of the latter, 
 to whom traffic affords the means of living in luxury at the cost 
 of his poor dependants ; nor will he permit it to be done. Being 
 rich, he can afford to pay for the help required for maintaining 
 his authority ; and among the children of his neighbors there 
 are some who would prefer to live by the labor of others rather 
 than by their own. Poor and dissolute, they are ready to sell 
 their services to an employer who will enable them to eat, drink, 
 and make merry, in return for aiding him in his efforts at the 
 prevention of any intercourse except through himself; and the 
 hired ruffian now makes his appearance on the stage. 
 
 Larger revenues are now required, and that they may be 
 obtained, it is needed that there be new efforts at the prevention 
 of association at home, or exchange abroad without the pay 
 ment of contributions to the trader s treasury. With every 
 step in that direction we find a diminution in the ability to con 
 struct machinery by help of which to obtain power over nature, 
 or give utility to the various substances provided for the use of 
 man an increase in the value of all commodities required for his 
 use, consequent upon the increase in the obstacles to be sur 
 mounted before they can be obtained a decline in the value of 
 man and a diminution in his progress towards wealth, happi 
 ness, and power. How far the view thus presented is in accord 
 ance with the facts of history, we may now examine. 
 
 In the absence of wealth, or of the power to command the ser 
 vices of nature that marks the origin of society, man is compelled 
 to depend upon his own unassisted efforts for obtaining a supply 
 of the necessaries of life. His intellectual faculties being then 
 scarcely at all developed, he is obliged to rely almost entirely 
 upon his physical powers ; and these being necessarily widely 
 different in different persons, there is, at this period, the greatest 
 inequality of condition. The child and the woman are then the 
 slaves of parents and of husbands ; while those who, from disease 
 or age, are incapacitated from labor, become, in turn, slaves to 
 
208 CHAPTER VIII. 3. 
 
 their children, and are generally abandoned to perish for want 
 of food. 
 
 In the hunter state, when man merely appropriates the sponta 
 neous gifts of nature, brute force constitutes his only wealth. 
 Compelled to constant and severe exercise in search of food, while 
 deficient in the clothing required for the maintenance of animal 
 heat, the waste is great, and large supplies of food are conse 
 quently required ; as is shown by the fact, that the hunters and 
 trappers of the West are allowed no less than eight pounds of 
 meat per day. 
 
 The necessities of man are thus very great, while his powers 
 are very small. Eight hundred acres of land, equal to one and a 
 quarter square miles, are required, as we are told, for furnishing 
 to man in the hunter state the same quantity of food that could 
 be obtained from half an acre under cultivation. Famines being 
 therefore frequent, men are forced to have, at times, recourse 
 to the most nauseous food ; and hence it is, that on one hand we 
 find the eaters of earth, and on another the eaters of men both 
 belonging to that stage of society in which man is least abundant, 
 and may exercise at will his right of selecting among the poor and 
 the rich soils, that then so much abound. Being, however, but 
 nature s slave, she presents to his occupation of rich soils, obstacles 
 so entirely insuperable as to force him, as we have seen, to com 
 mence everywhere on the poorer ones those whose natural quali 
 ties least fit them to yield a return to labor. Food has, therefore, 
 great value, because obtained at the cost of infinite effort. 
 
 Game becoming, from year to year, more scarce, famines be 
 come more frequent ; and this involves a necessity for change of 
 place. That, in its turn, produces a necessity for dispossessing 
 the fortunate owners of places in which food can more read 
 ily be obtained ; and thus it is, that deficiency of power over 
 nature compels man everywhere to become the robber of his 
 fellow-man. The land in which he was born having for him but 
 small attractive power his stay in it having been little else than 
 a constant succession of sufferings for want of food he is always 
 ready to shift his quarter in search of plunder ; as we see to be the 
 case with the Camanches, and other savage tribes of the West. 
 So has it everywhere been. The history of the world, throughout, 
 shows us the people of the higher and poorer lands those of the 
 
OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 209 
 
 region of the Himalayas, the early Germans, the Swiss, and the 
 Highlanders plundering those whose peaceful habits had enabled 
 them to accumulate wealth, and to cultivate the more product 
 ive soils. 
 
 In the early period, there being little property of any kind, we 
 see the strong men everywhere to have appropriated to themselves 
 large bodies of land ; while men, women, and children have been 
 converted into property, reduced to slavery, and forced to work for 
 masters who perform the part of traders standing between those 
 who produced and those who desired to consume ; and taking the 
 whole results of the labor of the first, while giving to the last only 
 what was absolutely necessary for the support of life. The whole 
 business of the great proprietor consisting in the prevention of 
 any combination of effort between his slaves, the more perfectly 
 that object is attained, the larger is always the proportion of the 
 products retained by him, and the smaller that divided among those 
 who had labored for their production, and those who required 
 them for consumption. 
 
 Trade thus commences with the traffic in bones, muscles, and 
 blood the trade in man. The warrior buys his commodities in 
 the cheapest market, stealing upon them in the dead of night, 
 burning their villages, murdering the males, and making prisoners 
 of the women and children. His glory is measured by the num 
 ber of his murders, and his wealth grows with the amount of 
 booty he has been enabled to secure. Retaining for his own uses 
 and purposes as many of his prisoners as are required, the remain 
 der are sold to other traders, who, having bought in the cheapest 
 market, transport their property elsewhere, in search of the dear 
 est one, in which to sell at the largest profit. 
 
 At this period of society, men are always found either among 
 the highlands of the interior, or on small and rocky islands, like 
 those of the Ionian and ^Egean seas, on which the formation of a 
 soil for cultivation is a process that is very slow indeed. There 
 being no roads, communication by land is very difficult, and the 
 little that exists, is maintained by means of boats or ships, for the 
 preparation and management of which these island people are 
 early fitted ; and here it is, therefore, that trade, to any consider 
 able extent, is first developed. The facilities for trade being, how 
 ever, accompanied by equal facility for robbing and murdering the 
 
210 CHAPTER VIII. 4. 
 
 people on the coast, and preventing any commerce that shall not 
 contribute to the trader s profit, piracy and trade grow naturally 
 up together. In time, however, population increasing, it is found 
 more profitable to establish themselves at places through which 
 exchanges must necessarily be made there to levy contributions 
 on the exchangers ; and thus it is that we see great cities to have 
 risen on the sites of Tyre, Sidon, Corinth, Palmyra, Venice, Ge 
 noa, and others whose growth was due exclusively to trade. 
 
 4. Every act of association being, as has been said, an act 
 of commerce, the maintenance of commerce it is that constitutes 
 society. Man, therefore, seeks commerce, association, or combi 
 nation, with his fellow-men. It is the first necessity, and without 
 it he is not the being to which we attach the idea of man. The 
 warrior opposes obstacles to commerce by preventing all inter 
 course except that which passes through himself. The great 
 landed proprietor and owner of slaves is the middle-man the 
 trader who regulates all the exchanges made by the people 
 owned by him, with other persons, the property of his neighbors. 
 The trader in merchandise opposes obstacles to all commerce 
 carried on without his aid desiring everywhere to have a mono 
 poly, in order that the producer of food may obtain but little 
 cloth, and that the maker of cloth may be forced to content him 
 self with little food his principle being to buy at the lowest price, 
 and sell at the highest. 
 
 The words commerce and trade are commonly regarded as con 
 vertible terms, yet are the ideas they express so widely different 
 as to render it essential that their difference be clearly understood. 
 AU men are prompted to associate and combine with each other 
 to exchange ideas and services with each other and thus to main 
 tain COMMERCE. Some men seek to perform exchanges for other 
 men, and thus to maintain TRADE. 
 
 Commerce is the object everywhere desired, and everywhere 
 sought to be accomplished. Traffic is the instrument .used by 
 commerce for its accomplishment and the greater the necessity 
 for the instrument, the less is the power of those who require to 
 use it. The nearer the consumer and the producer and the 
 more perfect the power of association the less is the necessity 
 *br the trader s services, but the greater are the powers of those 
 
OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 211 
 
 who produce and consume, and desire to maintain commerce. 
 The more distant they are, the greater is the need of the trader s 
 services, and the greater is his power but the poorer and weaker 
 become the producers and the consumers, and the smaller is the 
 commerce. 
 
 The value of all commodities being the measure of the obsta 
 cles standing in the way of their attainment, it follows necessarily 
 that the former will increase with every increase of the latter, and 
 that every step in that direction will be attended by a decline in the 
 value of man. The necessity for using the services of the trader 
 constituting an obstacle standing in the way of commerce, and 
 tending to enhance the value of things, while depressing that of 
 man; to whatever extent it can be diminished, to the same 
 extent must it tend to diminish the value of the first, and in 
 crease that of the last. That diminution comes with the growth 
 of wealth and population, with the development of individuality, 
 and with the increase in the power of association ; and commerce 
 grows always in the direct ratio of its increase of power over 
 the instrument known as trade, precisely as we see it to do in 
 reference to roads, wagons, ships, and other instruments. The 
 men who buy and sell, who traffic and transport, desire to pre 
 vent association, and thus to preclude the maintenance of com 
 merce ; and the more perfectly their object is accomplished, the 
 larger is the proportion of the commodities passing through their 
 hands, retained by them ; and the smaller the proportion to be 
 divided between the producers and the consumers. 
 
 In illustration of this we may take the post-office, an admira 
 ble machine for maintaining commerce in words and ideas, but 
 totally useless to persons who live near together. Separate the 
 latter, and the machine becomes a necessity, with great diminu 
 tion in the power to maintain commerce. Bring them together 
 again, and the necessity disappears, with great increase of com 
 merce conversation being accompanied by a rapidity in the 
 motion of ideas that enables half an hour to accomplish more 
 than might have been done with a correspondence of a year. 
 The letter-writers are the people who maintain commerce, while 
 the letter-carriers are the traders, used by them for its mainte 
 nance. In the early periods of society the obstacles to this com 
 merce having been very great, its amount was, consequently, very 
 
212 CHAPTER VIII. 4. 
 
 small indeed. The trade in letters has been a monopoly of govern 
 ments that have dictated the terms upon which commerce could 
 be maintained but, with the progress of population and of 
 wealth, the people of various countries have been enabled to 
 diminish the power of the trader ; and, as a necessary conse 
 quence, commerce has largely grown. Even now, however, the 
 intercourse between this country and Europe is heavily taxed by 
 means of obstacles thrown in the way by Great Britain, which 
 permits no letter to pass over its limited territory, but at a cost 
 nearly equal to that required for transporting it across the thou 
 sands of miles of ocean that lie between the continents. 
 
 Ships are not commerce, nor are wagons, sailors, letter-car 
 riers, brokers, or commission merchants. The necessity for using 
 them constitutes an obstacle standing in the way of commerce, 
 and adding largely to the value of commodities requiring their 
 aid in passing from the consumer to the producer. The trader 
 desires to increase that value, buying cheaply and selling dearly 
 thus increasing the power of the instrument used by commerce. 
 The real parties to the exchange desire the reverse of this, thus 
 diminishing the power of the instrument, and increasing that of 
 those who use it. The greater the power of the trader, the smaller 
 must be commerce ; whereas the more perfect the power of the 
 principals, the greater must it be. 
 
 That the necessity for employing the trader and transporter is 
 felt, by all who have exchanges to make, to be an obstacle, is 
 proved by the fact that every measure tending to the diversifica 
 tion of employment, or to the improvement of communications 
 and consequently to the reduction of their power is universally 
 hailed as leading to improvement in the condition of all other 
 portions of society. The laborer rejoices when demand for his 
 services is brought to his door by the erection of a mill or a fur 
 nace, or the construction of a road. The farmer rejoices in the 
 opening of a market close at hand, giving him consumers for his 
 food. His land rejoices in the home consumption of its products, 
 for its owner is thereby enabled to return to it their refuse in the 
 form of manure. The planter rejoices in the erection of a mill in 
 his neighborhood, giving him a market for his cotton and his food. 
 The parent rejoices when a market for their labor enables his sons 
 and his daughters readily to supply themselves with the food and 
 
OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 213 
 
 clothing they require. Every one rejoices in the growth of a 
 home market for labor and its products, for commerce is then 
 increasing surely and rapidly ; and every one mourns the dimi 
 nution of the home market, for it is one whose deficiencies cannot 
 elsewhere be supplied. Labor and its products are then wasted 
 
 the power of consumption diminishes with diminution of the 
 
 power of production commerce becomes languid labor and 
 land diminish in value and laborer and land-owner become 
 daily poorer than before. 
 
 Every step in the former direction is attended with increase in 
 the continuity of motion among the people who produce and con 
 sume with increase in the power of association and combination 
 
 and increase of freedom. Every one tending to increase the 
 power of the trader, or any other of the instruments used by com 
 merce, is attended, on the contrary, with a deterioration in the 
 condition of man, and a decline of freedom ; and that this must 
 necessarily be so, will be obvious to all who reflect, that the growth 
 of wealth and freedom is everywhere seen to be a consequence of 
 man s increased power over the machinery required for the accom 
 plishment of his purposes. As axes and steam-engines are im 
 proved in quality, the men who use them acquire a constantly 
 increased control over the constantly augmenting products of 
 their labor, attended with a constant increase in the ability to 
 become themselves owners of such machines. As the machinery 
 required to be used in the performance of exchanges, is improved 
 in quality, the producer and the consumer acquire a constantly 
 increased control over the products of their labor, with steady 
 tendency to come nearer together, and to emancipate themselves 
 altogether from the trader s power. 
 
 Trade tending necessarily towards centralization, every step 
 in that direction, whether in the moral or material world, is an 
 approach to slavery and death. Commerce, on the contrary, 
 tending towards the establishment of local centres and local action, 
 
 every movement in that direction is an approach to freedom. 
 Whatever tends to increase the power of the one, tends to destruc 
 tion of individuality and decrease in the power of association 
 but whatever tends to increase the power of the other, tends to 
 development of mind and to increase in the desire of association, 
 
214 CHAPTER VIII. 4. 
 
 and in the power to enjoy the vast advantages that everywhere 
 result from it. 
 
 The movements of trade being, like those of war, greatly 
 dependent on the will of individuals, are necessarily very spas 
 modic. Collected together in great cities, traders find it easy to 
 combine their operations when it is desired to depress the prices 
 of the commodities they seek to obtain, or to raise those of the 
 things they already possess ; and thus do they obtain power to 
 tax both the consumers and the producers. Commerce, on the 
 contrary, tends to produce steadiness and regularity, and thus to 
 diminish the power of the trader. Regularity of motion is essen 
 tial to its continuity, as is well known to all persons familiar with 
 the movements of machinery. A steam-engine that was spasmo 
 dic in its action could not turn out good cloth or flour, nor could 
 the machine itself long continue to exist. Slight as are the 
 changes produced by a little excess of steam at one moment, or a 
 corresponding deficiency at another, it was deemed necessary to 
 invent a governor, whose action should tend to the production of 
 perfect steadiness of motion ; and the result was thus obtained. 
 
 Without steadiness, there can be no durability of machinery ; 
 and that quality is as essential to society as it can be to the 
 steam-engine or the watch. With the growth of commerce, it 
 increases, and therefore is it, that in all communities in which the 
 power of association is growing, because of increased diversifica 
 tion of employments, and increased development of individuality, 
 we witness a constant increase of strength and power. Steadiness 
 diminishes with the increased necessity for trade ; and therefore is 
 it that in all communities in which employments have become 
 less diversified, there has been a constant decline of both strength 
 and power. "Strength," says Carlyle, " does not manifest itself 
 in spasms, but in the stout bearing of burdens" and in this it is, 
 as there will be occasion to show, that trading communities have 
 always failed. 
 
 War and trade regard man as the instrument to be used, 
 whereas commerce regards trade as the instrument to be used by 
 man ; and therefore it is, that man declines when the power of the 
 warrior and trader grows, and rises as that power declines. 
 
 Wealth increases, as the value of commodities or the cost at 
 which they may be reproduced declines. Values tend to de- 
 
OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 215 
 
 clinc with every diminution of the power of the trader and there 
 fore it is that we see wealth to increase so rapidly when the con 
 sumer and producer are brought into close connection with each 
 other. Were it otherwise, it would be in opposition to a well- 
 known physical law, from the study of which we learn, that with 
 every diminution in the machinery required for producing a given 
 effect, there is a diminution of friction and consequent increase of 
 power. The friction of commerce results from the necessity for 
 the services of the trader, his ships, and his wagons. As that 
 necessity diminishes as men are more and more enabled to asso 
 ciate there is diminution of friction, with constant tendency 
 towards continuous motion among the various portions of society, 
 with rapid increase of individuality and of the power of further 
 progress. 
 
 Commerce, then, is the object sought to be accomplished. 
 Trade is the instrument. The more that man becomes master of 
 the instrument, the greater is the tendency towards the accom 
 plishment of the object. The more the instrument becomes 
 master of him, the less is that tendency, and the smaller must be 
 the amount of commerce. These things premised, we may now 
 proceed to examine the process by means of which society is 
 formed. 
 
 5. In science, as the reader has already seen, it is the most 
 abstract and general that is first developed, leaving the concrete 
 and special to follow slowly in the rear ; and so it is with the 
 pursuits of man. To rob and murder our fellow-men to seek 
 glory at the cost of the destruction of towns and cities requires 
 no scientific knowledge ; whereas agriculture is a pursuit calling 
 at every moment for the aid of science. So, again, is it with trad 
 ing, which makes but small demand upon the intellectual faculties. 
 To the postman it is unimportant whether the letter he delivers 
 carries with it news of war or peace, births or deaths. To the 
 dealer in cotton or sugar, it matters little whether his commodities 
 grow on the hills or in the valleys, on trees, or on shrubs. To the 
 dealer in slaves, it is immaterial whether the chattel be male or 
 female, parent or child ; all that he requires to know being, whe 
 ther, having bought it cheaply, he can sell it dearly. Trade is to 
 
216 CHAPTER VIII. 5. 
 
 commerce what mathematics are to science. Both are instruments 
 to be used for the accomplishment of an object. 
 
 The abstract mathematics deal simply with number and form, 
 whereas chemistry looks to the decomposition, and physiology to 
 the recomposition, of the material of bodies. Trade deals with 
 bodies to be moved or exchanged, having no reference to the 
 qualities by which one body is distinguished from another; 
 whereas, commerce looks to the decomposition and recomposition 
 of the various forces of society resulting from the power to asso 
 ciate, and the exercise of the habit of. association. Trade, 
 abstract and general, is, like war, early developed, whereas 
 agriculture and commerce require, for their development, a great 
 advance in population, wealth, and power. The savage of the 
 Rocky Mountains, or of the islands of the South Pacific, is as 
 keen a trader as the one who has served his apprenticeship in 
 New York or London ; and the first desire of the Russian serf is 
 to become a dealer in the produce of the labor of other hands. 
 
 In the early periods of society, robbery and murder were deified 
 under the names of Odin, and of Mars. Alexander and Caesar, 
 Tamerlane and Nadir Shah, Drake and Cavendish, Wallenstein 
 and Napoleon, were geat, because of the number of murders they 
 had committed, and of towns and cities they had ruined. The 
 " merchant-princes" of Venice, and of Genoa, were great, because 
 of the large fortunes they had realized from buying and selling 
 slaves and other merchandise doing nothing themselves but 
 stand between the people who produced and those who con 
 sumed thus adding largely to the value of the commodities 
 passing through their hands, at the cost of all who found 
 themselves forced to contribute to the growth of their enormous 
 fortunes. 
 
 In this condition of society, the only qualities that command 
 respect among men are brute force and craft the one properly 
 represented by Ajax, while the other is personified in the wise 
 Ulysses. The morals of war and of trade are the same. The 
 warrior rejoices in deceiving his antagonist, all being fair in war ; 
 while the trader acquires the respect of his friends by help of a 
 large fortune, acquired, perhaps, by supplying the poor negroes 
 of Africa with guns that exploded at the first attempt to fire 
 them or cloth that fell to pieces on the first attempt to wash 
 
OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 217 
 
 it. In both, the end is seen to sanctify the means the only 
 test of right being found in success or failure. Pre-eminence of 
 soldiers and traders may, therefore, be regarded as an evidence 
 of barbarism. 
 
 The object of the warrior-chief being that of preventing the 
 existence of any motion in society except that which centres in 
 himself, he monopolizes land, and destroys the power of volun 
 tary association among the men he uses as his instruments. The 
 soldier, obeying the word of command, is so far from holding 
 himself responsible to God, or man, for the observance of the 
 rights of person or of property, that he glories in the extent of 
 his robberies, and in the number of his murders. The man of 
 the Rocky Mountains adorns his person with the scalps of his 
 butchered enemies, while the more civilized murderer contents 
 himself with adding a ribbon to the decoration of his coat ; but 
 both are savages alike. The trader equally with the soldier 
 seeking to prevent any movement except that which centres in 
 himself also uses irresponsible machines. The sailor is among 
 the most brutalized of human beings, bound, like the soldier, to 
 obey orders, at the risk of having his back seamed by the applica 
 tion of the whip. The human machines used by war and trade 
 are the only ones, except the negro slave, w r ho are now flogged. 
 
 The soldier desires labor to be cheap, that recruits may readily 
 be obtained. The great land-owner desires it may be cheap, that 
 he may be enabled to appropriate to himself a large proportion 
 of the proceeds of his land ; and the trader desires it to be cheap, 
 that he may be enabled to dictate the terms upon which he will 
 buy, as well as those upon which he will sell. 
 
 The object of all being thus identical that of obtaining power 
 over their fellow-men it is no matter of surprise that we find the 
 trader and the soldier so uniformly helping, and being helped by, 
 each other. The bankers of Home were as ready to furnish ma 
 terial aid to Caesar, Pompey, and Augustus, as are now those of 
 London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Vienna, to grant it to the Em 
 perors of France, Austria, and Russia and as indifferent as 
 they in relation to the end for whose attainment it was destined 
 to be used. War and trade thus travel together, as is shown 
 by the history of the world ; the only difference between wars 
 made for purposes of conquest, and those for the maintenance of 
 
 YOL. I. 15 
 
218 CHAPTER VIII. 6. 
 
 monopolies of trade, being, that the virulence of the latter is much 
 greater than is that of the former. The conqueror seeking poli 
 tical power is sometimes moved by a desire to improve the condi 
 tion of his fellow-men ; but the trader, in pursuit of power, is ani 
 mated by no other idea than that of buying in the cheapest 
 market and selling in the dearest cheapening merchandise 
 in the one, even at the cost of starving the producers, and in 
 creasing his price in the other, even at the cost of starving the 
 consumers. Both profit by whatever tends to diminution in the 
 power of voluntary association, and consequent decline of com 
 merce. The soldier forbids the holding of meetings among his 
 subjects. The slave-owner interdicts his people from assembling 
 together, except at such times, and in such places, as meet his 
 approbation. The shipmaster rejoices when the men of England 
 separate from each other, and transport themselves by hundreds of 
 thousands to Canada and Australia, because it enhances freights ; 
 and the trader rejoices because the more widely men are scat 
 tered, the more they need the service of the middle-man, and the 
 richer and more powerful does he become at their expense. 
 
 6. Closely connected with the movements of the trader, and 
 next in the order of development, come the labors given to effect 
 ing changes of place. In the early periods, these are almost alto 
 gether limited to changing the places of men who are held as 
 slaves, as we see now to be the case in many parts of Africa ; 
 and to some extent in our Southern States. By degrees, how 
 ever, the camel-driver, the wagoner, and the sailor, appear upon 
 the scene a highly important portion of society, because of the 
 great quantity of muscular effort required for moving a little 
 merchandise. Here, again, we see that the earliest in develop 
 ment is that which makes least demand for knowledge. To the 
 wagoner, it is indifferent what it is he carries, whether cotton, 
 rum, or prayer-books ; and to the sailor, it is immaterial whether 
 he carries gunpowder to the African, or clothing to the people of 
 the Sandwich Islands provided he is satisfied with the price 
 paid for the work of transportation. With the growth of wealth 
 and population, and consequent increase in the power of associa 
 tion, the necessity for transportation declines, while the facilities 
 for effecting changes of place as steadily increase. The turnpike 
 
OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 219 
 
 road, and the railroad, replace in quick succession the Indian 
 path, as the ship and the steamer replace the canoe ; and with every 
 step in this direction, there is a diminution in the proportion of 
 society required to be so employed, accompanied by an increase 
 in the proportion of the muscular and mental powers that may 
 be given to the work of increasing the quantity of things suscep 
 tible of being carried. 
 
 7. Next in the order of development come mechanical and 
 chemical changes of matter in form, more concrete and special, 
 and requiring a much higher degree of knowledge. 
 
 A branch torn from a tree sufficed Cain for the murder of his 
 brother Abel ; but he would have required to understand the 
 nature of the material to be used for making a knife, before he 
 could have converted it into a bow, or the trunk from which 
 it had been torn, into a canoe. The skin may be torn from 
 a deer and used for a garment ; but it requires some knowledge 
 to enable the poor savage of the West to convert it into a moc 
 casin. The stone may be used as a weapon of offence, but it 
 requires some acquaintance with the properties of matter to dis 
 cover that it contains iron, and still further knowledge to be 
 enabled to convert iron into swords and spades. 
 
 With that knowledge conies man s power over matter or, in 
 other words, his wealth ; and with every increase of power, he is 
 more and more enabled to live in connection with his fellow-men 
 associating with them for the establishment, or maintenance, 
 of their rights of person and of property. Motion becomes more 
 continuous, with steady increase of its rapidity ; and with every 
 such increase society tends to take upon itself a more natural and 
 consistent form the proportion of those who live by appropria 
 tion steadily declining, with corresponding increase in the propor 
 tion of those who live by the exertion of their physical and intel 
 lectual faculties. Right tends-, therefore, to triumph over might, 
 with diminution in the proportion of the labors of the community 
 required for self-defence, and corresponding increase in the pro 
 portion that may be given to the work of obtaining power over 
 the forces of nature ; and with every step in this direction the feel 
 ing of the responsibility which attends the exercise of power tends 
 steadily to increase. 
 
220 CHAPTER VIII. 8. 
 
 8. Following the above in order of development, come the 
 labors given to effecting vital changes in the forms of matter, ana 
 attended with an augmentation of the quantity of things suscepti 
 ble of being converted, transported, sold, or bought. 
 
 The labors of the miller make no change in the quantity of food 
 to be eaten, nor do those of the spinner increase the quantity of 
 cotton to be worn ; but to those of the farmer we are indebted for 
 an increase in the quantity of corn and of wool. 
 
 The exercise of that power is limited to the earth alone. Man 
 fashions and exchanges, but he cannot, with all his science, 
 fashion the elements by which he is surrounded, into a grain of 
 corn, or a lock of wool. A part of his labor being given 
 to the fashioning of the great machine itself, produces changes 
 that are permanent : the drain, once cut, remaining a drain ; and 
 the limestone, once reduced to lime, not again becoming lime 
 stone. Passing into the food of man and animals, it ever after 
 takes its part in the same round with the clay with which it has 
 been combined. The iron rusting, gradually passes into the 
 soil, to take its part with the clay and the lime. That portion 
 of man s labor gives him wages while preparing the machine for 
 greater future production ; but that which he expends in fashion 
 ing and exchanging the products of the machine produces tempo 
 rary results, and gives him wages alone. Whatever tends to 
 dimmish the proportion of labor required for fashioning and ex 
 changing, tends to augment the proportion that may be given to 
 increasing the quantity of things that may be changed again in 
 form, and to developing the powers of the earth ; and thus, while 
 increasing the present return to labor, preparing for further 
 increase. 
 
 The first poor cultivator obtains for his year s wages a hun 
 dred bushels, the pounding of which between stones requires much 
 labor ; and yet is most imperfectly done. Had he a mill in the 
 neighborhood, he would have better flour; and he would have 
 almost his whole time to bestow upon his land. He pulls up 
 his grain. Had he a scythe, he would have more time for the 
 preparation of the machine of production. He loses his axe, 
 and it requires many days of travel to enable him to obtain an 
 other. His machine loses the time and the manure, both of 
 which would have been saved had the axe-maker been at hand. 
 
OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 221 
 
 The real advantage derived from the mill and the scythe, and 
 from the proximity of the axe-maker, consists simply in economiz 
 ing time, and enabling him to devote his labor more continuously 
 to the improvement of the great machine of production ; and such 
 is the case with all the machinery of preparation and exchange. 
 The plough enabling him to do as much in one day as with a 
 spade he could do in many, the time thus gained may be ap 
 plied to drainage. The steam-engine draining as much as with 
 out it would require thousands of days of labor, he has now 
 more leisure to marl, or lime, his land. The more he can ex 
 tract from his machine the greater is its value everything he 
 takes being, by the very act of taking it, changed in form to fit 
 it for further production. The machine, therefore, improves by 
 use, whereas spades, and ploughs, and steam-engines, and all 
 other instruments used by man, are but the various forms into 
 which he fashions parts of the great original machine, to dis 
 appear in the act of being used ; as much so as food, though not 
 quite so rapidly. The earth is the great labor savings bank, and 
 the value to man of all other things, is in the direct ratio of their 
 tendency to aid him in increasing his deposits in that only bank 
 whose dividends are constantly increasing, while its capital is per 
 petually augmenting. That it may continue for ever so to do, 
 all that it asks is, that motion may be maintained by returning to 
 it the refuse of its produce the manure ; and that such may be 
 the case, it is required that the consumer and the producer take 
 their places by each other. That done, every change that is 
 effected becomes permanent, and tends to facilitate other and 
 greater changes. The whole business of the farmer consisting 
 in making and improving soils, the earth rewards him for his 
 kindness by giving him more and more food the more attention 
 he bestows upon her. 
 
 The great pursuit of man is agriculture. It is the science that 
 requires the greatest amount and variety of knowledge, and there 
 fore is it that it is everywhere latest in development. It is only 
 now, indeed, that it is becoming a science ; and it is doing so by 
 aid of geological, chemical, and physiological knowledge, the 
 most of which is, itself, but the result of the labors of the present 
 day. It is later, too, because most exposed to interference from 
 soldiers, traders, and others engaged in the work of appropria- 
 
222 CHAPTER VIII. 9. 
 
 tion. The warrior feels himself safe within the walls of his cas 
 tle ; the trader, the shoemaker, the tailor, the maker of swords 
 and battle-axes, shut themselves up within the town ; and that 
 town is itself always placed on the highest land of the neighbor 
 hood, with a view to the security of its occupants as may be 
 seen in the early ones of Greece and India, Italy and France. The 
 agricultural laborer, on the contrary, being forced to labor with 
 out the city walls, his property is ravaged on every occasion of 
 difference between the trading community of which he forms a 
 part, and those to which he is a neighbor. On every such occa 
 sion, motion is intermitted, and he is forced to seek protection for 
 himself and his family within the city walls a proceeding involv 
 ing daily intermission of effort by reason of the distance between 
 the scene of his daily labor and his place of refuge. The more 
 the power of man over nature, the greater is the power of asso 
 ciation for the general security, and the greater the tendency to 
 wards the maintenance of peace and then it is that wealth tends 
 to increase with daily augmenting force. 
 
 9. Last in the order of development comes commerce. Every 
 act of association being an act of commerce, the latter tends, neces 
 sarily, to increase as, with the growth of power over nature, men are 
 enabled to obtain larger supplies of food from constantly diminish 
 ing surfaces. While cultivating the poor soils alone, and forced 
 to remain distant from each other, the power to maintain com 
 merce scarcely exists, as we see to be now the case in Russia, 
 Portugal, Brazil, and Mexico ; but then it is that the power of the 
 soldier, the trader, and of others who live by appropriation, is the 
 greatest. With the progress of population and wealth, men find 
 themselves enabled to cultivate the rich soils of the earth ; and 
 now they have more leisure for the improvement of their minds, 
 and for the construction of machinery required for obtaining 
 increase of power. This, in turn, enables them to improve their 
 modes of cultivation, while diversity of employment brings with 
 it the power of association and the development of individuality, 
 with greater feeling of responsibility, and greater power of pro 
 gress ; and thus it is that each helps, while being helped by, the 
 others. The greater the commerce, the less is the necessity for 
 the trader s services the less is theyropottion required to pay 
 
OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 223 
 
 for those services, the larger the proportion that may be given to 
 developing the powers of the land, and the more rapid is the fur 
 ther growth of commerce. 
 
 10. The machine of society, like that of the human frame, is 
 composed of portions acting independently, yet all in perfect har 
 mony, each with every other. The stomach acts while the eyes 
 are closed in sleep ; and the ear is open, though the nerves are 
 unexcited. Each of these changes in its constituent parts from 
 day to day the machine remaining still the same ; and the more 
 rapid the assimilation of the food required for the accomplishment 
 of those changes, the more healthful is the action of the whole ; 
 and the greater is the tendency to stability and durability of the 
 machine itself. So is it, too, with society its tendency towards 
 steadiness and durability being in the direct ratio of the rapidity 
 of motion among its various parts, and the activity of commerce. 
 
 The more natural the form, the greater, as we everywhere see, 
 is the tendency to continuity of existence. Discharge a load of 
 earth, and it will at once take upon itself nearly the form of a py 
 ramid ; and so will the pile continue to do, as long as matter shall 
 continue to be added the base widening steadily as the apex 
 rises in height. The Himalaya, and the Andes, have endured for 
 ever, because they have the natural form, that of a cone or pyra 
 mid the most beautiful of all the forms of which matter is sus 
 ceptible. How durable it is, is shown by the Egyptian pyramids 
 remaining, as they do, after the lapse of thousands of years, 
 almost as perfect as they were in the days of the sovereigns by 
 whose orders they were built. Turning next to the societary 
 machine, we see that everywhere, as wealth and numbers increase, 
 its members are engaged in sinking its foundations deeper 
 bringing to light the marl and the lime, the coal and the ore with 
 which the earth so much abounds ; that, as the foundations deepen, 
 the height increases, with diminution of the proportion of the 
 apex; and that every movement in this direction is attended 
 with increase in the local attraction required for producing the 
 same double motion seen existing throughout the universe ; and 
 to which are due the perfect harmony and wonderful durability of 
 the system. 
 
 Looking to the vegetable world, we see, everywhere, that the 
 
224 CHAPTER VIII. 10. 
 
 tendency to durability is in the ratio of the depth and spread of 
 the root, as compared with the length of the stem. The tree, 
 growing in a forest, and surrounded by others like itself 
 "cabined, cribbed, confined" obeys but the single centraliz 
 ing influence, and runs up rapidly in quest of light and air ; of 
 which it would be deprived were it to permit others to overtop it. 
 Making, however, but very little root, its want of stability is soon 
 exhibited when, by reason of the clearing of the trees around it, 
 it becomes exposed to the action of the winds. Those, on the 
 contrary, whiv;h have grown in situations in which light and air 
 have been abundant, have roots proportioned to their height and 
 breadth, and stand for centuries as has been the case with so 
 many of the oaks of England. 
 
 The greater the number of people that can live together, the 
 greater must be the power of association the more uniform, 
 regular, and rapid must be the motion the more perfect must 
 be the development of the faculties and the greater the tendency 
 to sink deeply the foundations of society, by means of the deve 
 lopment of the wondrous treasures of the earth. The greater 
 the tendency towards utilizing the various forces presenting them 
 selves in the form of water-powers, masses of coal, iron, lead, cop 
 per, zinc, and other metals, the greater, necessarily, is the tend 
 ency to the formation of local centres neutralizing the attraction 
 towards the political or commercial capital; with steady tendency 
 to decline of centralization, and constant diminution in the pro 
 portion borne by the soldiers, the politicians, the traders, and all 
 others of the class that lives by appropriation, to the mass of 
 which society is composed ; and with a constant tendency to have 
 society itself assume that form which everywhere is seen to com 
 bine beauty, strength, and durability that of a cone or pyramid. 
 
 11. A tree conforming in its structural provisions to the 
 conditions above described as may be seen in the diagram here 
 given and its ramifications, both of roots and branches, serving 
 to illustrate the natural history of societary commerce advantage 
 may be derived from presenting somewhat in detail the illustra 
 tive facts in the correspondence. Let, then, the stem be com 
 merce, in our meaning of the term, and the roots its subjects. In 
 the earliest, or hunter, state, the business of man is simple appro- 
 
P . 224. 
 
OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 225 
 
 priation the wild animals and their products, and the vegeta 
 bles and the fruits, produced without his care, and grown without 
 his culture, being his prey. In this stage there is neither trade, 
 manufactures, nor agriculture ; and the young plant, in parallel 
 circumstances, shows but the earliest branches and the slightly 
 produced topmost roots. Having no terms precisely descriptive 
 of the slighter stages of societary growth the savage, the pasto 
 ral, and patriarchal states through which we arrive at that to 
 which trade and transportation give their peculiar character the 
 diagram, as the reader will perceive, is necessarily deficient in the 
 branches required for their methodic illustration. 
 
 In the second era, property being held by title somewhat more 
 permanent than mere occupation and manual possession trade 
 arises, and is founded on its conventional recognition. Change 
 of place being then effected by the rudest methods of transporta 
 tion, the waters and the air root branches are the natural 
 forces then used for the accomplishment of that object the canoe 
 and the sail-boat utilizing the rivers and the winds. The sailor 
 and the merchant, and the land-carrier with his camel, or his ox, 
 or his horse and perhaps his wagon constitute now the import 
 ant portions of the societary system. 
 
 Next, in order, come manufactures, corresponding with the 
 roots that are third in order, for among the earliest subjects that 
 mark this epoch the minerals and earths are essential both as ma 
 terials and implements. Long before this, however, the savage has 
 been accustomed to effect changes in the forms of matter his bow 
 having been made of wood, and its string of the sinews of the deer 
 and his canoe having been of bark and provided with a skin in 
 place of sail ; but it is to a somewhat advanced stage of human 
 progress we are required to look for the pursuits of men connected 
 with the conversion of ores into implements, or of cotton and wool 
 into cloth. The precious metals, gold, silver, and copper being, 
 like the wild fruits and animals, found ready, or nearly so, for use 
 are early employed for service and for ornament ; but iron, the 
 great civilizer, and mineral coal, the great agent for its conver 
 sion, are among the latest of human triumphs over the mighty 
 forces of nature. 
 
 To the branch, manufactures, therefore, the metals and earths 
 root branches very exactly correspond in necessary relation, and 
 
226 CHAPTER VIII. 11. 
 
 in the date of their development. This is the stage of scientific 
 progress ; and here, accordingly, we meet phenomena directly iii 
 accordance with those observed in reference to the occupation of 
 the earth, and to which the reader s attention has before been 
 called. The cultivator of the rich soils is enabled to return, with 
 augmented force, to poorer ones that had been early occupied ; 
 and now it is that developing their latent powers he places 
 them first upon the list, when before they had stood last ; as is 
 seen, to so great an extent, to be the case in England and in 
 France.* In like manner, the science of the later period re 
 turning upon the rude commerce of the earlier one searches out 
 the hidden elements of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and 
 the chemical and mechanical properties of the liquid and elastic 
 fluids, and places them under the control of man thus adding 
 largely to his force, while in a corresponding degree diminishing 
 the resistance offered to his further efforts. The water, at first used 
 only as a beverage or because of its capacity for supporting a 
 boat or a ship now yields steam ; and the air, at first valued 
 only as required for breathing purposes or as a wind force in 
 sailing is now resolved into its gases, and made to furnish light 
 and heat ; while in a thousand other ways aiding the efforts, or 
 contributing to the enjoyments, of man. The animal and vege 
 table worlds that, in the earlier ages, had yielded to the savage 
 only food and medicine, now contribute acids, alkalies, oils, gums, 
 resins, drugs, dyes, perfumes, hair, silk, wool, cotton, and lea 
 ther furnishing, under the touch of manufacturing skill and 
 science, clothing, tenements, conveniences, comforts, and luxuries 
 of life, in a thousand forms of beauty and of use. 
 
 Next, and last, comes agriculture necessarily embracing the 
 discoveries and agencies of all the earlier stages of advance in 
 knowledge and in power. Beginning rudely in the savage state, 
 it grows a little in the age of trade ; but for its greatest growth 
 
 * In his recent work, (Des Systtmes de Culture,} Mons. Passy tells his 
 readers that in those countries in which agriculture has improved, "the 
 soils that, in past times, were regarded as too poor to merit continued and 
 regular cultivation, are now regarded as the best," and after describing the 
 course of things in this respect in Belgium and in France, says that "in 
 England it is an established fact that in various counties the lands denomi 
 nated good are farmed at twenty-two to twenty-five shillings an acre, while 
 those formerly regarded as poor let for thirty to thirty-five shillings." Simi 
 lar changes are now. as he also shows, taking place in France. 
 
OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 227 
 
 it waits the age of manufactures that of scientific development 
 in which man is seen already to have obtained, to a great extent, 
 control and direction of the natural forces provided for his use. 
 Appropriating the ready-formed elements of nature, it commands 
 the aid of trade and transportation, while pressing into its ser 
 vice all the chemical and mechanical forces furnished by the age 
 of manufactures thus covering all the progress of every antece 
 dent stage. It demands not only the physiology of vegetable and 
 animal life, and the chemistry of the organic and inorganic world, 
 but also the conveniences and appliances of the transporting age, 
 as exhibited in roads, ships, and bridges ; and all the chemical 
 and mechanical powers of the manufacturing one finding its sub 
 jects, implements, and agencies in the material, and in the forces, 
 of every branch of human commerce before developed. 
 
 The secondary branches of the tree mark the successive produc 
 tion of the agencies of the several classes ; and thus it is, that, in 
 the topmost branch, the hunter is followed by the soldier, the 
 statesman, and the annuitant all non-producers, growing in 
 their order from the same stem, and with the growth of civiliza 
 tion ; but diminishing in their proportions as society becomes 
 more and more developed. In the infant state, this top branch 
 whether in the natural or social world constituted the whole tree. 
 
 The next branch transportation sprouts into carriers by land 
 and water, and traders in merchandise ;* and, finally, when science 
 and civilization have been well matured, into engineers ; but the 
 proportion to the mass of which society is composed, declines as 
 the powers of man become more and more developed, and as 
 society takes more and more its natural form. 
 
 The third consisting of chemical and mechanical changes of 
 form, swelling out, as the reader sees, into mechanics, architects, 
 miners, machinists, and numerous other varieties greatly over 
 balances the classes that live by appropriation, trade, and trans 
 portation. 
 
 Lastly, we have the agriculturists, branching, successively, into 
 cattle-breeders, poultry-breeders, dairymen, gardeners, orchard- 
 ists, and tillers, to fulfil the grand underlying function of produ 
 cers for all other laborers in the work of social commerce. 
 
 * Trade in men, held as slaves, commences in the earliest period that 
 of mere brute force. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 11. 
 
 The reader must carry with him, in the theory of the parallels 
 here attempted, the recollection that our fyure is capable of no 
 more than contemporaneous presentment of the social distribution 
 of the various functions. The topmost branches are, in point of 
 fact, the last produced by its growth ; and the earliest are re 
 solved, by change of form and increase of substance, into the low 
 est boughs of the perfected tree ; but the identity of the boughs is, 
 in fact, as much lost in the limbs of the tree, as in the successive 
 functionaries of the social state the hunters of a race growing, 
 through their descendants, into transporters, manufacturers, and 
 scientific cultivators of the soil, successively, and by the process 
 of civilizing development. The native Briton having passed, 
 by the process of generation and regeneration, successively, into 
 every form of man now appears in the aristocracy of England ; 
 but his correspondent, in Australia, is still a hunter and a savage. 
 The appropriators of his class, changing with the change of times, 
 appear now in the form of soldiers, politicians, and annuitants. 
 The primitive non-producer preyed upon nature ; and his cor 
 respondents, each in own his way, now prey upon society and 
 upon its industry living at the expense of commerce. The 
 rudest savage was, in his day, the topmost branch of the shrub 
 living upon plunder ; and not producing by his labor. The sol 
 dier of our own day is, like him, a privileged spoliator; while 
 the politician lives by tribute, and the state annuitant derives his 
 whole support from contributions levied upon all the classes who 
 contribute to the growth of commerce. 
 
 In relative position, therefore, the top branch is still in place ; 
 and throughout all changes in the general system, it always has 
 occupied, and always must occupy, a position corresponding to 
 the relation borne by the appropriators of the race to the social 
 toilers. 
 
 The class of transporters, too, in the scale of supremacy, is 
 found to be occupying its true position. The ship-owner and the 
 dealer in merchandise follow the politician in power and rank, as 
 the carrier follows the hunter both classes, in their turn, domi 
 nating over society, until skilled industry, and close combination 
 among men, develope a people into self-government, and thus 
 abridge the powers of the classes who occupy themselves with 
 trade and government, 
 
OP THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 229 
 
 Agriculturists are the last to be developed into their due effici 
 ency ; but here we encounter a difficulty resulting from defect of 
 language there being no words properly expressive of the essen 
 tial difference between the savage, barbarous, and patriarchal, and 
 the civilized and scientific, culture of the earth. The two differ 
 so widely, that they should not be called by the same general 
 name ; and we but allude now to the differences between the 
 infant, the youthful, and the mature husbandry, to account for 
 the fact that unenlightened tillage is overshadowed by the other 
 branches of human commerce, until the great function of produc 
 tion of every kind required for serving the world s highest uses is 
 developed into the perfection to which it is destined, and which it 
 is bound, ultimately, to attain. That done, and the cone stand 
 ing geometrically and socially adjusted upon the basis of science 
 the harmonies of distribution will be complete. 
 
 The tap-root deepens, and the branches grow, as the tree rises 
 in the air. The imponderable elements light, heat, and electri 
 city are last among the elements subjected to the control of 
 man, and made to contribute to the purposes of life. Fire and 
 water, in their natural forms and activities, are early known ; but 
 it is in an advanced stage of progress, only, that their mechanical 
 and chemical forces are brought under man s direction. Light 
 was somewhat understood in the age of painting, but it is only 
 now that it has been made subservient to the arts in photographic 
 portraiture ; electricity is used in the transmission of news, and 
 in the treatment of diseases ; but, as a motor power, or mechani 
 cal force as a substitute for human labor we are yet but on 
 the threshold of discovery. Agriculture waits upon these, and 
 upon the development of meteorology, for the command of its own 
 proper sphere of service in the life of THE MAN. 
 
 In the horse and the man^that arrangement of the parts which 
 gives the greatest strength being the one of the highest beauty, 
 such should likewise be the case with those aggregations of men 
 which constitute societies. 
 
 With every step in the direction that has above been indicated, 
 the community acquires more perfect individuality more com 
 plete power of self-government ; and the more entire that power, 
 the greater is its disposition to combine its efforts with those of 
 other communities of the world and its power to associate with 
 
230 CHAPTER VIII. 12. 
 
 them on terms of strict equality. As it is with individual men, 
 so it is with communities. The more perfect the individuality of 
 the man, the greater is his disposition for association, and the 
 more perfect his power to combine his efforts with those of other 
 men ; and here we have further evidence of the universality of the 
 laws which govern matter in all its forms, from the rock to the 
 sand and the clay into which it becomes decomposed ; and thence 
 upward through trees and animals, until we reach communities of 
 men. 
 
 12. In accordance with a great mathematical law, it being 
 required that when several forces unite to produce any given 
 result, each be studied separately, and treated as if no other one 
 existed, such precisely has been the course above adopted. We 
 know that man tends to increase in numbers, and in his power 
 over nature, and that each successive step in his road towards 
 knowledge and power is but preparation for a new and greater one 
 enabling him to obtain increased supplies of food and clothing, 
 more books and newspapers, and better shelter, with diminished 
 muscular effort. It is seen, however, that despite this tendency, 
 there are various communities in which numbers and wealth are 
 steadily decreasing ; while, among those which are advancing, there 
 are no two whose rate of progress is the same. In some parts 
 of the earth, places that once were occupied by vast communities 
 of men are now entirely abandoned ; while, in others, the miser 
 able remnant exists in poverty, wretchedness, and slavery, although 
 cultivating the same lands that formerly supplied food to nume 
 rous millions of wealthy and prosperous men and hence it has 
 been hastily concluded that it is the natural tendency of communi 
 ties to pass through various forms of existence, ending in phy 
 sical and moral death ; but such vis certainly not the fact. 
 There is no natural reason why any society should fail to be 
 come more prosperous from year to year ; and where such has 
 not been the case, it has been a consequence of disturbing causes, 
 each of which requires to be studied separately, with a view to 
 understand how far it has tended to produce the existing state of 
 things ; but preliminary thereto it is needful that we understand 
 what would be the course of things did no such causes exist. 
 The physician, though not required to treat the man who is in 
 
OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 231 
 
 the enjoyment of perfect health, invariably commences his studies 
 by ascertaining what is the natural action of the system having 
 done which, he feels himself qualified to examine into the disturb 
 ing causes by which health and life are constantly destroyed. 
 Physiology is the necessary preliminary to pathology; and this is 
 as true of social as it is of physical science. 
 
 Having now completed the study of the Physiology of society, 
 exhibiting its progress towards a natural and stable form, our 
 next succeeding chapters will be devoted to its Pathology, with a l 
 view to ascertaining what have been the causes of the decline and 
 fall of various communities that have perished ; and why it is the 
 rate of progress in those now existing is so widely different. 
 
 13. The theory of Mr. Ricardo, in regard to the occupation 
 of the earth, leads to results directly the reverse of those above 
 described. Commencing the work of cultivation on the richer 
 soils always those of the valleys it follows, that as men become 
 more numerous, they must disperse themselves climbing the 
 hills, or seeking elsewhere valleys whose rich soils remain as yet 
 unappropriated. Dispersion, bringing with it an increased neces 
 sity for the services of the soldier, the sailor, and the trader, is 
 accompanied by constant increase in the power of those who have 
 appropriated land to demand payment for its use ; and thus is 
 there produced a constant increase in the proportions", and in the 
 importance, of the classes that live by virtue of the exercise of the 
 power of appropriation. Qentralization, therefore, grows, and 
 its growth is in the direct ratio of the diminution of the power of 
 man to indulge his natural desire for combination with his fellow- 
 men and for that development of his faculties which fits him for 
 association and enables him to acquire enlarged control over the 
 wonderful forces of nature. The many, in that case, become from 
 year to year more and more the slaves of nature and of their fel 
 low-men doing, this, too in virtue of what, if we are to believe 
 Mr. Ricardo and his successors, is a great law, instituted by the 
 Creator for the government of mankind. 
 
 Were this so, society would assume a form directly the reverse 
 of the one here given that of an inverted pyramid every in 
 crease in numbers and wealth being marked by an increasing irre 
 gularity and instability, with corresponding decline in the condi- . 
 
232 CHAPTER Till. 13. 
 
 tion of man. "Order" being, however, "Heaven s first law," 
 it is difficult to comprehend how such an one as that announced 
 by Mr. Ricardo could follow in its train and the mere fact that 
 it would be productive of such disorder, would seem to be a suf 
 ficient reason for doubting its truth, if not, even, for causing it to 
 be instantly rejected. So, too, with that of Mr. Malthus, which 
 leads inevitably to the subjection of the many to the will of the 
 few to centralization and slavery. No such law can, or could, 
 exist. The Creator established none in virtue of which matter 
 was required to take upon itself its highest form, that of man, in 
 a ratio more rapid than that in which it tended to take the lower 
 ones, those of potatoes and turnips, herrings and oysters, required 
 for the sustenance of man. The great Architect of the universe 
 was no blunderer, such as modern political economy would make 
 him. All wise, he was not required to institute different sets of 
 laws for the government of the same matter. All just, he was 
 incapable of instituting any that could be adduced in justification 
 of tyranny and oppression. All merciful, he could make none 
 that would afford a warrant for want of mercy among men to 
 wards their fellow-men, such as is now daily exhibited in politico- 
 economical books of high authority.* 
 
 Speaking of the Ricardo theory, a recent and eminent writer 
 assures his readers that that " general law of agricultural industry 
 is the most important proposition in political economy ; and 
 that, "were the law different, nearly all the phenomena of the 
 production and consumption of wealth would be other than they 
 are. " Other, rather, than they have been described by political 
 economists as being, but not " other than they are." The law 
 is different, and produces totally different results. The supposi 
 titious one leads to the glorification of trade that pursuit of man 
 which tends least to the development of the human intellect, and 
 most to the hardening of the heart towards the sufferings of his 
 
 * Labor is, as we are told by English economists, " a commoditity," and if 
 men will, by marrying, indulge that natural desire which prompts them to seek 
 association with their kind, and will bring up children "to an overstocked and 
 expiring trade," it is for them to take the consequences, and "if we stand 
 between the error and its consequences, we stand between the evil and its cure if 
 we intercept the penalty, (where it does not amount to positive death,) we 
 perpetuate the sin." (Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1849. The italics are those 
 of the reviewer.) It would be difficult to find elsewhere stronger evidence 
 of the tendency of an unsound political economy to crush out all Christian 
 feeling, than is contained in the above extract. 
 
OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETY. 233 
 
 fellow-men ; while the real one finds its highest point in the deve 
 lopment of that commerce of man with his fellow-man which tends 
 most to his advancement as a moral and intellectual being and 
 most to the establishment of the feeling of responsibility to his Crea 
 tor for the use he makes of the faculties with which he has been 
 endowed, and of the wealth he is permitted to obtain. The one is 
 unchristian in all its parts, while the other in its every line is in 
 strict accordance with the great law of Christianity, teaching that 
 we should do to others as we would that they should do unto us 
 and with the feeling that prompts the prayer 
 
 " That mercy I to others show, 
 That mercy show to me." 
 
 YOL. I. 16 
 
234 CHAPTER IX. 1. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OF APPROPRIATION. 
 
 1. IN the early period of society, men being poor and widely 
 scattered, there exists a necessity for being always prepared for self- 
 defence. Such was the case with the early settlers of these United 
 States ; and so is it now with those engaged in occupying the 
 Oregon, Washington, and other territories of the West. That 
 necessity disappearing, however, with the growth of population, 
 and consequent increase in the power of association, they are 
 enabled more continuously to prosecute their labors freed from 
 fear of seeing their fields ravaged, their houses and implements 
 destroyed, and their wives and children butchered before their 
 eyes ; and now it is that production rapidly increases, with grow 
 ing tendency to the development of individuality, and to physical, 
 moral, and social progress. 
 
 In that period, too, the services of the trader are among the 
 necessities of life. Haying but little to exchange, the scattered 
 settlers hail the arrival of the travelling peddler, who receives 
 from them their surplus products, in exchange for shoes or blan 
 kets, kettles, saws, or gloves. Here, however, we mark a course 
 of operation similar to that observed in regard to preparation for 
 self-defence the necessity for the services of the soldier and the 
 trader diminishing as the makers of shoes and blankets, kettles 
 and gloves, come to take their places in the settlement ; and every 
 step in the progress of that diminution is seen to be attended with 
 increase in the continuity of effort in the development of indivi 
 dual faculties and in the strength of the community of which the 
 individuals are a part. 
 
 Diminishing wants being attended by diminution in the effort 
 required for their satisfaction, each successive step in the direc 
 tion that has above been indicated, is attended by diminution in 
 the proportion of the labors of the community required to be given 
 
APPROPRIATION. 235 
 
 to the work of self-defence, and to that of trade or transportation ; 
 and the smaller the proportion thus required to be given, the 
 larger, necessarily, must be that which may be given to the 
 work of cultivation with constant increase in the power of 
 combination, and in the growth of commerce. The two neces 
 sities above described constituting the essential obstacles to the 
 gratification of the first and greatest desire of man, the more 
 completely they can be removed, the more perfect will be his 
 security of person and of property the more productive will 
 become his labor the less must be the value of all the commodi 
 ties required for his consumption and the greater must be his 
 power of accumulating wealth ; and that such is felt to be the 
 case is obvious from the pleasant feeling among the members of a 
 community whenever, from any cause, they are diminished, or 
 removed ; and the power of association for peaceful purposes is 
 increased. 
 
 That feeling does not, however, extend to those who profit by 
 the exercise of power over their fellow-men, either as warriors, 
 politicians, or traders. The soldier seeking plunder, in quest of 
 which he is always willing to risk his life has, perhaps, appro 
 priated large bodies of land, requiring slaves for their cultivation ; 
 or there are others ready to purchase the captives he may make. 
 The trader, too, profiting by the irregularity of motion in time of 
 war, buys men or merchandise when, and where, they are cheap ; 
 and sells them when, and where, they are dear. All seek to cen 
 tralize in their own hands the control of those by whom they are 
 surrounded the soldier monopolizing the power to collect taxes ; 
 the great landholder monopolizing the commodities yielded by the 
 labor of his slaves ; and the trader desiring everywhere to mono 
 polize the collection and distribution of those commodities that 
 he may be enabled to dictate the prices at which he will buy, and 
 those at which he will sell. All are middlemen, standing in the 
 way of association, and preventing any continuous motion between 
 those who produce and those who need to consume, and desire to 
 maintain commerce among themselves. 
 
 The progress of a community towards wealth and power being 
 in the direct ratio of the combination of action among the people 
 of whom it is composed, it follows that the advance towards both 
 must be in the ratio in which they are enabled to dispense with the 
 
236 CHAPTER IX. 2. 
 
 services of the politician, the soldier, the owner of sla^v es, and the 
 trader of that class which lives by virtue of the simple act of 
 appropriation. Every movement, however, in that direction, 
 looking necessarily to a diminution in the power of the latter, 
 they are all soldier, trader, and politician found, uniformly, 
 banded together for the subjection of the people ; as was seen in 
 Athens and in Rome, and as may now be seen in all the countries 
 of Europe and America. The history of the world is but a record 
 of the efforts of the few to tax the many, and of those of the many 
 to escape taxation ; and the tendency of society to assume a natu 
 ral and stable form is in the precise ratio of the success of this 
 latter class a success, however, slowly and tediously accom 
 plished, because of the power of those who live by appropriation 
 to come together in towns and cities, while they who contribute 
 to their revenues are scattered throughout the country. 
 
 2. The close connection between war and trade is seen in 
 every page of history. The Ishmaelites, whose hand was against 
 every man, while every man s hand was against them, were exten 
 sive dealers in slaves and other merchandise. The Phoenicians, 
 Carians, and Sidonians being freebooters at one time, or traders 
 at another, as might best suit their purposes were always ready for 
 any measures tending to increase their monopoly at home by adding 
 to the number of their slaves ; or their monopolies abroad by pre 
 venting others from interfering in the trade which they, themselves, 
 carried on between distant men. The pages of Homer exhibit to 
 us Menelaus boasting of his piracies, and of the plunder he had 
 acquired ; and the sage Ulysses as feeling his honor untouched by 
 the inquiry, as to whether he came in the character of trader, or of 
 pirate. Turning next to a somewhat corresponding period in the 
 history of modern Europe, we find the Norwegian sea-kings and 
 their subjects alternately engaged in "gathering property," as 
 robbery by sea and land was naively termed ; or in carrying the 
 produce of one kingdom to another both pursuits being held in 
 equally high esteem. Later, the same connection becomes obvi 
 ous in the histories of Hawkins, Drake, and Cavendish ; in that 
 of the slave-trade, from its commencement to its close ;* in that 
 
 * " There is no nation in Europe which has plunged so deeply into this 
 guilt as Britain. We stopped the natural progress of civilization in Africa. 
 
APPROPRIATION. 237 
 
 of the Buccaneers and the West India colonies ; in the French 
 and English wars on this continent in the West Indies and 
 in India ; in the closing of the Scheldt ; in the wars of Spain and 
 England ; in the paper blockades of the wars of the French Revo 
 lution ; in the occupation of Gibraltar as a smuggling depot ;* in 
 the late wars of India, and more particularly in the last with Bur- 
 inah, commenced on account of a trader s claim of a few hundred 
 pounds ;f in the opium war of China ; in the manner in which 
 Indian wars are gotten up in this country ; in our own recent war- 
 
 We cut her off from the opportunity of improvement. We kept her down in 
 a state of darkness, bondage, ignorance, and bloodshed. We have there 
 subverted the whole order of nature ; we have aggravated every natural 
 barbarity, and furnished to every man motives for committing, under the 
 name of trade, acts of perpetual hostility and perfidy against his neighbor. 
 Thus had the perversion of British commerce carried misery instead of hap 
 piness to one whole quarter of the globe. False to the very principles of 
 trade, unmindful of our duty, what almost irreparable mischief had we done 
 to that continent ! We had obtained as yet only so much knowledge of its 
 productions as to show that there was a capacity for trade which we checked." 
 W . Pitt. 
 
 * " Gibraltar was all that England did get out of that war, and as this 
 robbery went a great way to ensure her discomfiture, and to establish Philip 
 the Fifth upon the throne, we may consider Gibraltar as the cause of the 
 first of those ruinous wars which, made without due authority, and carried 
 on by anticipations of revenue, have introduced among us those social dis 
 eases which have counterbalanced and perverted the mechanical advance 
 ment of modern times. Gibraltar was confirmed to us at the treaty of 
 Utrecht, but without any jurisdiction attached to it, and upon the condition 
 that no smuggling should be carried on thence into Spain. These conditions 
 we daily violate. We exercise jurisdiction by cannon-shot in the Spanish 
 waters, (for the bay is all Spanish.) Under our batteries, the smuggler 
 runs for protection; he ships his bales at our quays; he is either the agent 
 of our merchants, or is insured by them ; and the flag-post at the top of the 
 rock is used to signal to him the movements of the Spanish cruisers." UBQU- 
 HART : Pillars of Hercules, vol. i. p. 43. 
 
 j- Two British subjects belonging to the barque Monarch had a dispute at 
 Rangoon, which resulted in the captain of the ship being mulcted in the sum 
 of 101. Two others, likewise British subjects, belonging to the ship Cham 
 pion, had also a dispute at the same place, which resulted in one of them 
 being required to pay 70 ; and out of these transactions grew, in a few 
 weeks, the Burmese war, in which many thousands of lives were sacrificed, 
 while towns and cities were plundered ; and which, itself, resulted in the annex 
 ation to the British Empire of a territory larger than England. Those who 
 desire to understand how war. and trade feed each other, can obtain the 
 desired information by reading Mr. Cobden s pamphlet, entitled " How Wars 
 are got up in India:" London, 1853. It will there be seen that, as elsewhere 
 in the East, the fable of the wolf and the lamb was fully acted out; war hav 
 ing been forced on the Burmese, who evinced throughout the strongest desire 
 to do entire justice. The crime, however, brings with it its punishment, Bur- 
 mah being a heavy charge on the Indian treasury, as are "Scinde, Sattarah, 
 and the Punjaub, annexed," says Mr. Cobdcn, "at the cost of so many 
 crimes." 
 
238 CHAPTER IX. 2. 
 
 like demonstration against Japan, with a view to compel that 
 country to accept of the blessings that were to follow in the wake 
 of trade ; in the proceedings of France at the Sandwich Islands, 
 and among those of the Marquesas group ; and last, though not 
 least, in the maintenance of war against private property on the 
 ocean, as exhibited in the recent capture, in the Baltic and Black 
 seas, of so many defenceless ships, owned by men who had no 
 concern in the war, except that which arose out of the fact that 
 they had found themselves compelled to pay taxes for its main 
 tenance. 
 
 War and trade, seeking always a monopoly of power, and 
 requiring fleets and armies, tend invariably towards centralization. 
 The support of soldiers and sailors, generals and admirals, pro 
 duces a necessity for taxation, the proceeds of which must seek a 
 central point before they can be again distributed and the dis 
 tribution brings together, necessarily, hosts of men waiters on 
 Providence anxious to secure their share ; as is seen to have 
 been the case in Athens and in Rome ; and as is now so obvious 
 in Paris and London, Xew York and Washington. The city, 
 growing, becomes, from year to year, more and more a place in 
 which trade in merchandise, or trade in principles, may advan 
 tageously be carried on ; and the larger the city, the more 
 rapidly increasing is the tendency towards augmented centraliza 
 tion every increase of taxation tending to diminish the power 
 of healthful association throughout the tax-paying districts, and 
 to increase the unhealthy movement in the tax-receiving capital. 
 
 With every such increase of central attraction, society tends to 
 take upon itself a form directly the reverse of the natural one 
 assuming more and more that of an inverted pyramid ; and hence 
 it is that in every community which has depended upon its powers 
 of appropriation, in place of those of production in every one 
 that has diminished the rapidity of motion among its own people, 
 while engaged in the effort to diminish that existing among those 
 of its neighbors there has been seen to arrive a period of splen 
 dor and apparent strength, but real weakness, followed by decline, 
 even when not by death. While enriching the few, centralization 
 impoverishes the many ; and while enabling the former to build 
 palaces and temples to open parks, maintain armies, and almost 
 to re-create cities it drives the latter to seek refuge in the meanest 
 
APPROPRIATION. 239 
 
 hovels, and thus creates a population always ready to sell their 
 services to the highest bidder, at any sacrifice of conscience. 
 With every step in this direction, the societary machine becomes 
 less stable and secure and with each it tends more and more to 
 topple over, until at length it falls, burying in its ruins those who 
 had hoped most to profit by the state of things they had labored 
 to produce. So has it been, even in our own day, in the cases of 
 Napoleon and Louis Philippe ; who were, however, but types of 
 their class that class which profits by the exercise of power 
 over their fellow-men, and seeks distinction in the characters of 
 warriors, politicians, or traders. 
 
 The more perfect the power of association the higher the 
 organization of society, and the more complete the development 
 of individuality among its members the more do all such men 
 tend to occupy their natural place, that of instruments to be used 
 ly society ; and the more does society itself tend to take its natu 
 ral form, with hourly increase in the power of resistance to any 
 invasion of its rights, and in the capacity for durability. What 
 ever tends to diminish the power of association, and to prevent 
 the development of individuality, produces the reverse effect of 
 making society the instruments of these men centralization, sla 
 very, and death travelling always hand in hand together, whether 
 in the moral or material world. * 
 
 * The entire identity of the views of the trader and the slave-owner is 
 exhibited in the following passages from recent journals: 
 
 "An inexhaustible supply of cheap labor has so long been a condition of our 
 social system, whether in town or country, whether for work or for pleasure, 
 that it remains to be seen whether a great enhancement of labor would not 
 disturb our industrial, and even our political, arrangements to a serious ex 
 tent. Two men have been after one master so long, that we are not prepared for 
 the day when two masters will be after one man ; for it is not certain either that 
 the masters can carry on their business, or that the men will comport them 
 selves properly under the new regime. Commercial enterprise and social 
 development require an actually increasing population, and also that the in 
 crease shall be in the most serviceable that is, the laborious part of the 
 population, for otherwise it will not be sufficiently at the command of capital and 
 skill." London Times. 
 
 " Cheapness of labor is essential to the material progress of every people. 
 But this can only obtain with the abundance of supply. Now, slave labor is, 
 and ought to be, the cheapest kind of labor. It will only become otherwise 
 when foreign and hostile influences are made to bear against it. The aboli 
 tion of the slave-trade, by cutting off the supply, tends to this result. Slaves 
 were never before so high in the South. # # * Slavery is, and 
 so long as the South preserves her existence must continue to be, the basis 
 of all property values in the South. * * * Increase the supply 
 of labor, and thus cheapen the cost of slaves, and the South will escape im- 
 
240 CHAPTER IX. 3. 
 
 To the fact that the policy of Athens, of Rome, and of other 
 communities of ancient and modern times, tended directly to the 
 production of this latter state of things, it is due that there has 
 been, in many of them, seen to arise a state of things giving 
 colour to the idea that societies, like trees and men, have their 
 various stages of growth and of decline ending, naturally and 
 necessarily, in death. How far this is so, the reader will perhaps 
 be prepared to decide after a brief examination of the course of 
 action pursued by some of the leading communities of the world. 
 
 3. In the early period of Grecian history, we find the people 
 of Attica divided into several small and independent communities 
 but becoming at length united under Theseus ; when ATHENS 
 became the capital of the kingdom. The communities of Bceotia 
 in like manner associated themselves with Thebes ; and the seve 
 ral little states of Phocis united in following their example. The 
 tendency to combination thus exhibited in the various states was 
 early shown in relation to the affairs of Greece at large in the 
 
 minent peril. The number of slave-owners would multiply, the direct interest in 
 Us preservation would be more universally diffused, and that great necessity of the 
 South union in defence of slavery more readily accomplished. If it were 
 possible, every man in her limits should be a slave-owner." Charleston Mer 
 cury. 
 
 "The great works of this country depend upon cheap labor." Lon. Times. 
 
 " Slavery is the corner-stone of our institutions." McDuffie. 
 
 " The whole question has become one of a cheap and abundant supply of labor. 
 The operation of the repeal of the corn laws was, first, to 
 equalize, or approximate, the wages here and on the continent ; and, secondly, 
 not, indeed, to lower them here at once, but to make it possible to lower them, 
 if at any future time the relation between demand and supply in the labor- 
 market should render such reduction just and necessary. * * * 
 For half a century back, the western shores of our island have been flooded 
 with crowds of half-clad, half-fed, half-civilized Celts, reducing the standard 
 of living and comfort among our people by their example, swelling the regis 
 ters of crimes, to the great damage of the national character and reputation ;" 
 but, as the writer continues, "the abundant supply of cheap labor which they 
 furnished had no doubt the effect of enabling our manufacturing industry to 
 increase at a rate, and to reach a height, which, without them, would have 
 been unattainable ; and so far they have been of service." North British He- 
 view, Nov. 1852. 
 
 " As long as the larger proportion of women are incompetent or unwilling 
 to earn anything except by plain sewing, it is as idle to abuse the order of 
 Davises for the misery of his operatives, as it would be to abuse Providence 
 for bringing them into the world with appetites. It would be better for all of 
 them, in the long run, to reduce wages to the famine point, so as to force all who 
 had sufficient strength into other employments. This at least would diminish 
 competition, and give the remaining ones a better chance." New York 
 Evening Post. 
 
APPROPEI ATION. 241 
 
 institution of the Amphictyonic league, the Olympic and other 
 games. 
 
 During a long period, the history of Athens appears almost a 
 blank, because of its peaceful and quiet progress. With its im 
 mediate neighbors it had occasional disputes, but, the tendency 
 towards union being great, peace was "the habitual and regular 
 condition of their mutual intercourse." Peace brought with it so 
 steady a growth of population and of wealth, that, long prior to 
 the days of Solon, the men engaged in trade and in the mechanic 
 arts constituted an affluent and intelligent body ; while every 
 where throughout the state, labor and skill were being given to the 
 development of the hidden treasures of the earth. The power to 
 associate and the habit of association grew steadily, with con 
 stant increase of that individuality to which Athens stands 
 indebted for her prominent position in the history of man. 
 
 Under the legislation of Solon, the whole body of the citizens 
 exercised the right of voting in the popular assemblies but all 
 were not equally eligible for filling the offices of state. On the 
 other hand, all were not equally liable to taxation for the main 
 tenance of government the heaviest contributions being re 
 quired of the first class, eligible to the highest offices ; and their 
 amount diminishing in passing downward, until they finally dis 
 appeared on reaching the fourth, which was exempt from taxa 
 tion, as it was excluded from the magistracy ; and here we find 
 the most equal apportionment of rights and duties exhibited in 
 the history of the world. Elsewhere, the few have monopolized 
 the offices, while taxing the many for their support ; whereas, 
 here, the few who enjoyed the offices paid the taxes, and the 
 many who were excluded from the former, found themselves 
 wholly relieved from the payment of the latter. 
 
 The century succeeding the organization thus effected, exhibits 
 Attica, in the general enjoyment of peace, gradually increasing 
 in both wealth and population. Towards its close, we find the 
 state to have been divided into a hundred townships, each hav 
 ing its local assembly, and its magistracy for the regulation of its 
 own local affairs ; and thus was constituted a system more per 
 fectly in accordance with the great physical laws to which refer 
 ence has heretofore been made, than any the world had seen, prior 
 to the settlement of the provinces now constituting the United 
 
242 CHAPTER IX. 3. 
 
 States. The beneficial effect of peace was, at this time, still fur 
 ther exhibited in the fact, that the constituency was enlarged, by 
 the enfranchisement of numerous slaves, and by the admission of 
 many aliens to the rights of citizenship. 
 
 With the Persian invasion, terminating in the battle of Mara 
 thon, and with the subsequent occupation of Attica by the troops 
 of Xerxes, there came, however, a total change. Fields had 
 been wasted, houses, cattle, and machinery of cultivation had 
 been destroyed, and population had largely diminished ; and 
 henceforth we find the Athenians passing from the condition of a 
 peaceful democracy, in which every man was engaged in combin 
 ing his efforts with his fellow-citizens at home, to that of a war 
 like aristocracy, engaged in preventing the existence of associa 
 tion abroad and using their power of disturbance as a means 
 of enriching themselves. Having accumulated fortunes by means 
 of extortion and robbery, Themistocles and Cimon were enabled 
 to secure the services of thousands of poor dependants who ex 
 hibited themselves in the streets, gladly following in the train of 
 the men whom war had rendered now their masters. Poverty 
 produced a thirst for plunder, the hope of which rendered it easy 
 to fill the army and to man the ships ; and next the army and the 
 fleet were employed in reducing to subjection states and cities that 
 had been regarded, hitherto, as equals and allies. One by one 
 they fell, and the plunder thus acquired stimulated the desire for 
 fresh supplies, with constantly increasing power to gratify the 
 appetite. Athens had now become mistress of the seas, and no 
 state, as we are told by Xenophon, could be permitted to have 
 commerce with distant people, unless profoundly submissive to 
 her commands. "Upon her will depends," as he continues, 
 "the exportation of the surplus produce of all nations ;" and to 
 enable her to exercise that will wholly unrestrained, we find her 
 next persuading, or compelling, the allies to compound for per 
 sonal service by money payments, by help of which nearly the 
 whole Athenian people were maintained in the service of the 
 state. 
 
 War having now become the trade of Athens, her armies are 
 everywhere seen in Egypt and in the Peloponnesus, at Megara 
 and at (Egina and to enable her to support these armies, she 
 seizes upon the public treasury, which is transferred to the great 
 
APPROPRIATION. . 243 
 
 central city. Next, we find an increase in the tribute required 
 of the allies, who are required to pay taxes upon all goods im 
 ported, and all exported ; the collection of which is farmed by 
 men who find in every stoppage of the societary motion the 
 means of adding to their fortunes. Further, Athens declares her 
 self the court of final resort in all criminal cases, and in nearly all 
 civil ones ; and now, the city being thronged with applicants for 
 justice, its people are converted into judges, all ready to sell their 
 awards to the highest bidder. The states themselves now find it 
 necessary to employ agents within the city, and to distribute 
 bribes, by help of which to purchase protection against the de 
 mands of the sovereign state. 
 
 With every step in this direction, the few become enriched, 
 while the many become more and more impoverished. Temples are 
 erected, and the splendor of the city increases from day to day. 
 Theatres are built, in which the Athenians may gratuitously in 
 dulge their tastes ; but the right thus to live by the labor of 
 others being now regarded as a privilege whose enjoyment should 
 be limited to the few, inquiry is made into the claim for citizen 
 ship resulting in the rejection of no less than five thousand per 
 sons, all of whom are sold as slaves. With every increase of 
 splendor we find an increase of indigence, and an increased neces 
 sity for exporting a portion of the people to take possession of 
 distant lands there to exercise upon the earlier settlers the 
 same power the rich have learned to exercise at home. The 
 people their time being now fully occupied in the management 
 of public affairs next require that they should be paid out of 
 the public purse ; and so great has become the general poverty 
 that an obolus a piece of three cents value as compensation 
 for the day s service in the courts, has become an object of 
 desire. 
 
 Tyranny and rapacity everywhere exhibited, and producing 
 everywhere a decline of commerce between man and man, and 
 between state and state next give rise to the Peloponnesian 
 war, closing with the passage of Attica under the dominion of 
 the Thirty Tyrants. Private property is now to a vast extent 
 confiscated to the public use ; and to secure the services of the 
 poor in the spoliation of the rich, the wages of attendance at pub 
 lic meetings are trebled in amount. Taxation grows, and with 
 
244 CHAPTER IX. 3. 
 
 its growth the inducements to honest exertion as steadily decline. 
 Population becomes, to use the modern phrase, superabundant ; 
 and as man diminishes in value, we mark a growing thirst for plun 
 der, and an increased facility in obtaining troops by help of whom 
 it may be secured. Licentiousness and dissipation become univer 
 sal, and towns and cities are everywhere plundered by mercenaries, 
 always ready to sell their services to the highest bidder. Mili 
 tary command is courted as the only road to fortune, and the for 
 tunes thus acquired are expended in bribing the people to secure 
 their votes. New oppressions next produce the Social War, 
 carried on as had been that of the Peloponnesus by extermi 
 nating the males, selling the women and children as slaves, and 
 confiscating all their property ; and thus on and on may we trace 
 the people of Attica, exhausting themselves in the effort to impede 
 the movement of others until, at length, they find themselves 
 mere instruments in the hands of Philip of Macedon, from whom 
 they pass, successively, to Alexander and his lieutenants. 
 
 The object of the Athenians, from the date of the Persian 
 wars, is everywhere seen to have been that of obtaining a mono 
 poly of power, and a monopoly of trade as a means of securing 
 the enjoyment of power. The more the city and its port could 
 be rendered the emporium, the greater would be its ability to 
 control the action of those dependent upon it as a place in which 
 their exchanges might be made. Not only, therefore, were those 
 with whom they were at war driven from the ocean, but neutral 
 vessels were constantly seized and detained in defiance of law ; 
 and it was with great difficulty that ships, or goods, so detained, 
 were ever extricated from their captors hands. In reading 
 the history of the proceedings of the " Mistress of the Seas" of 
 that day, and of her prize courts, it is difficult to avoid being 
 struck with the resemblance between them and those of recent 
 days, when the seas were swept of neutrals by help of the Rule 
 of 56," paper blockades, and "Orders in Council." With 
 every step in that direction, there became developed a greater 
 tendency towards embargoes, and prohibitions of intercourse ; 
 to one of which latter was, in no slight degree, due the 
 Peloponnesian war. All these measures tended to diminish 
 the movement of society abroad ; but equally to produce a 
 diminution in the power of voluntary association at home; 
 
APPROPRIATION. 245 
 
 and that diminution went on increasing from year to year, until 
 the once proud republic having first passed through the hands 
 of Macedonian kings and Roman proconsuls is seen to be repre 
 sented by troops of slaves ; while Atticus remains almost sole 
 owner, and sole improver, in the land that, in earlier and happier 
 days, had given food and raiment, prosperity and happiness, to 
 hundreds of thousands of industrious freemen. 
 
 4. Commencing, necessarily, the work of cultivation on the 
 poorest soils, SPARTA never went beyond them ; and for the reason 
 that her institutions were based upon the idea of preventing all 
 voluntary association, and discouraging commerce, in all and every 
 form. Man was there regarded in no other light than that of a 
 machine, or instrument, forming a component part of an imagi 
 nary being called The State ; to the gratification of whose pride, 
 rancor, or revenge, all his feelings and affections required to be 
 sacrificed. Failing to marry, he was liable to be punished ; but 
 when married, the intercourse between himself and his wife was 
 rendered difficult, in hopes thereby to stimulate the sexual appetite, 
 and thus promote the growth of population. Children being the 
 property of the State, the parents could exercise no control what 
 ever over their education, whether physical, moral, or intellectual. 
 The home had no existence, for not only were parents deprived 
 of the society of their children, but they might not even eat in 
 private. Her people could neither buy nor sell ; nor might they 
 in any mariner whatever avail themselves of the services of those 
 most useful metals, gold and silver. They might not study the 
 sciences, nor might they indulge their tastes for music ; while 
 from all descriptions of theatrical amusement they were entirely 
 debarred. The tendency of the system being thus adverse to the 
 development of the individual faculties, wealth could not grow, 
 nor could they, themselves, advance beyond the earliest and 
 rudest pursuits those looking to the appropriation of the pro 
 perty of others ; and therefore it was that, while always engaged 
 in war, they proved themselves ever ready to sell themselves to 
 the highest bidder. Poor and rapacious, perfidious and tyran 
 nical, the history of Sparta is but a long record of growing ine 
 quality and constantly retarded motion of society until at 
 length we find her soil passing under the control of a few pro- 
 
246 CHAPTER IX. 6. 
 
 prietors, surrounded by hosts of slaves ; preparatory to her pas 
 sage out of existence leaving, as her sole bequest to posterity, 
 the record of her avarice and her crimes. 
 
 5. The history of CARTHAGE is little more than a record of 
 wars made for the purpose of monopolizing trade, and of which 
 Corsica and Sardinia, Sicily and Spain, were the most important 
 theatres. Colonies were to be secured, that they might be de 
 prived of all intercourse with the world, except through the 
 medium of Carthaginian ships and merchants ; and the contri 
 butions of the colonists furnished to the central treasury means 
 for the extension of the system under which they suffered. Else 
 where, where colonies could not be established, all the movements 
 of the trader were shrouded in the strictest secresy monopoly 
 being the object ; and means the most unscrupulous being every 
 where resorted to, for securing that it should be maintained. 
 Tolerating no rivals, they guarded, as state secrets, everything 
 connected with the caravan trade while ever ready to license 
 pirates who desired to seize their neighbors ships. Monopolies 
 filled the treasury, the disposal of whose revenues gave power to 
 an aristocracy with whom trade was the first and most important 
 object ; and to secure themselves in the exercise of power, they 
 subsidized barbarians of all the countries from the southern 
 Sahara to the northern Gaul. The splendor of the city greatly 
 increased ; but, as usual in all such cases the real weakness 
 existing in the ratio of the show of apparent strength the day 
 of trial proved that the foundation of the social edifice had been 
 laid upon "gold dust and sand," and not upon a rock; and 
 Carthage passed from existence, leaving behind nothing but the 
 further proof afforded by its history, of the truth of the propo 
 sition, that "those who live by the sword must die by the 
 sword." 
 
 6. In the days of Numa and of Servius, the people of ROME cul 
 tivated the fertile soils, and the Campagna was filled with cities, 
 having each an independent existence and constituting, each, a 
 local centre towards which gravitated the people of the surround 
 ing country. Under their successors, the Tarquins, we find a 
 change, and from that time forward, until we reach the downfall 
 
APPROPRIATION. 24T 
 
 of the empire, the energies of Rome are seen to have been un 
 ceasingly devoted to the prevention of all peaceful association 
 among her neighbors towards appropriation of their property 
 and towards the centralization of all power within her walls. 
 The city grew in splendor, but with that growth there came a 
 corresponding decline in the condition of her people, until, at 
 length, we find them reduced to pauperism, and dependent upon 
 daily distributions of bread the contribution of distant provinces 
 taxed for their support ; and thus is the history of Rome but a 
 repetition, upon a grander scale, of that of Athens. Palaces 
 rise within and without the city, but with every step in this 
 direction we see a diminution in the power of voluntary associa 
 tion among its people. The land that formerly gave support to 
 thousands of small proprietors is next abandoned, or, when cul 
 tivated at all, is tilled by slaves ; and the more enslaved the peo 
 ple of the country, the greater becomes the necessity for public 
 distributions in the city towards which flock all who seek to 
 live by means of plunder. Panem ef, circenses free bread and 
 free exhibitions of gladiatorial and other brutal fights consti 
 tute now the sole bill of rights of the degraded populace. From 
 age to age the city grows, with corresponding decline in the 
 motion of society constituting commerce. Depopulation and 
 poverty spread from Italy to Sicily and Greece to hither and 
 further Gaul to Asia and to Africa ; until, at length, decayed 
 at the heart, the empire passes away, having existed for almost 
 a thousand years, a model of rapacity, dishonesty, and fraud ; 
 and having, in the whole period, produced scarcely a dozen men 
 whose names have descended to posterity with an untarnished 
 fame. 
 
 Traders, gladiators, and buffoons were regarded by the Romans 
 as belonging to the self-same class, and yet the Roman history is 
 but a record of traders operations on the largest scale. For 
 centuries following the expulsion of the Tarquins, and the esta 
 blishment of aristocratic power, we witness a perpetual war be 
 tween plebeian debtors impoverished by means of the constant 
 wresting of the law to the purposes of the rich and noble 
 and their patrician creditors, proprietors of private dungeons, in 
 which they incarcerated the men whose only crime consisted in 
 an inability to pay their debts. Later, we find the city filled 
 
248 CHAPTER IX. 7. 
 
 with knights, accustomed to place themselves as middlemen 
 between those who had taxes to pay and revenue to receive, pur 
 chasing the right of taxation at the cheapest price, and selling it 
 at the dearest one paying to the receiver the smallest sum, and 
 collecting from the poor tax-payer the largest one. Scipio traded 
 his conscience for plunder of the treasury, and when requested to 
 produce his accounts, adjourned the meeting to the temple, there 
 to return thanks to the gods for the victories by help of which he 
 had been enriched.* Yerres, in Sicily, and Fonteius, in Gaul, 
 were but traders. Brutus lent money at four per cent, per 
 month, and Caesar would probably have paid at a higher rate 
 than even this for the millions he had borrowed, had he succeeded 
 in placing himself on an imperial throne. All dealt in slaves, 
 the products of whose labors they monopolized, while treating in 
 the harshest manner the unfortunate people subjected to their power. 
 
 7. Turning now to VENICE, we witness a perpetual succes 
 sion of wars for trade, with constant tendency to the centraliza 
 tion of power in the hands of the few whom the chances of birth, 
 or fortune, had placed in the direction of the state. Originally 
 democratic, we find its government becoming with each succeed 
 ing age more aristocratic, until at length we reach the closing of 
 the grand council against all who had not already places there, f 
 That, in its turn, was followed by the establishment of the cele 
 brated Council of Ten, whose spies penetrated into every house ; 
 whose tortures might reach every individual, however elevated ; 
 and whose existence was totally incompatible with any approach 
 towards freedom of commerce. Following up her history, we 
 find her always seeking trade by means of warlike interferences 
 with the movements of others obtaining colonies to be adminis- 
 
 * In relation to this period, M. Guizot says, (History of Civilization, p. 14 :) 
 " Take Rome, for example, in the splendid days of the republic, at the close 
 of the second Punic war ; the moment of her greatest virtues, when she was 
 rapidly advancing to the empire of the world when her social condition way 
 evidently improving." This was, nevertheless, the period in which land was 
 everywhere becoming consolidated when the free citizens were disappear 
 ing when slaves were most rapidly increasing in number when gladiato 
 rial games were introduced when the people were most rapidly becoming 
 demoralized and when the great men of Rome were building the largest 
 palaces within and without the city all of these things being evidences of a 
 decline of "social condition." 
 
 f 1286. 
 
APPROPRIATION. 249 
 
 tered for the sole benefit of her trading aristocracy taxing her 
 distant subjects to such an extent as to produce a constant suc 
 cession of attempts at revolution, requiring great fleets and 
 armies for their suppression ; and thus, in every manner, building 
 up the class that lived by means of appropriation of the property 
 of others while preventing movement in any direction looking 
 to the development of individuality, or to the promotion of the 
 habit of association. Her whole history is one of perpetually in 
 creasing monopoly of trade and centralization of power the con 
 sequences of which are seen in the facts, that she struck no roots 
 into the earth ; and that when the day of trial came, she fell, as 
 had done Athens, Carthage, and Home ; and almost without a 
 blow. 
 
 The histories of GENOA and PISA are, like that of Venice, but 
 those of a constant succession of wars for securing a monopoly of 
 trade and of power ; and the power thus acquired proved to be 
 as fleeting as had been that of Athens and of Carthage. 
 
 8. The early history of HOLLAND exhibits a people among 
 whom the habit of association, and the development of individual 
 ity, grew with great rapidity ; but her later one is distinguished 
 among those of modern Europe for the manifestations it presents 
 of a desire to monopolize trade for the resistance it provoked 
 in both France and England for the wars into which she was 
 led by the thirst for trade - for the exhaustion consequent upon 
 those wars and for the proof it furnishes that where trade 
 ceases to be the instrument of society, and comes to be regarded 
 as the object for the promotion of which society is to be used 
 there can be little progress, either physical or intellectual. The 
 land that once gave to the world such men as Erasmus, Spinoza, 
 John de Witt, and William of Orange, now exercises not the 
 smallest influence in reference to either literature or science, and 
 but little even in regard to trade. 
 
 9. In the history of PORTUGAL we have striking evidence of 
 the weakness of communities dependent entirely upon trade for 
 the prosperity they may, for the time, enjoy. The close of the 
 fifteenth century witnessed the passage of the Cape of Good 
 Hope, and the establishment of Portuguese power throughout 
 
 YOL. I. It 
 
250 CHAPTER IX. 10. 
 
 India, where war was everywhere fomented for the promotion of 
 trade. Lisbon, growing by help of the monopolies that had 
 been, as it was thought, secured, speedily rose to occupy the 
 chief place among European cities ; but here, as everywhere else, 
 the strength of the community declined as the capital grew in 
 size and splendor and before the lapse of another century, Por 
 tugal itself became a province of Spain. 
 
 10. Turning next to SPAIN, we find that, as the result of a long 
 succession of wars among the various claimants of power, anar 
 chy had, in the period immediately anterior to the union of the 
 several kingdoms, in 1474, attained its highest point. The 
 castles of nobles were converted into dens of robbers, from which 
 they sallied forth to plunder travellers, whose spoil was after 
 wards sold publicly in the cities, while they themselves were sold 
 to slavery among the Moors. Communications on the highway 
 were everywhere suspended, while within the cities rival nobles 
 carried on private wars attacking churches, and burning dwell 
 ings to the number, at times, of thousands. Instead of five royal 
 mints, there were now no less than a hundred and fifty private 
 ones ; and the coin became so much debased, that the common 
 articles of life were three, four, and even sixfold, enhanced in price. 
 
 There being no security for person or for property, the hus 
 bandman stripped of his harvest and driven from his field 
 abandoned himself to idleness, or resorted to plunder as the only 
 means of preserving life. Famines were, therefore, frequent, and 
 were succeeded by widespread pestilences ; and thus were the 
 people reduced to the most squalid poverty, as their many mas 
 ters were enabled to acquire property and power. With the 
 union of Castile and Aragon under Ferdinand and Isabella, how 
 ever, we find a change of condition in both the sovereigns and the 
 people castles being everywhere destroyed, and the country being 
 cleared of the swarms of banditti by which it had been overrun. 
 
 Security of person and of property being thus established, and 
 the attention of the sovereigns being now given to the resuscita 
 tion of commerce, internal restrictions were removed, and foreign 
 ers were invited to visit the ports of Spain. Roads and bridges, 
 moles, quays, and lighthouses, were constructed, and harbors 
 were deepened and extended, with a view to accommodate the 
 
APPROPRIATION. 251 
 
 great " increase of trade. " The power of coinage was limited to 
 the royal mints, and arrangements were made for establishing 
 throughout the kingdom a uniform system of weights and mea 
 sures. Numerous oppressive tolls and monopolies were abolished, 
 and the alcavala, a tax upon exchanges, which previously had 
 been arbitrary, was now fixed at ten per cent. 
 
 The habit of association now growing rapidly, with great deve 
 lopment of individuality, the mercantile marine, at the close of 
 the century, amounted to a thousand vessels ; and the woollen 
 and silk fabrics of Toledo gave employment to ten thousand 
 workmen. Segovia manufactured fine cloths, while Granada and 
 Valencia produced silks and velvets ; and Yalladolid became 
 remarkable for its curiously wrought plate and fine cutlery, while 
 the manufactures of Barcelona rivalled those of Venice. The 
 fair of Medina del Campo became the great mart for the ex 
 changes of the peninsula ; and the quays of Seville began to be 
 thronged with merchants from the remotest parts of Europe. 
 The impulse thus given being speedily felt in the arrangements 
 for intellectual improvement, ancient seminaries were remodelled, 
 and new ones were created all swarming with disciples, and 
 giving employment to more printing-presses than exist in Spain 
 at the present day. 
 
 Union at home gave, however, power to sovereigns who de 
 sired, most unhappily, to use it for the destruction of the habit 
 of association abroad and for centralizing in their own hands 
 the direction of the modes of action and of thought of all their 
 subjects. Millions of the most industrious people of the king 
 dom among whom individuality was developed to an extent 
 then unknown in any other part of Europe were expelled for dif 
 ferences of belief; and thus was the incipient motion of society to 
 a great extent arrested. That, in its turn, tended greatly to facili 
 tate the recruitment of armies to be employed in the work of plunder 
 ing Italy and the Netherlands, Mexico and Peru ; and the greater 
 the tendency to dispersion, the more rapid proved to be the reduc 
 tion in the compensation of honest labor. The more numerous 
 the armies, the greater was the growth of splendor, and of weak 
 ness ; and the result is seen in the fact that, for a hundred and 
 fifty years, Madrid has been the focus of intrigues having refer 
 ence to the question whether France or England should have the 
 
252 CHAPTER IX. 11. 
 
 direction of its government and the kingdom has been impove 
 rished by repeated wars for the determination of the succession 
 to its throne. In the effort to destroy all power of self- 
 government abroad, Spain had lost all individuality at home.* 
 Mistress of the Indies, she was too weak to preserve command 
 over her own Gibraltar ; and she has now for more than a cen 
 tury been forced to see it held for the sole and exclusive pur 
 pose of enabling foreigners to set at naught her laws. In every 
 page of her history we find confirmation of the lesson that had 
 before been taught by Athens and Sparta, Carthage and Rome 
 that if we desire to command respect for our own rights, we can 
 do so only on condition of respecting those of others, f 
 
 11. For more than a thousand years, the sovereigns, nobles, and 
 gentlemen of FRANCE have been engaged in the effort to destroy 
 the power of association in, and among, the various nations of 
 
 * That the folly of oppression is equal to its wickedness, is proved by 
 every page in the history of Spain, but in none more clearly than in those 
 which record the proceedings of the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands, thus 
 described in Mr. Motley s recent work : 
 
 " During the daily decimation of the people s lives, he thought a daily de 
 cimation of their industry possible. His persecutions swept the land of those 
 industrious classes which had made it the rich and prosperous commonwealth 
 it had been so lately ; while, at the same time, he found a Peruvian mine, 
 as he pretended, in the imposition of a tenth penny upon every one of its 
 commercial transactions. He thought that a people, crippled as this had 
 been by the operations of a Blood Council, could pay ten per cent., not an 
 nually, but daily, not upon its income, but upon its capital ; not once only, 
 but every time the value constituting capital changed hands. He boasted 
 that he should require no funds from Spain, but that, on the contrary, he 
 should make annual remittances to the royal treasury at home, from the pro 
 ceeds of his imposts and confiscations; yet, notwithstanding these resources, 
 and notwithstanding twenty-five millions of gold, in five years, sent by Phi 
 lip from Madrid, the exchequer of the provinces was barren and bankrupt, 
 when his successor arrived. Requesens found neither a penny in the pub 
 lic treasury, nor the means of raising one." Rise of the Dutch Republic, vol. 
 ii. p. 103. " 
 
 f " The Spaniard alone in Europe has retained the faculty of looking at a 
 nation s acts as those of a man, and appreciating it thereby. He does not 
 ask what it says or intends, or what food it eats, or how many servants it 
 ha8. He looks at its dealings with himself. The Spaniard knows that his 
 two neighbors, for one hundred and forty years, have been seeking to rob 
 and overreach him ; plotting, one day, the partition of his property the 
 next, the supplanting of his heir ; constantly engaged in intrigues amongst 
 his servants, and the one or the other insisting on ruining his steward. He 
 sees that, during all that time, they have gained nothing; but while injur 
 ing him, have themselves squandered incalculable fortunes and innumerable 
 lives what can he feel towards them but hatred and disgust ?" URQUHART : 
 Pillars of Hercules, vol. i. p. 48 
 
APPROPRIATION. 253 
 
 the world ; as is shown in the histories of the Netherlands and 
 Germany, Spain and Italy, India and Egypt, Northern and 
 Southern America. The study of that nation, more uninter 
 ruptedly than that of almost any other recorded in history, has 
 been to increase the machinery of trade and to destroy the power 
 to maintain commerce. Swords have abounded, while spades 
 were rare ; and ships of war have been numerous, while roads 
 were bad, and canals had no existence. Camps have everywhere 
 grown as towns and villages decayed, and gentlemen have become 
 more numerous as ploughmen disappeared. The soil they culti 
 vated has, however, borne 
 
 "Dead Sea fruits, that tempt the eye, 
 But turn to ashes on the lips" 
 
 the crop that has been harvested having been, invariably, weak 
 ness, disgrace, and almost ruin. 
 
 The history of that country is a record of a series of inter 
 ferences with the rights of other communities, rarely intermitted 
 except when it has itself been rendered powerless for injury 
 abroad by the existence of disturbances at home. Pepin and 
 Charlemagne, having sought glory in Italy and Germany, 
 bequeathed to their successors a kingdom so exhausted as to be 
 entirely incapable of defence against a few Norman pirates, and 
 a kingly power wholly unable to sustain itself against the robber 
 chiefs by whom its sovereigns were surrounded. As a conse 
 quence, the social system became resolved into its original ele 
 ments ; and it is to the anarchy which then existed that historians 
 have given the pompous title of "The Feudal System," where 
 system there was none. 
 
 Population and wealth grew very slowly, but with their growth 
 may be observed a gradual approach towards the re-establishment 
 of a central power a sun to the system, around which might peace 
 fully revolve the various parts of French society ; but accompa 
 nied, as we see to have been the case in Spain, by a strong desire 
 to use the power thus acquired for the prevention of motion in 
 societies abroad. Louis IX. squandered the resources of his 
 kingdom in carrying war into the East ; and his successors em 
 ployed themselves in disturbing the repose of their neighbors of 
 the West invading their territories, plundering their towns and 
 
254 CHAPTER IX. 11. 
 
 cities, and murdering the inhabitants. The constant pursuit of 
 glory being, however, attended by increasing weakness at home, 
 but little time elapsed before English armies were seen repeat 
 ing on the soil of France the scenes of plunder and devastation 
 that she, herself, had enacted abroad occupying her capital, 
 and dictating laws to her people. The reign of anarchy 
 having again returned, all power of voluntary association dis 
 appeared. 
 
 Again, under Louis XI., we meet with some approach towards 
 the reorganization of society followed, however, by repeated 
 invasions of the neighboring countries ; and now, again, the effect 
 of unceasing war is seen in the almost perfect chaos of which it 
 was the cause, as exhibited in the closing reigns of the House of 
 Yalois, when, the kingly power having almost disappeared, 
 foreign armies fearlessly invaded France, incapable of re 
 sistance. 
 
 Once again, and for the fourth time, society became, in some 
 degree, reorganized under the Bourbon Henry IV., and his 
 descendants. With the resuscitation of power, returned, however, 
 the desire for its exercise to the injury of the communities around. 
 Centralization grew with the growth of armies, and the exhaus 
 tion of the people increased with the increase of splendor in the 
 throne ; but now, again, we see splendor and weakness travelling 
 together the closing years of the reign of Louis XIY. having 
 been embittered by the necessity for begging a peace that was 
 refused except on terms to be dictated by Marlborough and 
 Prince Eugene.* 
 
 * Vauban and Boisguilbert have described in the most pathetic terms the 
 melancholy reduction of the productive power of France in these deplorable 
 times. Nothing, as they said, remained to the people but their eyes 
 with which to shed tears; and we cannot hesitate to believe in the reality 
 of their misfortunes, confirmed as they are by such unexceptionable wit 
 nesses. Such was the state of things at the death of Louis. Down to his 
 last moment, the government had been kept alive only by means of the most 
 wretched expedients. To obtain some little money from the new employes, the 
 ministry had been compelled to create numerous ridiculous offices ; and while 
 England and Holland could borrow at three or four per cent., the farmers 
 of the revenue charged the king of France ten, twenty, and even fifty, per 
 cent. The enormous taxation had exhausted the country, deprived as it 
 had been of laborers by reason of the demands for the war; commerce had 
 almost ceased to exist; and manufactures, decimated by the proscription of 
 the Protestants, seemed condemned to lose all the conquests for which they 
 had been indebted to the genius of Colbert." BLANQTJI: Hisloire d JZconomie 
 Politique, vol. ii. 65. 
 
APPROPRIATION. 255 
 
 The wars of Louis XY. and XVI. next paved the way for the 
 
 Revolution, in the course of which all kingly authority disap 
 pearedthe great-grandson of the founder of Versailles being 
 seen, in the Place de la Revolution, paying forfeit with his head 
 for all the previous splendor of the throne. Order again, and for 
 the fifth time, re-established, we find the whole effort of the coun 
 try once more given to the destruction of all power of association 
 among the various communities of Europe. Again were Spain 
 and Italy, the Netherlands and Germany, desolated by invading 
 armies ; and again did France exhibit the effect of constant 
 interference with the movement of others in utter weakness at 
 home her capital having twice been occupied by foreign armies 
 and her throne having twice been filled by direction of foreign 
 sovereigns.* 
 
 * " From 1803 to 1815, twelve campaigns cost us nearly a million of men, 
 who died in the field of battle, or in the prisons, or on the roads, or in the 
 hospitals, and six thousand millions of francs. .**## 
 
 " Two invasions destroyed or consumed, on the soil of old France, fifteen 
 hundred millions of raw products, or of manufactures, of houses, of workshops, 
 of machines, and of animals, indispensable to agriculture, to manufactures, or 
 to commerce. As the price of peace, in the name of the alliance, our coun 
 try has seen herself compelled to pay fifteen hundred additional millions, 
 that she might not too soon regain her well-being, her splendor, and her 
 power. Behold, in twelve years, nine thousand millions of francs" (seven 
 teen hundred millions of dollars) "taken from the productive industry of 
 France and lost for ever. We found ourselves thus dispossessed of all our 
 conquests, and with two hundred thousand strangers encamped on our terri 
 tory, where they lived, at the expense of our glory and of our fortune, until 
 the end of the year 1818." Dupin. 
 
 As a consequence of this enormous waste of wealth and population, com 
 merce scarcely existed between the several parts of the kingdom, as is seen 
 by the following statements, made a few years later by an eminent French 
 engineer: "I have frequently traversed, in different departments, twenty 
 square leagues, without meeting with a canal, a road, a factory, or even an 
 inhabited estate. The country seemed a place of exile abandoned to the 
 miserable, whose interests and whose wants are equally misunderstood, and 
 whose distress is constantly increasing, because of the low prices of their 
 products, and the cost of transportation." Cordier. 
 
 The following view of the condition of a large portion of the people of 
 France, in the present day, is from the pen of M. Blanqui, successor of M. 
 J. B. Say in his professorship ; and was written after a careful examination 
 of the various provinces of the kingdom. 
 
 " Whatever diversity exists in the soil occupied by the people, in their 
 customs, aptitudes, dispositions, the salient, characteristic fact of their situ 
 ation is wretchedness a general insufficiency of the means of satisfying 
 even the first necessities of life. One is surprised how small is the consump 
 tion of these myriads of human beings. They constitute, however, the ma 
 jority of the tax-payers ; and the slightest difference in their favor, of in 
 come, would not merely benefit them, but vastly advance all fortunes and the 
 prosperity of the state. Those alone who have seen it can believe the degree 
 
256 CHAPTER IX. 11. 
 
 Order once again restored, we find the armies and fleets of 
 France for twenty years engaged in the destruction of life and 
 property in Northern Africa ; and to the glory thus acquired it 
 was that Louis Philippe looked for the means of fortifying himself, 
 and establishing in his family the succession to the throne. He 
 proved, however, to have been all this time building an inverted 
 pyramid centralizing power in Paris, and destroying it through 
 out the provinces ; and when the day of trial came for him, he ; 
 too, fell without a blow. Again, we see the present emperor 
 employed in the work of centralization diminishing the power 
 of association at home, while laboring to do the same abroad 
 enlarging the armies and the fleets on the one hand, while on the 
 other denying to his people the right freely to discuss his mea 
 sures. The end remains to be seen, but glory having always, 
 hitherto, been followed by exhaustion, we might, perhaps, assume 
 that the future weakness of France would be in the precise ratio 
 of her present splendor. 
 
 In no country of modern times have the intimacy of war and 
 trade, and the close connection between all the classes who live 
 by appropriation, been more fully exhibited than in the one 
 whose history has above been given. Its sovereigns have been, 
 uniformly, traders buying the precious metals at low prices, and 
 selling them at high ones, until the pound of silver degenerated 
 to the/ranc; selling offices to their subjects with a view to divide 
 with them the taxation of their people ; and selling to that people 
 the privilege of applying their labor in such manner as might 
 enable them to pay the taxes. Farmers-general traders on the 
 grandest scale scourged the nation, that they might accumulate 
 enormous fortunes ; and warriors sold their services and their 
 consciences receiving in return shares in the confiscations of 
 their neighbors properties, and thus constituting themselves 
 centres of the exchanges of a population only one remove from 
 serfage. 
 
 in which the clothing, furniture, and food of the rural population are slender 
 and sorry. There are entire cantons in which particular articles of clothing 
 are transmitted from father to son in which the domestic utensils are sim 
 ply wooden spoons, and the furniture a bench and a crazy table. You may 
 count by thousands men who have never known bed-sheets ; others, who 
 have never worn shoes ; and, by millions, those who drink only water, who 
 never eat meat, or very rarely nor even white bread." Quoted by SMITH : 
 Manual of Political Economy, p. 97 
 
APPROPRIATION. 25 T 
 
 12. The history of ENGLAND, from the date of the Re volu 
 tion of 1688, is one of almost unceasing wars for the extension 
 of trade ; but, as the system proposed to be established differed 
 essentially from all that had preceded it, the consideration of 
 those wars, and of their effects, will find a place more properly 
 in another chapter. 
 
 In our own country, all the warlike disposition is found in the 
 Southern States, in which the owner of slaves acts as the trader 
 . regulating all the exchanges between the people who labor to 
 produce cotton and tobacco, and those who need to consume 
 cloth. Here, as everywhere else, the predominance of the war 
 like and trading spirit is attended by growing weakness, conse 
 quent upon the daily increasing necessity for dispersion, and 
 constant diminution of the power of association. Here, how 
 ever, as in the case of England, there exist reasons why the 
 consideration of the policy of the Union may properly be referred 
 to a future chapter. 
 
 13. That the power of voluntary association or the ability 
 to maintain commerce exists in the direct ratio of the develop 
 ment of individuality, is a fact whose truth will not be questioned 
 by those who have observed the movements of the people of whom 
 society is composed. It is as true, however, of nations as it is 
 of persons individuality among them, too, growing with the 
 growth of peace and commerce, and declining with the growth of 
 warlike habits, and of the necessity for dependence on the trader s 
 services. Every step in the one direction is followed with in 
 crease in that mastery over nature which constitutes wealth ; 
 whereas every one in the opposite direction is followed by a 
 decline of power and therefore is it that we witness the aban 
 donment of the rich soils in all those countries in which war or 
 trade obtains the mastery over commerce ; as in Ireland, Italy, 
 India, Turkey, Virginia, and Carolina. 
 
 The less the power of local association, the greater is the tend 
 ency towards centralization, and towards the creation of great 
 cities, as was seen in the growth of Athens and of Rome, both 
 of which were most magnificent when on the eve of ruin ; and as 
 may now be seen in London, Paris, and Calcutta. With the 
 growth of centralization, we witness a constantly increasing in- 
 
258 CHAPTER IX. 13. 
 
 equality in the condition of the various portions of society the 
 few accumulating fortunes most rapidly as the chances of war and 
 trade tend to deprive the poorer classes of bread. Thus it was 
 that the vast fortunes of Crassus and Lucullus were accumulated 
 at the time when the people of Rome were compelled to look to 
 the treasury for support ; that of Jaques Cceur when France was 
 becoming almost depopulated ; that of the millionaire Venetian, 
 who defeated Carlo Zeno in his candidature for the dogate, dur 
 ing the war of the Chiozza, in which Yenice was saved by the 
 latter from entire ruin;* and that of the Medici, in the period of 
 the greatest distress in Florence. Weakness of the community, 
 however, grows in the ratio of the magnificence of private for 
 tunes, and splendor of the capital ; and with growing weakness, 
 we observe, invariably, a tendency to the employment of merce 
 naries men who, for the sake of pay or plunder, are willing to 
 fight in any cause, as was the case with Athens, Carthage, Rome, 
 and Spain and is now with Britain. 
 
 War and trade, being the pursuits of man requiring the small 
 est amount of knowledge, take precedence of all others in their 
 development. The necessity for carrying arms in self-defence, 
 and for dependence on the services of the trader, tending, in the 
 progress of society, to decline, that decline should everywhere be 
 accompanied by diminution in the proportion borne by soldiers 
 and traders to the mass of which the community is composed. 
 This being so, society tends more and more to assume that form 
 in which strength and beauty are most combined ; but being 
 otherwise the proportions of trade and war tending to increase, 
 and commerce tending to decline it takes a form directly the 
 reverse, that of an inverted pyramid. Stability, of course, dimi 
 nishes ; and, if the movement in that direction be long continued, 
 it ends in ruin, as we see to have been the case with Athens and 
 Carthage, with Yenice and Genoa, and with Portugal and Tur 
 key ; or it is productive of an endless series of revolutions, as in 
 France. 
 
 * " Zeno alone survived this disastrous war; and the public voice desig 
 nated him as the successor of Contarini in the dogate. His name was in the 
 mouths of all, people and army. The choice lay between him and Michael 
 Morosini, who had tripled his fortune by speculation during the war. The 
 latter was elected, and was proclaimed doge June 10, 1382." DARU: His 
 toric de Venise. 
 
APPROPRIATION. 259 
 
 14. Resistance to gravitation, whether in the vegetable, or 
 animal, world, is in the direct ratio of organization. So, too, as 
 the reader has seen, is it with man. The higher his organization, 
 the greater is his prospect of life. So, again, is it with societies 
 the chance of life increasing as, with the development of the 
 various faculties of their members, they become more highly 
 organized. The policy of the various communities above refer 
 red to having looked to the maintenance of the power of the sol 
 dier and the trader, and to the prevention of that development, 
 their resistance to gravitation necessarily declined, until, at length, 
 as with Athens, Carthage, and Rome, death closed their uneasy lives. 
 
 Every increase in the proportion of society engaged in war 
 and trade tends towards centralization and slavery it being a 
 necessary result of declining individuality, and diminished power 
 of voluntary association. Every diminution of that proportion 
 tends towards decentralization, life, and freedom it being a con 
 sequence of higher development of individuality, increased power 
 of association, and more perfect organization of society. 
 
 The strength of a community grows in the ratio of the growth 
 of the power of association, and the perfection of its organization. 
 The more numerous the differences among the members, the more 
 perfect must be the organization, and the greater, therefore, the 
 strength. 
 
 Differences result from association, or commerce and com 
 merce grows with the development of individuality and the pro 
 duction of differences ; and the less the necessity for the services 
 of the soldier and the trader, the more rapid becomes the growth 
 of commerce. 
 
 The power of association grows in the ratio of the observance 
 by communities of that great law of Christianity which teaches 
 respect for the rights of our fellow-men and as strength grows 
 with the growth of association, it follows, naturally, that the 
 nation which would increase in strength, and in the durability of 
 its institutions, should carry into the management of its public 
 affairs the same system of morals recognised as binding on its 
 individual members. 
 
 Desiring now to find the causes of the decline and ultimate 
 ruin of various communities of the world, we must seek them 
 through an examination of the policy they have, of choice, or of 
 
260 CHAPTER IX. 15. 
 
 necessity, pursued whether the one tending to increase in the 
 proportion of the classes of society above referred to ; or that 
 tending to its diminution ; and in all cases we shall find that while 
 the former has led to ruin and death, the latter has brought increase 
 of wealth, prosperity, happiness, and life. 
 
 15. The Ricardo-Malthusian doctrine having been invented 
 to account, by means of laws instituted by the Creator, for the 
 existence of social disease and thus to relieve from all responsi 
 bility the class that lives by appropriation and directs the affairs 
 of nations it is no matter of surprise that modern political eco 
 nomy looks upon the men whose occupations are war and trade 
 in a light different from that in which they have here been repre 
 sented. Mr. McCulloch tells us that the wagoner is as much a 
 producer as the farmer, and that absenteeism requiring the em 
 ployment of middlemen, or traders, between the owner of the land 
 and those who cultivate it is a benefit, and not an evil. M. Che 
 valier limits the sphere of political economy to transactions in 
 which merchandise is bought or sold ;* and M. Bastiat informs us 
 that it is one of the errors of modern socialism to class among the 
 parasitic races the intermediaires, or middlemen, between the 
 producer and the consumer. The broker and the merchant being, 
 as he tells us, creators of value, it is, as he thinks, perfectly cor 
 rect to class them with agriculturists and manufacturers ; each 
 and all being equally middlemen performing services for which 
 they expect to be remunerated. 
 
 It is quite true that the middleman is "a creator of values," 
 but for that reason it is, that men so universally rejoice in being 
 enabled to dispense with his services. Value being the measure 
 of nature s power over man, and the value of man increasing with 
 the decline in that of the commodities required for his use, it fol 
 lows, necessarily, that to whatever extent the trader adds to the 
 value of the commodities he sells, he must diminish the value of 
 man. Of the price charged to the people of England for the 
 commodities they consume, a very large proportion goes to the 
 
 * " I have defined political economy in saying that it is a science which 
 has for its object the application of the existing and recognised principles of 
 public law to a certain species of facts that species which gives rise to the 
 transactions ordinarily expressed by the terms buying and selling." Jour 
 nal des Economistes, February, 1853. 
 
APPROPRIATION. 261 
 
 middlemen, who are thus enriched at the cost of both consumer 
 and producer. So is it, too, in Turkey, where the profits of trade 
 are enormously large. So, again, in India in Mexico- in our 
 Western States and in the islands of the Pacific ; and indeed in 
 all those countries in which men are unable to combine their 
 efforts with those of their fellow-men. The trader is a necessity, 
 and not a power and so is it with all the classes of society to 
 which reference has here been made. With every increase in 
 population and wealth, men become more and more enabled to 
 come together and arrange their affairs for themselves with con 
 stant diminution in their need for employing middlemen, whe 
 ther in the capacity of brokers, traders, policemen, soldiers, 
 or magistrates ; and the more they can dispense with the services 
 of such persons, the stronger must they themselves become, and 
 the greater must be the tendency of society to take upon itself a 
 form uniting strength and durability and one most accordant 
 with our ideas of beauty. 
 
 Of the classes here referred to, all desire that men shall be 
 cheap, while the men themselves desire that labor shall be dear. 
 The politician knows that when men are cheap, they are more 
 readily managed than when they are dear. The sovereign finds 
 it more easy to obtain soldiers when wages are low than when 
 they are high. The great landholder desires that men may be 
 cheap, and therefore easily obtained.* The trader desires that 
 labor may be cheap when he buys his goods ; and that goods may 
 be high, and labor, of course, low, when he sells them. All these 
 persons regard man as the instrument to be used by trade. All 
 of them are necessary in the early stages of society, but the neces 
 sity for their services should diminish and men should as much 
 
 * " The Chinese slave-trade is very busy in Peru, whither they are con 
 veyed from China by English and American vessels. They are enticed from 
 their homes, smuggled on shipboard, and treated like brutes. One Ameri 
 can ship, which sailed from China with six hundred and five, lost two hun 
 dred and one on the passage. 
 
 "There has been for many months a project on foot for the introduction 
 of six thousand from China into Cuba, as plantation laborers, to supply the 
 place of negroes, the importation of whom from Africa is to be prohibited, 
 if possible. The English capitalists having the matter in charge were 
 delayed in their arrangements by the urgent want of vessels for the Crimea, 
 which rendered it difficult to effect suitable charters in London. They have 
 finally transferred the scene of their labors to this city, and a vessel is now 
 fitting out at this port for China, under a contract for twelve hundred and 
 fifty emigrants. " New York Journal of Commerce. 
 
262 CHAPTER IX. 15. 
 
 rejoice at every such diminution as at the substitution of the 
 steamship for the sailing one the pump for the hand or the 
 great waterworks for the pump. The less the machinery required 
 for the maintenance of commerce among men, the greater must 
 that commerce be. 
 
 The great difficulty in all these cases is that resulting from the 
 fact of the same word being constantly used to express totally 
 different ideas. The man who makes a thousand pairs of shoes 
 for a thousand people, each of whom comes to him to be fitted, 
 maintains a commerce altogether unimpeded by any necessity for 
 paying porters, or commission merchants. His neighbor, making 
 the same number, finds it necessary to employ a porter to carry 
 them to the trader, and then to pay the trader for finding persons 
 to buy and pay for them. We have here three distinct operations, 
 each requiring to be paid for : first, that of the trader who simply 
 arranges the terms of exchange, appropriating a part of the pro 
 ceeds as compensation for his services ; second, that of the por 
 ter, who effects changes of place ; and, third, that of the shoe 
 maker, who effects changes of form the reward of the last be 
 ing dependent entirely upon the quantity that remains to him, after 
 the others have been paid. All of these operations, it is the habit 
 to include under the general head of commerce ; whereas the real 
 parties to the commerce are only the man who makes the shoes 
 and those who wear them. The others are useful, in so far as 
 they are necessary ; but whatever tends to diminish the need for 
 their services is as much a gain to man, as is improvement in ma 
 chinery of any other description whatsoever. His value rises with 
 every diminution of the obstacles to commerce, and the greatest 
 of all these obstacles, is the necessity for employing the trader and 
 transporter in the work of effecting changes of place. * 
 
 * According to Mr. McCulloch (Principles, Part I., Ch. 3) wealth increases 
 most rapidly when the rate of profit is the highest. Who, however, is it, that 
 receives these profits ? It is the intermediaire > or middleman the represent 
 tative of those obstacles to commerce which cause increase of values. The 
 more the number, and the greater the extent, of the difficulties to be over 
 come by commodities, on the road from the producer to the consumer, the 
 greater is always the rate of profit, the higher are values, and the lower is 
 the condition of man ; and yet, according to this authority, it is then, and 
 there, that wealth must most rapidly accumulate ! 
 
OP CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 263 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Or CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 
 
 1. THE first poor colonist, unable to raise the logs by help 
 of which to construct himself a house, is compelled to depend for 
 shelter upon projecting rocks ; or to bury himself in cavities of 
 the earth affording little protection against the summer s heat, 
 or the winter s cold. Unable to command the services of nature, 
 he is obliged to wander over extensive tracts of land in quest 
 of food, whose transportation to his home, even when obtained, 
 not unfrequently exceeds his own unassisted powers ; and thence it 
 is, that the spoils of the chase lie wasting on the ground, while he 
 and his wife are suffering from want of proper nourishment. In 
 time, however, his sons grow up, and now, combining their exer 
 tions, they make for themselves instruments, by help of which to 
 command the natural forces to such extent, as to enable them 
 to cut and transport logs, and to build for themselves something 
 like a house. Again, they are seen constructing other instru 
 ments, by aid of which they obtain increased supplies of food, 
 and from diminished surfaces, with constant decline in the propor 
 tion of their labor required for effecting changes in the place of 
 matter, and increase in the proportion that may be given to 
 changing its form, with a view to fitting it for furnishing nourish 
 ment, or for aiding in the work of production. 
 
 The life of man is a contest with nature. His prime necessity, 
 and his first desire, is that of association with his fellow-men 
 and the obstacle to the gratification of that desire is found in the 
 necessity for effecting changes of place. Poor and weak, the early 
 settler, unable to obtain an axe, a spade, or a plough, is forced 
 to cultivate the poorest soils yielding so little food, that he must, 
 of necessity, remain apart from other men. As numbers increase, 
 wealth grows, and with the growth of wealth and numbers, he is 
 enabled to cultivate the richer soils yielding increased supplies 
 
264 CHAPTER X. 2. 
 
 of food, and diminishing his need for going abroad, and separat 
 ing himself from his fellow-men. From a mere creature of neces 
 sity, he passes into a being of power, from year to year more 
 enabled to obtain machinery by help of which to maintain com 
 merce with distant men, while becoming from year to year more 
 individualized, and less dependent on that commerce for his com 
 mand of the conveniences, comforts, and luxuries of life. The 
 powers of nature become embodied in THE MAN, whose value 
 grows as that of all commodities declines ; and with that growth 
 he finds a daily diminution in her resistance to his further 
 efforts. 
 
 2. Looking now to the solitary settler of the West, even 
 where provided with both axe and spade, we see him with diffi 
 culty obtaining the commonest log hut. A neighbor, however, 
 arrives, bringing with him a horse and cart ; and now a second 
 house may be built with less than half the labor that had been 
 given to the first. Others coming, more houses are required; 
 and now, by the combined efforts of the settlement, a third is com 
 pleted in a day, whereas the first had required months, and the 
 second weeks, of severe exertion. These new neighbors having 
 brought with them ploughs and hoes, better soils are cultivated ; 
 with large increase in the return to labor, and in the power to 
 preserve the surplus for the winter s use. 
 
 The Indian path that they at first had used, now becomes a 
 road, and exchanges with distant settlements begin the preludes 
 to the establishment of the store, destined to become the nucleus 
 of the future town. Population and wealth again increasing, and 
 better soils being cultivated, the town begins to grow, and with 
 each successive addition to its numbers, the farmer finds a consu 
 mer for his products, and a producer ready to supply his wants 
 the shoemaker seeking to have leather and corn in exchange for 
 shoes, and the carpenter shoes and corn in exchange for his labor. 
 The blacksmith requires fuel and food, and the farmer needs shoes 
 for his horses ; and thus from day to day commerce increases, with 
 corresponding decline in the necessity for transportation. More 
 time being now given to production, the reward of labor rises, 
 with constant increase of commerce. The road becoming a turn 
 pike, and the town becoming a city, the market near at hand 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 265 
 
 grows steadily, while the railroad facilitates exchanges with dis 
 tant towns and cities. 
 
 The tendency to union, and to combination of exertion, thus 
 grows with the growth of wealth. In a state of extreme poverty 
 it cannot be developed. The insignificant tribe of savages that 
 roams over millions of acres of the most fertile land, looks with 
 jealous eyes on every intruder knowing that each new mouth re 
 quiring to be fed, increases the difficulty of obtaining food ; where 
 as, the farmer rejoices in the approach of the blacksmith and the 
 shoemaker, because they come to eat in his neighborhood the corn 
 which hitherto he has carried to the distant market, there to be 
 exchanged for shoes for his horses and himself. With each new 
 consumer of his products that arrives, he is enabled more and 
 more to concentrate his action and his thoughts upon his home ; 
 and his power to consume the commodities brought from other 
 lands increases with the diminution of the necessity for seeking at 
 a distance a market for the products of his farm. Give to the 
 poor tribe spades, and the knowledge how to use them, and the 
 power of combination will arise. The supply of food becoming 
 more abundant, they hail the arrival of the stranger who brings 
 them knives and clothing to be exchanged for skins and corn ; 
 wealth grows, and with it grows the habit of association. 
 
 The little tribe is, however, compelled to occupy the higher 
 and poorer lands the lower and richer ones consisting of dense 
 forests and dreary swamps, among which nature reigns supreme 
 setting at defiance all the efforts of poor and scattered men. On 
 the opposite slope of the valley, but a few miles distant, may be 
 found another little tribe, but the river bottom being yet un 
 cleared, and bridges as yet unthought of there is no intercourse 
 between them. Population and wealth, however, continuing to 
 increase and food being obtained in return to less exertion the 
 power of association as steadily augments, with constantly in 
 creasing appreciation of the advantages to be derived from fur 
 ther combination. Roads being now made in the direction of 
 the river bank, the supply of food increases rapidly, because of 
 the increased facility for cultivating the richer soils ; and still 
 more rapid is the growth in numbers and in wealth. 
 
 The river bank at length being reached, the new wealth now 
 takes the form of a bridge, by help of which the little communi- 
 
 YOL. I. 18 
 
266 CHAPTER X. 2. 
 
 ties are enabled more readily to combine their efforts for the com 
 mon good. One requires carts, or wagons, while the other has 
 corn seeking to be converted into flour ; one has hides to spare, 
 while the other has an excess of shoes, or cloth. One has a 
 windmill ; while the other rejoices in the possession of a saw 
 mill. Exchanges increase ; employments become from day to 
 day more diversified ; and the towns increase in numbers and in 
 strength, by reason of the increased amount of commerce. Roads 
 being now made in the direction of other settlements, the forests 
 and swamps by which they have thus far been separated, gradu 
 ally disappear yielding to cultivation the richest soils, with in 
 creased returns to labor, enabling the laborer to obtain from year 
 to year better food, clothing, and shelter, and with less expendi 
 ture of muscular force. The danger of famine now disappears ; 
 life is prolonged, and numbers increase ; with corresponding in 
 crease in the facility of combination for every useful purpose the 
 distinguishing characteristic of civilization. 
 
 With further growth of population and of wealth, the desires 
 of man, and his ability to gratify them, steadily advance. The 
 nation that has now been formed has an excess of wool, but is 
 deficient in sugar ; whereas, in a neighboring one may be found 
 excess of sugar, while the supply of wool is insufficient. The two 
 arc, however, separated from each other by broad forests, deep 
 swamps, and rapid rivers obstacles to intercourse the removal 
 of which is required to await the further progress of population 
 and of wealth. Both of these now further grow, and next the 
 forests and swamps disappear giving place to rich farms, 
 through which broad roads are made, with great bridges, and 
 enabling the merchant readily to transport wool to exchange 
 with his now rich neighbors for their surplus sugar. Nations 
 next combining their exertions, wealth grows with still increased 
 rapidity facilitating the drainage of marshes, and thus bringing 
 into activity the richest soils ; while coal-mines cheaply furnish 
 fuel for converting limestone into lime, and iron ore into spades 
 and axes or into rails for the new roads required for sending to 
 market the vast products of the fertile soils now cultivated ; and 
 for bringing back the large supplies of sugar, tea, coffee, and 
 other products of distant lands, with which intercourse is now 
 maintained. At each step, population and wealth, happiness 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 26 Y 
 
 and prosperity, make a new bound ; and men realize with diffi 
 culty the fact that the country which now affords to tens of mil 
 lions all the necessaries, comforts, conveniences, and luxuries of 
 life, is the same that when the superabundant land had been 
 occupied by tens of thousands only gave to that limited num 
 ber scanty supplies of the poorest food so scanty, that famines 
 were frequent, and followed in their wake by pestilence, which, 
 at brief intervals, swept from the earth the population of the little 
 and scattered settlements of the hills. 
 
 We have here a constantly accelerating motion of society and 
 an increase of commerce, resulting from a steady diminution in the 
 proportion of the labor of the community required for effecting 
 changes of place, consequent upon a steady increase in the power 
 of combination, and in the development of individuality resulting 
 from diversity of employment. As the village grows and becomes 
 more self-sufficing, it acquires the ability to improve its commu 
 nications with neighboring villages ; and all are next enabled to 
 aid in effecting improvements in the roads to the more distant 
 town. As employment becomes more diversified in the town, it 
 is enabled to combine its efforts with its neighbor towns, to effect 
 improvements in the transport to and from the more distant city ; 
 and as the cities grow, they, in like manner, are enabled to unite 
 in facilitating intercourse with distant nations. The power to 
 maintain commerce grows thus, with every diminution in the 
 necessity for trade and transportation. 
 
 3. The necessity for effecting changes of place is an obstacle 
 interposed by nature to the gratification of the wishes of man ; 
 and it was required that it should exist, in order that his faculties 
 might be stimulated to exertion for its removal. Those faculties 
 exist in all men, but they remain latent when not stimulated into 
 action by a feeling of the advantage that must result from in 
 creased power to maintain intercourse with their fellow-men. 
 The greater the facility of intercourse, the more are its benefits 
 appreciated, and the greater becomes the consciousness of power 
 to effect further improvement looking to entire removal of the 
 obstacle standing in the way of direct intercourse between men 
 and their fellow-men or, commerce. In the early stages of 
 society, it is so great as to be almost insuperable ; and hence it 
 
268 CHAPTER X. 3. 
 
 is that we even now see that while the value of commodities at the 
 place of consumption is, in many cases, so great as to cause them 
 to be almost beyond the reach of any but the wealthy, their 
 value at the place of production is so small as to keep their pro 
 ducer in a state of poverty, and retain him in the position of 
 slave, not only to nature, but also to his fellow-man. The sugar 
 producer of Brazil cannot obtain clothing with which to conceal 
 his nakedness ; while the cloth producer of England is equally 
 unable to obtain the sugar required for the sustenance of his 
 family and himself. That such should be the case, results from 
 no defect in the arrangements of Providence nature yielding 
 abundantly in return to the efforts of both, and doing her part 
 towards enabling them to be well clothed and fed ; but it does 
 result from error in the arrangements of men. The man of Eng 
 land, and of Brazil, would have full supplies of food would be 
 well clothed and would become more free, could the one obtain 
 all the cloth given for his sugar, and the other all the sugar given 
 for his cloth ; and it is because so large a portion is absorbed in 
 the passage from one to the other, that the condition of both is 
 so near akin to slavery. 
 
 But thirty years since, the price of a bushel of wheat in Ohio 
 was less than a third of that at which it would sell in Philadel 
 phia or New York all the difference being absorbed in the pas 
 sage from the producer to the consumer. The first then obtained 
 little cloth in exchange for his food, and the latter little food in 
 exchange for his cloth. But recently, corn abounded in Castile, 
 for which no market could be found ; while Andalusia, part of 
 the same kingdom, looked to America for supplies of food. -At 
 the present day, food is wasted in one part of India, while 
 hundreds of thousands perish of famine in another. So is it 
 everywhere, in default of that diversity of employment which 
 makes a market for its products on, or near, the land. "In 
 Russia, a propitious season and an abundant crop," says a recent 
 traveller, "do not guaranty a profitable season to the farmer. 
 The prices," dependent as they are upon the chances and changes 
 of distant lands, "may," as he continues, " suddenly have fallen 
 so low, that no physical combination of circumstances can benefit 
 him. * * * He is thus the victim of circumstances" 
 over which he can exercise no control whatsoever. "Totally un- 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 269 
 
 able to affect the price of grain himself, it depends on the demand 
 for foreign countries, the facilities of communication, and his posi 
 tion -with regard to them with many other causes incidental to 
 an immense, but thinly-peopled, country, affected in its extremi 
 ties by very different temperatures, liable during the same year 
 to famine and plenty occurring in distant quarters, between which 
 it is matter of pure hazard if there exist any means of communi 
 cation."* The picture here presented is that of all purely agri 
 cultural countries their crops being almost altogether absorbed 
 in the cost of transportation, because of the exceeding distance of 
 the consumer from the producer. Hence it is, that slavery, or 
 serfage, prevails in those communities in which employments are 
 not diversified. 
 
 Sixty years since, the utility of the produce of Ohio was very 
 small indeed so small, that it required, as then was said, all 
 that an acre could be made to yield, to pay for a pair of 
 breeches." Thirty years since, its utility had much increased, 
 but yet was very trivial the major part of it being required for 
 feeding the men and horses who carried it to market ; whereas, 
 the value of .all commodities needed by the farmer was so great, 
 that it required fifteen tons of wheat to pay for a single ton of 
 iron. The people of that State had then but little power over 
 nature ; but, as they have increased in numbers, power has been 
 obtained, and they are now in the enjoyment of wealth because 
 of the removal of some of the obstacles standing in the way of 
 commerce. 
 
 To this it is due, that while the utility of their own products 
 has largely increased, by reason of the diminished proportion 
 required to feed the men and animals engaged in transportation ; 
 the value of the iron has so greatly diminished, that six or eight 
 tons may now be obtained in return for the same wheat that 
 would then have been given in exchange for one. As a conse 
 quence of this, a single year enables the farmer to add more, in 
 quantity and quality, to his machinery of cultivation, than before 
 he could do in twenty substituting the continuous motion of the 
 horse-rake and of the reaping and threshing machines, for the 
 constantly intermitted one of the hand-rake, the reaping-hook, the 
 scythe, and the flail and enabling him to apply himself with in- 
 * OLIPHANT : Russian Shores of the Black Sea, p. 134. 
 
270 CHAPTER X. 3. 
 
 creased rapidity to the removal of the yet remaining obstacles 
 consequent upon the necessity for effecting changes of place. 
 The better the roads, the greater is the demand for machinery ; 
 and the greater the latter, the greater is the tendency to have the 
 miller, the blacksmith, the carpenter, the spinner, the weaver, the 
 miner, and the iron-founder come to take their places near the far 
 mer ; with great increase in the motion of society, in the attrac 
 tion of home, and in the power of combination with people abroad. 
 
 Man s power over nature tends, thus, steadily to grow, and 
 every stage of his progress towards power is accompanied, natu 
 rally and necessarily, with diminished resistance to his further 
 efforts. There is, therefore, a constant tendency towards accele 
 ration of motion ; and the momentum of a body is, as the reader 
 knows, as its weight, multiplied by its velocity. The Indian 
 trails of the Six Nations must have cost a greater amount of 
 effort than was subsequently required for laying out, clearing, and 
 making the State road ; and that, in its turn, was a work of more 
 serious labor than was, but a few years later, the construction of 
 the railroad. The turnpike road from Baltimore to Cumberland, 
 a distance of a hundred and eighty miles, was, but forty years 
 since, so great a work, that the Federal treasury was required to 
 bear the cost of its construction ; but railroads now increase with 
 such rapidity, that the people of the Ohio Yalley already have the 
 choice among many such, when they desire to visit the Atlantic 
 cities. The Santa Maria, Columbus s great ship, had a capacity 
 of but ninety tons ; and yet the construction of such a vessel was 
 then a far more serious matter than is now that of a steamer 
 which would accomplish the same voyage in fewer weeks than she 
 required of months. Here, as everywhere, the first step requires 
 the most effort, and yields the smallest return. With every addi 
 tional one, the value of man rises, and that of commodities falls ; 
 and with each we see an increase in the wealth at his command, 
 giving him increased facilities for further accumulation. 
 
 Thus far, however, we have made but a single step in that direc 
 tion. The power to become useful to man is a force latent in all 
 the matter by which he is surrounded ; but the development of 
 that force is everywhere retarded by the difficulty attendant upon 
 effecting changes of place. The savage is compelled to leave 
 upon the ground, for the consumption of birds of prey, a most 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 2T1 
 
 valuable portion of the spoils yielded by the chase ; whereas the 
 man who lives in society with his fellow-man, is enabled to utilize 
 not only the flesh, but the skin, the bones, and even the yet undi 
 gested contents of the stomach. The isolated man fells the tall 
 tree, that he may obtain the cabbage which constitutes its head 
 leaving the trunk to become the prey of worms ; but the associ 
 ated man utilizes not only the trunk, but the limbs, the bark, and 
 even the leaves. The few and scattered people who cultivate the 
 poor soils of a new settlement, carry their food and their wool to 
 a distant market losing the manure, and thus adding the ex 
 haustion of the soil, and consequent stoppage of motion in their 
 land, to the cost of transportation ; whereas the associated man 
 saves all that cost, and makes his land richer with every crop. The 
 isolated man wanders over extensive tracts rich with coal and 
 metallic ores, and continues poor ; but the associated man uti 
 lizes such deposits, and improves his machinery for the produc 
 tion of food and the more he does so, the greater is the power 
 of further association and further increase of combination. Look 
 to it where we may, we see that as men are enabled to come toge 
 ther, they obtain power to command the services of nature im 
 proving their roads as they diminish their dependence on the 
 machinery of transportation and transporting tons with less 
 effort than had been required for the removal of pounds ; although 
 with each successive year they find themselves more and more en 
 abled to compress their raw materials into cloth and iron, and 
 thus dimmish the weight of the commodities requiring to be trans 
 ported. 
 
 4. The first and heaviest tax to be paid by land and labor is 
 that of transportation ; and it is the only one to which the claims 
 of the state itself are forced to yield precedence. It increases in 
 geometrical proportion, as the distance from market increases 
 arithmetically ; and therefore it is, that agreeably to tables recently 
 published, corn that would produce at market $24.75 per ton, is 
 worth nothing at a distance of only a hundred and sixty miles, 
 when the communication is by means of the ordinary wagon road 
 the cost of transportation being equal to the selling price. By 
 railroad, under ordinary circumstances, that cost is but $2.40 
 leaving to the farmer $22.35, as the amount of tax saved to him 
 
272 CHAPTER X. 4. 
 
 by the construction of the road ; and if we now take the product 
 of an acre of land as averaging a ton, the saving is equal to inte 
 rest, at six per cent., on $310 an acre. Assuming the product 
 of an acre of wheat to be twenty bushels, the saving is equal to 
 the interest on $200 ; but, if we take the more bulky products 
 hay, potatoes, and turnips it will be found to amount to thrice 
 that sum. Hence it is that an acre of land near London sells 
 for thousands of dollars, while one of exactly equal quality may 
 be purchased in Iowa, or Wisconsin, for little more than a single 
 dollar. The owner of the first enjoys the vast advantage of the 
 endless motion of its products taking from it several crops in 
 the year, and returning to it, at once, a quantity of manure equal 
 to all he had abstracted ; and thus improving his land from year 
 to year. He is making a machine ; whereas, his western compe 
 titor, forced to lose the manure, is destroying one. Having no 
 transportation to pay, the former can raise those things of which 
 the earth yields largely as potatoes, carrots, or turnips or 
 those whose delicate character forbids that they should be carried 
 to distant markets ; and thus does he obtain a large reward for 
 that continuous application of his faculties, and of his land, which 
 results from the power of combination with his fellow-men. 
 
 In the case of the latter, all is widely different. Having heavy 
 transportation to pay, he cannot raise potatoes, turnips, or hay, 
 because of them the earth yields by tons ; as a consequence of 
 which, they would be almost, even when not wholly, absorbed on 
 the road to market. He may raise wheat, of which the earth 
 yields by bushels ; or cotton, of which it yields by pounds ; but if 
 he raises even Indian corn, he must manufacture it into pork before 
 the cost of transportation can be so far diminished as to enable 
 him to obtain a proper reward for labor. Rotation of crops being, 
 therefore, a thing unknown to him, there can be no continuity of 
 motion in either himself or his land. His corn occupies the lat 
 ter but a part of the year, while the necessity for renovating the 
 soil, by means of fallows, causes a large portion of his farm to 
 remain altogether idle, although the cost of maintaining roads 
 and fences is precisely the same as if it were all fully employed. 
 
 His time, too, being required only for certain portions of the 
 year, much of it is altogether lost as is that of his wagon and 
 horses the consumption of which latter is just as great as if they 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 273 
 
 were always at work. He, and they, are in the condition of 
 steam-engines, constantly fed with fuel, while the engineer as 
 regularly wastes the steam that is produced a proceeding in 
 volving heavy loss of capital. Further stoppages in the motion 
 of himself and his land, resulting from changes in the weather, 
 are consequent upon this limitation in the variety of things that 
 may be cultivated. His crop, perhaps, requires rain that does 
 not come, and his corn, or cotton, perishes of drought. Once 
 grown, it requires light and heat, but in their place come clouds 
 and rain ; and it and he are nearly ruined. The farmer near 
 London, or Paris, is in the condition of an underwriter who has 
 a thousand risks, some of which are maturing every day ; where 
 as, the distant one is in that of a man who has risked his whole 
 fortune on a single ship. Having made the voyage, she arrives 
 at the entrance of her destined port, when, striking on a rock, she 
 is lost, and her owner is ruined. Precisely such is the condi 
 tion of the farmer who having his all at risk on his single crop 
 sees it destroyed by blight, or mildew, almost at the moment 
 when he had expected to make his harvest. With isolated men, 
 all pursuits are extra-hazardous ; but as they are enabled to ap 
 proach each other, and combine their efforts, the risks diminish, 
 until they almost altogether disappear. Combination of action 
 thus makes of society a general insurance office, by help of which 
 each and all of its members are enabled to secure themselves 
 against almost every imaginable risk. 
 
 Great, however, as are these differences, they sink almost 
 into insignificance, compared with that which exists in reference 
 to the maintenance of the powers of the land. The farmer dis 
 tant from market is always selling the soil, which constitutes his 
 capital ; whereas, the one near London not only returns to his 
 land the refuse of its products, but adds thereto the manure 
 resulting from the consumption of the vast amount of wheat 
 brought from Russia and America of cotton brought from Ca 
 rolina and India of sugar, coffee, rice, and other commodities, 
 yielded by the tropics of lumber and of wool, the products of 
 Canada and Australia not only maintaining the motion of his 
 land, but increasing it from year to year. 
 
 5. Of all the things required for the purposes of man, the 
 
274 CHAPTER x. 5. 
 
 one that least bears transportation, and is, yet, of all the most 
 important, is manure. The soil can continue to produce on the 
 condition, only, of restoring to it the elements of which its crop 
 had been composed. That being complied with, the supply of 
 food increases, and men are enabled to come nearer together and 
 combine their efforts developing their individual faculties, and 
 thus increasing their wealth ; and yet this condition of improve 
 ment, essential as it is, has been overlooked by all economists. 
 The subject being one of much importance, and having been 
 treated at considerable length in a work to which reference has 
 heretofore been made, it is deemed expedient to submit for the 
 consideration of the reader the following passage : 
 
 " Every crop is made from matter furnished by its predeces 
 sors ; and whatever is lacking in the manure will surely, sooner 
 or later, disappear in the product. Exhaustion and renovation 
 must reciprocate in equal measure. If any element, however 
 minute in quantity, is constantly withdrawn and removed from 
 the soil, the product of which it is a constituent must finally 
 cease to reappear. If animals are fed upon the land, their excre 
 ments restore a large portion of the inorganic matter, of which 
 the plants on which they feed have robbed the soil. But the 
 richest pasture will, after a time, show signs of exhaustion, if 
 the young cattle that grow upon it are sent to distant markets 
 Let the cattle remain, and their manure be faithfully restored : if 
 they are cows, a considerable quantity of phosphate of lime is 
 contained in their milk ; and if this is sent away in its original 
 form, or in the shape of butter and cheese, the soil must cease to 
 furnish pasture which will make milk. The grass-lands of Che 
 shire, in England, famous for its dairy husbandry, were thus im 
 poverished. They were restored by the application of ground 
 bones human bones, in a great measure, imported from the 
 battle-fields of the continent which contain essentially the s&me 
 substances as the milk. The importance of what might seem an 
 insignificant loss to the land, is shown by the fact stated by Pro 
 fessor Johnston, that lands which paid but five shillings an acre 
 of rent, have been, by restoring the bone phosphates, of which 
 they had been ignorantly robbed, made to yield a rent of forty 
 shillings, besides a good profit to the dairyman. Different crops 
 take away the inorganic substances of the soil in different propor- 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 275 
 
 tions ; the grains, for instance, take chiefly phosphates ; potatoes 
 and turnips, mostly potash and soda ; but all crops, natural or 
 artificial, deprive the land of some essential ingredient, and, in 
 whatever shape the ingredient is finally removed, in animal or 
 human muscle and bones, in cloth made from the cotton, the wool, 
 or the flax, boots or hats made from the skin or the fur of the 
 animals, no matter how many transformations the elements may 
 have undergone, the vegetative power of the earth from which 
 they were withdrawn has been diminished to an equivalent extent. 
 Nature is an easy creditor, and presents no bill of damages for 
 exhausted fertility. We are, therefore, little accustomed to take 
 account of what is due to the earth. An idea, however, of the 
 great pecuniary magnitude of the debt may be gained from the 
 fact, that the manure annually applied to the soil of Great Bri 
 tain, at its market prices, was estimated in 1850* at 103,369,139, 
 a sum much exceeding the entire value of its foreign trade. In 
 Belgium, which sustains a population of 336 to the square mile 
 one to every arable acre in the kingdom which, according to 
 Mr. McCulloch, produces commonly more than double the quan 
 tity of corn required for the consumption of its inhabitants ; and 
 where immense numbers of cattle are stall-fed for the sake of their 
 manure, the liquid excrements of a single cow sell for ten dollars 
 a year. The people of Belgium are able, by making their own 
 population, animal and human, the most dense of any country in 
 the world, to raise beef, mutton, pork, butter, and grain, cheaply 
 enough to admit of their exportation to England, to feed people 
 who believe in over-population. 
 
 " The necessity of taking into account the comparative exhaus 
 tion resulting from the growth and removal of different crops, as 
 well as their comparative cheapness of transportation, modifies 
 considerably the inferences which would otherwise be made in 
 regard to their value. A work in which all the circumstances 
 which can affect the economy of different modes of cultivation, are 
 subjected to rigorous mathematical calculation^ the necessary 
 
 * Macqiieen s Statistics, p. 12. 
 
 f DE THUNEN: " Recherches sur 1 Influence que le Prix des Grains, la 
 Richesse du Sol, et les Irapots, exercent sur la Culture," p. 178. The work 
 is only known to the writer in the French translation, made from the original 
 German, under the auspices of the National and Central Agricultural Society 
 of France. 
 
276 CHAPTER X. 5. 
 
 elements being derived from exact accounts, kept by its author 
 during fifteen years of superintendence of an agricultural school 
 and model farm in Germany supplies us with this illustration. 
 Three bushels of potatoes, it is said, have been ascertained to 
 possess the same amount of nutritive power as one bushel of rye 
 . the standard with which all crops are compared by this writer. 
 It is also stated that ground, equal in extent and of equal qua 
 lity, will produce nine bushels of potatoes where it would yield 
 but one of rye, while one bushel of the latter demands as much 
 labor as 5 T 7 o of the former. A given quantity of nutriment could 
 therefore be obtained upon one-third the area of land, and with 
 half the amount of labour, by the cultivation of potatoes, 
 which would be required to produce it in the shape of rye. 
 But in order to keep the soil in heart, so that it will continue to 
 yield either rye or potatoes, a certain portion of the farm must be 
 devoted to pasturage, that manure may be made. Taking into 
 account the requirements in this respect of the two crops in ques 
 tion, it is found that the same area which suffices for the produc 
 tion of 39 measures of nutritive matter in rye, instead of producing 
 three times that number in potatoes, yields but 64. The actual 
 value of the two crops, instead of bearing the proportion of 100 
 to 300, has that of 100 to 164. 
 
 " The above calculation proceeds upon the assumption, that the 
 farm must manufacture and save its own manure. Every town, 
 however, every hamlet where artisans are congregated, is a place 
 whence the refuse of crops, after subserving human nutrition, may 
 be removed with great advantage to the health of the inhabitants, 
 and no detriment to the productiveness of their industry. The 
 sewer-water of large towns contains its refuse in a state of dilu 
 tion, highly favorable to the growth of plants and the increase of 
 fertility. From every town of a thousand inhabitants, says Pro 
 fessor Johnston, is carried annually into the sea, manure equal 
 to 210 tons of guano, worth, at the then current price of guano 
 in England, $13,000, and capable of raising an increased produce 
 of not less than 1000 quarters of grain. It is alleged by compe 
 tent engineers, that liquid manure can be distributed at a much 
 less cost than that of carting an equal fertilizing value in a solid 
 form. The drainage-water from a large portion of the city of 
 Edinburgh has been conducted into a small brook, and made to 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 277 
 
 overflow some three hundred acres of flat land, which is thus ren 
 dered so productive as to be sometimes mown seven times in a 
 season. A portion of it, held under a long lease at 5 per acre, 
 is sub -let at 30, and some of the richest meadows at even higher 
 rates. Advantages of ,this character are the result of combina 
 tion upon a large scale. The centres of population, however, 
 supply manures which may be made immediately available by the 
 individual farmer, with no other assistance than that of his own 
 carts and horses. Whether it is more profitable to manufacture 
 manure upon the farm, by devoting to that object portions of the 
 land which might otherwise grow crops for sale, or to procure 
 the manure from town, depends upon the price which must be 
 paid for it, and the distance to which it has to be carried. The 
 German agriculturist, to whom we before referred, has deduced 
 the relation between the prices the farmer can afford to pay for 
 fertilizing material at the town for the purpose of growing pota 
 toes with the same economy as if it were made from other crops 
 upon the farm and the distance it is to be transported. The 
 result at which he arrives is, that a quantity of manure which 
 would be worth $5.40, for the purpose of applying to land in the 
 immediate suburbs of the town, or where the expense of cartage 
 is so trifling that it may be disregarded, is worth $4.20, if the 
 farm be one German mile (4 60 English miles) distant $3.10, if 
 the distance be two German miles $1.90, at three miles 83 
 cents at four ; and that at the distance of 4| German, or about 
 22 English, miles, he can pay nothing for it, though he may still 
 carry it away as cheaply as to give up the growing of potatoes 
 upon that portion of his land which must otherwise be devoted to 
 the growth of crops for restoring the fertility which the tubercles 
 exhaust. 
 
 " It follows, from considerations which in the preceding para 
 graphs it has been sought to elucidate, in scant proportion to 
 their importance, that the vicinity of the producer to the place 
 where conversion and exchange are effected in other words, to 
 the consumers is an indispensable condition of his being able to 
 raise those crops which the earth yields most abundantly. The 
 same space which, sown with wheat, gives what has been termed 
 muscular matter that is, muscle-sustaining power to the 
 amount of two hundred pounds, if planted with cabbages gives 
 
218 CHAPTER X. 5. 
 
 fifteen hundred pounds ; in turnips, a thousand pounds ; in beans, 
 four hundred. It is, however, as we have seen, but a limited 
 circle around the centres of population in which the agriculturist 
 has the capacity to determine freely to what object he will conse 
 crate his land and his labor. In proportion to his distance from 
 the consumer, two causes act in concert to contract his power. 
 The first is the cost of transporting the crop to market, which 
 compels him to select those whose bulk is small compared to their 
 value, because they require much land and much labor for their 
 production. The second is the difficulty of bringing back, over 
 the increasing distance, the refuse of the crop ; in default of which 
 the crop itself runs out. Whatever may be the quality of soil cul 
 tivated, these conclusions are equally valid. They hold good, 
 without reference to the truth or falsehood of the theory of 
 Ricardo, in regard to the occupation of the earth ; while they are 
 fatal to that of Malthus, as showing that density of population is 
 essential to the plenitude of subsistence."* 
 
 The sum of all the taxes thus far described is immense, and yet 
 they constitute but a portion of those to which our Western far 
 mers are subjected. The man who must go to any market, must 
 pay the cost of getting there, let it take what form, it may ; and 
 among the charges are those of marine and fire insurance, always 
 estimated in fixing the price of his commodities. All the losses 
 from the numerous fires in great commercial cities such as have 
 been witnessed in New York and Liverpool, Hamburg, Memel, 
 and London are payable out of the commodities furnished by the 
 farmer ; and are not, in any manner, payable by those who stand 
 between him and his market. So far, indeed, to the contrary is 
 it, that the latter profit largely by the losses that are incurred 
 among the most advantageous portions of their business being 
 that of insurance against losses that never could occur were the 
 markets for raw produce everywhere near at hand. The farmer 
 near London has no insurance to pay all his commodities find 
 ing a demand on the instant, and at the place of production. f 
 
 * SMITH : Manual of Political Economy, p. 203. 
 
 j- Rev. Henry Ward Beeclier, in a sermon which he delivered in New York, 
 stated that over fifty American vessels have sailed from port, and since been 
 given up as lost never heard from in the last twelve months. Within the 
 same time, three large ocean steamers and three sailing packets, all loaded 
 with passengers, have been wrecked and totally lost on the American coast. 
 Besides these there is the "City of Glasgow," with another freight of human 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 2*7 9 
 
 Such are a portion and a portion only of the taxes imposed 
 upon land and labor by the necessity for effecting changes of 
 place, consequent upon dependence on a distant market. Having 
 examined them, the reader can scarcely doubt that they account 
 fully for the facts that in all purely agricultural countries land is 
 valueless, and man continues in a state of slavery. Wherever 
 mills and furnaces are built, and mines are opened, there arises a 
 demand for potatoes and turnips, cabbages and hay, strawberries 
 and raspberries enabling the farmer to take from the land tons, 
 where before he had taken bushels ; and to restore to it, again all 
 the elements of which it had been deprived. Being at market, and 
 saving all the cost of transportation and commission, he is enabled 
 to improve his machinery of cultivation. Clearing and draining 
 his richest lands, while bringing into activity the lime, or other 
 minerals and metals, abounding in his poorer ones, he has a suc 
 cession of crops ripening at various periods of the year ; the per 
 fect success of some of which makes amends for partial failure of 
 others thus giving to his pursuit a certainty of remuneration 
 that before had no existence. He now finds on his farm a conti 
 nuous demand for his own labor, and for that of his horses ; and 
 this he does for the reason, that whenever he sends a load of food 
 to market, his wagon returns laden with offal yielded at that 
 market enabling him to improve his land. Time becoming more 
 valuable, he is constantly substituting machinery of continuous 
 motion for that heretofore in use, by help of which intermitted 
 motion had been obtained ; and thus on and on he goes, with 
 constantly accelerated force enabling constantly increasing num 
 bers to obtain larger supplies of food, with steady increase in the 
 power of association, in the development of individuality, and in 
 the power of further progress. 
 
 6. Every step in the progress of association being attended 
 by a diminution in the proportion of labor of a community re- 
 life given up. Two hundred and one vessels have been reported lost with 
 in a single week. The losses paid by marine insurance companies, in New 
 York alone, exceed twelve million dollars for the last year. From a return 
 to the British House of- Commons, it appears that from January, 1847, to 
 December, 1 850, there happened at sea upwards of twelve thousand casual 
 ties, varying in magnitude from the shipwreck at the dead of night, with all 
 its horrors, to a clumsy collision in the Channel. The amount of the loss of 
 life averages (per year) twelve hundred and fifty. 
 
280 CHAPTER X. 6. 
 
 quired to be given the effectuation of changes of place and by 
 an increase in that which may be given to effecting changes of 
 form by the processes of agriculture or manufactures, the farmer 
 is enabled to subdue to cultivation still richer soils, and daily 
 more and more to elaborate their products so as to fit them on 
 the instant for consumption at home or cheaply to seek consu 
 mers in distant lands ; the power to maintain commerce with dis 
 tant men increasing with every step towards individuality in the 
 community, resulting from diminution in the necessity for seeking 
 a distant market. The power of man for effecting changes of 
 place increases, therefore, in a ratio greatly exceeding that of the 
 growth of population, with steady increase in the utility of the 
 commodities produced, in the wealth, strength, and force of the 
 community, and in the prosperity and happiness of the people of 
 whom it is composed. 
 
 That every act of association is an act of commerce, is a truth 
 of such high importance that it cannot be too strongly impressed 
 upon the reader s mind, and he may, therefore, forgive its repeti 
 tion. The growth of commerce being in the direct ratio of in 
 crease in the power of association and combination, the motion 
 of a community towards the goal of its desires towards that 
 point at which there is found the most perfect facility for combin 
 ing the efforts of man with those of his fellow-men must be in the 
 direct ratio of its increase in numbers, and in the variety of their 
 employments ; and with every such increase the necessity for 
 effecting changes of place tends more and -more to pass away. 
 The greater that variety, and the more perfect the commerce, the 
 greater must be the development of individuality, the higher must 
 become the feeling of responsibility, and the greater the capacity 
 for further progress. The more rapid the motion of society, the 
 greater must be its tendency to take upon itself that form which 
 in the material world gives the greatest stability and the largest 
 capacity for resistance to any attack from without that form, 
 consequently, which insures the greatest durability. 
 
 In order that commerce may increase, it is indispensable that 
 man shall be enabled to pay the debt he contracts towards his 
 great mother earth, when taking from the soil the elements 
 which enter into the composition of the commodities required for 
 his support. It is the condition upon which alone progress can 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 281 
 
 be made. When it is complied with, she increases her loans from 
 year to year enabling more and more persons to obtain both 
 food and clothing, with constant increase of power to combine 
 their efforts. When that is not done, motion in the earth 
 diminishes, and men are seen gradually increasing their dis 
 tances from each other, with steady diminution in the power of 
 association, and constant increase in the taxation resulting from 
 the necessity for effecting changes of place. Such we see to have 
 been the case in Greece and Italy, in Spain and Mexico ; and 
 such we now see it to be, not only in Virginia and the Carolinas, 
 but even in the comparatively recently occupied States of Ohio, 
 New York, and Georgia. Why this has been so in times that 
 are past, and why it is so now, requires to be explained. 
 
 To the men who live by the work of appropriation, increase of 
 commerce is not desirable its growth being everywhere attended 
 by diminution in the splendor and magnificence of those who de 
 sire to control the movements of society with a view to their own 
 advantage. The politician profits by the separation of his fellow- 
 men, and so is it with the lawyer, the trader, the great proprie 
 tor of badly-cultivated land, and all others of the classes whose 
 means of support and illustration are derived from standing 
 between those who produce commodities and those who require 
 them for consumption. All these men profit, temporarily, by 
 preventing continuity in the motion of society ; and the greater 
 their power so to do, the greater is the proportion of the pro 
 duct of labor that enures to them, and the smaller that which re 
 mains to be divided among the laborers. 
 
 The broker does not desire that his principals may come toge 
 ther, and arrange their affairs without his intervention. So far, 
 indeed, is it to the contrary, that the more widely they are sepa 
 rated, the greater is his power to accumulate fortune at their 
 expense purchasing for himself, to their injury, when prices are 
 low, and selling for himself, again at the cost of his principals, 
 when prices are high. The owner of slaves lives by preventing 
 association among his people requiring them to bring to him all 
 the commodities they produce, and to come to him for all they 
 need to consume. The wagoner knows that the more numerous 
 the obstacles between the producer and his market, the greater 
 will be the demand for horses and wagons, and the larger will 
 
 YOL. I.19 
 
282 CHAPTER X. 6. 
 
 be the proportion of the commodities retained by him as compen 
 sation for his services. The ship-owner rejoices when men are 
 forced to separate from each other, as in the case of the late Cri 
 mean war; or when poverty compels them to abandon their 
 homes and fly to distant lands because it produces a demand 
 for ships. Equally does he rejoice when crops are large, and the 
 quantity seeking transportation steadily accumulates causing a 
 rise of freights. The real and permanent interests of all classes 
 of men are one and the same, but their apparent and temporary 
 interests are different ; and therefore it is that we see individuals 
 and nations constantly engaged in pursuing the latter, to the en 
 tire exclusion of the former. Blinded by the idea of present pro 
 fit and grandeur, the great men of Greece, and of Rome, over 
 looked the fact that they were steadily exhausting the powers of 
 the community of which they formed a part ; and, blindly follow 
 ing in their track, those of Venice and Genoa, France and Hol 
 land, Spain and Portugal, have pursued a course precisely similar, 
 and attended always with the same results. 
 
 So has it been, invariably, with the trader, whose great desire 
 has always been, to maintain at their highest point, and even to 
 increase, the necessities of men for the use of the machinery of 
 transportation, and to limit them to the use of that of which he 
 himself was owner. The more completely those ends could be 
 attained, the more perfect became the centralization of power 
 the more splendid became the places at which exchanges were 
 required to be made and the greater was his temporary pros 
 perity ; but the more rapid was his decline, and the more com 
 plete his ruin. The Phoenicians and Carthaginians, the Venetians 
 and Genoese, the Spaniards and Portuguese, the Hanseatics and 
 their rivals of Holland, showed themselves at all times unsparing 
 in their efforts to compel their colonists to come to their ports, and 
 to use their ships. While seeking thus a monopoly of power as a 
 means of obtaining wealth, all their power was used for the pur 
 pose of maintaining at its highest point the burden imposed upon 
 others by the necessity for effecting changes of place. This, 
 again, gave them advantages for the purchase of raw produce, by 
 causing its accumulation in their ports subject, of course, as in 
 the present day, to heavy charges and great risk ; and equal 
 advantages for its sale, when finished, and ready for consumption. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 283 
 
 Thus did they enrich themselves for the moment, while greatb 
 impoverishing all -dependent upon their aid precisely as we see 
 now to be the case with individuals and companies trading with 
 the poor aborigines of this western continent ; with the people of 
 Mexico ; with the Finns and Lapps of Northern Europe, the na 
 tives of the Pacific, and of Africa. 
 
 Exhausting the people with whom they traded, they found a 
 perpetually increasing difficulty in the maintenance of trade, 
 because of constantly increasing famines and pestilences, such as 
 now so frequently occur in Ireland, and in India. As popula 
 tion declined, so declined the power to maintain the roads and 
 bridges by which to go to market whether to sell the wretched 
 produce of their lands, or to purchase the things required for con 
 sumption a process now seen in operation in Jamaica and Ire 
 land, in India, and in Mexico ; in all of which the variety of the 
 products of the land is constantly diminishing, with correspond 
 ent tendency to diminution in their quantity. In no country is 
 this more emphatically the case than in Turkey, in regard to 
 which a recent traveller says that in each district the great bulk 
 of the agricultural classes cultivate the same articles of produce, 
 and pursue the same routine of culture ; consequently, every man 
 possesses a superfluity of the articles which his neighbor is desi 
 rous of selling"* being precisely the state of things existing in 
 Brazil and India, Virginia and Carolina. Under such circum 
 stances there being no power to maintain commerce the poor 
 cultivator finds himself subjected to the "tender mercies" of the 
 trader, whose power over him grows with the decline of his abi 
 lity to maintain intercourse with his fellow-men ; and therefore it 
 is, that he is there so much enslaved. Such are the results which 
 follow necessarily from rendering man an instrument to be used 
 by trade ; but, that the latter fails to profit by such injustice, is 
 proved by the decline, and ultimate fall, of the communities whose 
 prosperity has been due exclusively to trade. 
 
 T. Freedom grows with the growth of the power of association 
 and combination. The obstacle to association is that resulting 
 from the distance between men and their fellow-men. That dis 
 tance diminishes as men are enabled to obtain instruments by 
 * Blackwood s Magazine, November, 1854. 
 
284 CHAPTER X. 7. 
 
 help of which to command the services of nature, and to deve 
 lop the treasures of the earth. With every new development, 
 they are enabled to command the aid of better machinery to be 
 used in the work of transportation, while steadily diminishing 
 the necessity for transportation with constant increase in the 
 power of combination, and in the growth of freedom. 
 
 Such, however, are not the doctrines of modern political eco 
 nomy of the system which is based upon the idea of the "con 
 stantly increasing sterility of the soil," and which finds in tables 
 of imports and exports, in an increased demand for ships, and in 
 a growing necessity for the services of the trader, evidences of 
 national prosperity and power. Now, as when, almost a century 
 since, the idea was denounced by Adam Smith, "England s Trea 
 sure" is sought in the "foreign trade ;" and "the inland, or home 
 trade," which he regarded as "the most important of all" as 
 the one " in which an equal capital afforded the greatest returns, 
 and created the greatest employment to the people of the coun 
 try" is considered as being "only subsidiary to the foreign 
 trade."* To what extent it is, that we owe to the continued 
 existence of this essential error, the invention of the idea of over 
 population, the reader will be prepared to judge after an exami 
 nation of the working of the British colonial system. 
 
 * Wealth of Nations, book 4, chap. 1. Mr. McCulloch, in his Discourse 
 introductory to the Wealth of Nations, denounces this as one of the import 
 ant errors of its author contending that the labor employed in carrying 
 goods is as advantageous as that given to their production. Dr. Smith loved 
 Comirerce. His successors glorify Trade ; and therefore is it that the latter 
 are led, to use the words of M. Droz, to consider men as having been "made 
 for products, and not products for men." 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 285 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 1. THE states to whose policy reference has thus far been 
 made, were content to limit themselves to restrictions upon the 
 communities within their control, as regarded their connections 
 with each other, and with other communities that were beyond it 
 without attempting in any manner to restrict them in regard to 
 their internal arrangements. The early Grecian colonies were as 
 free to maintain commerce at home, or abroad, as were the states 
 by whose citizens they had been founded ; and hence it is, that 
 there was seen in the cities of Sicily, and of Magna Graecia, the 
 same development of individuality that everywhere else distin 
 guished the Grecian civilization. The people of Spain, Corsica, 
 or Sardinia might, if they would, make such alterations in the 
 forms of their various products as were required to fit them for 
 immediate consumption ; but, if they desired to send them to 
 Egypt, or to Greece, they were then obliged to pass them 
 through the port of Carthage. Spain and Portugal denied to 
 the Indies the right of trading with Holland, or with England, 
 except through the ports of Seville or of Lisbon ; but they never 
 interfered with the domestic employments of Mexico, or of Bra 
 zil of the people of Goa, or Manilla. France sought to establish 
 colonies in the Eastern and Western Indies, but the policy of 
 Colbert was based upon the idea of developing agriculture, by 
 means of manufactures, and of commerce. Far otherwise has it 
 been, in the great colonial system of modern times, to which the 
 attention of the reader will now be asked a system differing as 
 much from that of Greece, as did that of early Attica which gave 
 to colonists the enjoyment of all the rights exercised by the people 
 of the parent state from that later one, which annihilated all 
 local institutions by making the populace of Athens judges in the 
 last resort, in all cases affecting tht lives and fortunes of those 
 
286 CHAPTER XI. 1. 
 
 who had now, from the position of fellow-citizens, fallen into that 
 of subjects. 
 
 In the colonial system of England it is, that we, for the first time, 
 meet with prohibitions of that association of man with his fellow- 
 man which leads to the development of the individual faculties 
 and with regulations having for their object the maintenance, and 
 at its highest point, of the difficulties resulting from the necessity 
 for effecting changes in the place of matter. Nearly two centu 
 ries have now elapsed since the merchants of London prayed their 
 government to use its best efforts for the discouragement of the 
 woollen manufacture of Ireland ;" in order thus to diminish the 
 habit of combined action which was then rapidly obtaining in 
 that country, and to prevent in future the consumption of Irish 
 wool until it should first have passed through the looms of Eng 
 land. Instead of converting it into cloth at home, they were 
 required to send it abroad in its rudest state, and receive it back 
 again in a finished one thereby establishing the supremacy of 
 trade, at the expense of commerce. Already interdicted from 
 all direct intercourse with foreigners, the same interdiction was 
 now extended to commerce among themselves ; and thus did the 
 system go far ahead of all that previously had existed, in increas 
 ing the necessity for transportation, and augmenting the difficulty 
 of association. 
 
 Trade becoming paramount, wars were waged for the pur 
 pose of obtaining colonies; or, according to Adam Smith, for 
 raising up colonies of customers;" for the accomplishment of 
 which desire it was required that all attempts at local association 
 among the colonists should be as effectually discouraged as they 
 had already been in Ireland. 
 
 That they were so, is seen in the fact that the first attempt at 
 manufacturing any species of cloth in the American provinces 
 was followed by interference on the part of the British legisla 
 ture. In 1710, the House of Commons declared, "that the 
 erecting of manufactories in the colonies had a tendency to lessen 
 their dependence on Great Britain. " Shortly after, complaints 
 being made to Parliament that the colonists were setting up 
 manufactories for themselves, the House of Commons ordered the 
 Board of Trade to report upon the subject, as, at great length, 
 was done. In 1732, the exportation of hats from province to 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 28T 
 
 province was prohibited, and the number of hatters apprentices 
 was limited by law. In 1150, the erection of any mill, or other 
 engine, for splitting or rolling iron, was prohibited ; but pig iron 
 was allowed to be imported into England duty free, that it might 
 there be manufactured, and sent back again. At a later period, 
 Lord Chatham declared, that he would not allow the colonists to 
 make even a hobnail for themselves. Such was the system prac 
 tised towards these colonies. That in relation to the world at 
 large is found in the following list of acts of Parliament : 
 
 By the act, 5 George III., [1165,] the exportation of artisans 
 was prohibited under a heavy penalty. By that of 21 George 
 III., [1181,] the exportation of utensils required for the manu 
 facture of woollens or silk was likewise prohibited. By that of 
 22 George III., [1782,] the prohibition was extended to arti 
 ficers in printing calicoes, cottons, muslins, or linens, or in mak 
 ing blocks and implements to be used in their manufacture. By 
 that of 25 George III., [1185,] it was further extended to tools 
 used in the iron and steel manufactures, and to the workmen em 
 ployed therein. By that of 39 George III., [1799,] it was fur 
 ther extended so as to embrace colliers.* 
 
 These laws continued in full force until thirty years since, when, 
 much machinery having been smuggled abroad, the prohibition 
 as to the export of artisans was abolished; and all those relating 
 to that of machinery were so far relaxed, that permission might 
 be had for the exportation of all the more common articles dis 
 cretion having been given to the Board of Trade, which decides 
 upon each application, " according to the merits of the case." 
 But little difficulty is now, it is said, experienced by merchants, 
 who generally know as to what machines "the indulgence will be 
 extended, and from what it will be withheld," almost as certainly 
 as if it had been settled by act of Parliament ; yet it is deemed ad- 
 
 * "If any artificer has gone beyond the seas, and is exercising or teach 
 ing his trade in any foreign country, upon warning being given to him by 
 any of his majesty s ministers, or consuls, abroad, or by one of his majesty s 
 secretaries of state for the time being, if he does not, within six months after 
 such warning, return into this realm, and from thenceforth abide and inha 
 bit within the same, he is from thenceforth declared incapable of taking any 
 legacy devised to him within this kingdom, or of being executor or adminis 
 trator to any person, or of taking any lands by descent, devise, or purchase. 
 He likewise forfeits to the king all his lands, goods, and chattels, is declared 
 an alien in every respect, and is put out of the king s protection." Wealth 
 of Nations, book 4, chap. viii. 
 
288 CHAPTER XI. 1. 
 
 vantageous to have it left discretionary with the Board, that they 
 may have the power of regulating the matter, according to the 
 changing interests of commerce."* 
 
 The whole legislation of Great Britain on this subject was thus 
 directed to the one great object of preventing the people of her 
 colonies, and those of independent nations, from obtaining machi 
 nery that might enable them to combine their exertions for the 
 purpose of obtaining cloth or iron and thus compelling them to 
 bring to her their raw materials, that she might convert them into 
 the commodities required for consumption, to be then, in part, 
 returned to the producers burdened with heavy charges for the 
 work of transportation and conversion. 
 
 The wide extent of the British empire, and the extraordinary 
 amount of influence that has been exercised by the British people, 
 would, under any circumstances, have rendered its system dif 
 fering, as it does, from all others worthy of special attention by 
 the economist ; but the necessity therefor is greatly increased by 
 the fact, that it is to the country by which that policy was esta 
 blished, that the world has been indebted for the theory of over 
 population. That theory is correct, or it is not. Matter tends 
 to take upon itself the form of man in a ratio more rapid than 
 that in which it tends to take that of potatoes and turnips ; or 
 it tends to take upon itself that of potatoes and turnips in a 
 ratio more rapid than that of man. That the former is the 
 case, and that we should; therefore, discourage the growth of 
 population, we are assured by all the English economists ; and, 
 in proof that such are the facts, we are pointed to the misery and 
 destitution of both Britain and Ireland ; but, before admitting the 
 existence of error on the part of the Creator, it is proper that we 
 examine the actions of his creatures, with a view to ascertain to 
 what extent it is to them that this state of things is due. If the 
 natural laws are really such as, by Messrs. Malthus and Ricardo, 
 they are said to be, then, the more thorough the investigation of 
 the working of the system under which this misery and destitution 
 has arisen, the more completely will the accuracy of those gentle 
 men, and their reputation as social philosophers, be established ; 
 but, if they are wrong if no such natural laws exist then may 
 careful examination enable us to detect the cause of the error into 
 * PORTER: Progress of the Nation, p. 163. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 289 
 
 which they fell. In making it, space will be required, and for 
 the reason that TIME constitutes so important an element in the 
 problem to be solved. " The child is," as we are told, "father 
 to the man" and, in like manner, the communities of the past 
 are fathers to those of the present. The pauperism of England 
 to the study of which the idea of over-population was due was 
 the growth of time ; and if we desire to understand the causes of its 
 existence, we must examine the policy of that country for the half 
 century that preceded Mr. Malthus, and the one which has since 
 elapsed. The causes of the existing condition of Ireland date 
 back hundreds of years ; and if we seek to understand why Ja 
 maica is being abandoned, we must study the course of operation 
 there pursued in the last and present century. 
 
 2. The one great need of man is that of combination with 
 his fellow-men ; and the one great obstacle to its accomplishment 
 is, as the reader has already seen, the absence of those differences 
 which result from diversity of employments, and fit him for asso 
 ciation. The object that, by means of the laws above referred to, 
 was sought to be obtained, was the prevention of the existence of 
 those differences, and the perpetuation of a state of society in 
 which the people of other lands should continue mere tillers of the 
 earth compelled to constant exhaustion of the soil, by reason of 
 the necessity for sending abroad their commodities in the rudest 
 forms, to be worked up abroad and constant exhaustion of 
 themselves, consequent upon the enormous transportation to 
 which they thus were subjected. This, in its turn, involved dis 
 persion constantly increasing by reason of the perpetually in 
 creasing necessity for resorting to new and more distant soils ; 
 with constant increase in the proportion of the labor of the com 
 munity required to be given to the works of trade and transporta 
 tion, and diminution in the proportion that could be given to 
 producing commodities to be transported or exchanged. It was, 
 in effect, the sacrifice of commerce at the shrine of trade, and 
 tended, necessarily, to the enslavement of man in all the commu 
 nities in which it could be enforced.* 
 
 * That the objects of the system were precisely -what is here described, is 
 shown in the following passages from a work of authority in its day Gee 
 on Trade, published in 1750: 
 
290 CHAPTER XI. 2. 
 
 The harmony of the system of which our planet forms a part is 
 due to the existence of local gravitation, by help of which each 
 and every of its members is enabled to preserve its perfect indi 
 viduality, although exposed to attraction so mighty in extent as 
 is that exerted by the sun. So long as those forces continue in 
 equal balance, harmony will be preserved ; but should the central 
 force ever, even for a moment, predominate over the local ones, 
 every planet would fall at once to ruin, and universal chaos would 
 be the inevitable consequence. Such, too, should be the result of 
 excess of centralization in the social world, and that it has been so, 
 is shown by the experience of Athens and Rome, Carthage and 
 Venice ; and yet, the centralization sought to be effected by their 
 
 "Manufactures in American colonies should be discouraged, prohibited." 
 
 * * * " We ought always to keep a watchful eye over our colo 
 nies, to restrain them from setting up any of the manufactures which are carried 
 on in Great Britain ; and any such attempts should be crushed in the begin 
 ning, for if they are suffered to grow up to maturity, it will be difficult to 
 suppress them." * Our colonies are much in the same 
 state as Ireland was in when they began the woollen manufactory, and as 
 their numbers increase, will fall upon manufactures for clothing themselves, if due 
 care be not taken to find employment for them in raising such productions as 
 may enable them to furnish themselves with all the necessaries from us." * 
 
 * * "As they will have the providing rough materials to themselves, 
 so shall we have the manufacturing of them. If encouragement be given for 
 raising hemp, flax, &c., doubtless they will soon begin to manufacture, if not 
 prevented. Therefore, to stop the progress of any such manufacture, it is 
 proposed that no weaver have liberty to set up any looms, without first regis 
 tering at an office kept for that purpose, and the name and place of abode 
 of any journeyman that shall work for him. " That 
 all slitting-mills, and engines for drawing wire or weaving stockings, be put 
 down." * * * " That all negroes shall be prohibited from weav 
 ing either linen or woollen, or spinning or combing of wool, or working at any 
 manufacture of iron, further than making it into pig or bar iron. That they 
 also be prohibited from manufacturing hals, stockings, or leather of any kind. 
 This limitation will not abridge the planters of any liberty they now enjoy 
 on the contrary, it will then turn their industry to promoting and raising 
 those rough materials." * * * " If we examine into the cir 
 cumstances of the inhabitants of our plantations, and our own, it will appear 
 that not one-fourth part of their product redounds to their own profit, for, out of 
 alt that comes here, they only carry back clothing and other accommodations for 
 their families, all of which is of the merchandise and manufacture of this 
 kingdom." * * * "All these advantages we receive by the 
 plantations, besides the mortgages on the planters estates and the high interest 
 they pay us, which is very considerable; and, therefore, very great care ought 
 to be taken, in regulating all the affairs of the colonists, that the planters 
 are not put under too many difficulties, but encouraged to go on cheerfully." 
 
 * * # "New England and the northern colonies have not 
 commodities and products enough to send us in return for purchasing their 
 necessary clothing, but are under very great difficulties ; and, therefore, any 
 ordinary sort sell with them ; and when they have grown out of fashion with 
 us, they are new-fashioned enough for them." 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 291 
 
 systems of policy was to the last degree unimportant when com 
 pared with that endeavored to be produced by the system above 
 described. In their cases it was commerce with distant men, 
 alone, that was to be impeded ; but here it was the greatest of all 
 commerce commerce at home the power of association, and all 
 development of individuality, that were to be annihilated. For 
 the accomplishment of that object no effort was omitted. Commo 
 dities in a crude state, subject to heavy charges for transportation, 
 as in the case of paddy (or rough rice) and sugar, were admitted 
 at low duties ; whereas clean rice and refined sugar were charged 
 with duties so heavy as to offer a large bounty in favor of their 
 export from India or the West Indies in the crudest shape and 
 even then they could be sent to the world only through an Eng 
 lish port, or an English ship. 
 
 Prohibitions of manufactures, on one hand, and bounties on 
 the import of raw materials, on the other, were thus resorted to, 
 with a view to prevent the colonists from making those changes in 
 the forms of matter that were required for fitting the products of 
 the earth for consumption among themselves. The one great object 
 of the system was that of maintaining in its most bulky form the 
 commodity requiring to be transported, while diminishing to the 
 smallest size the machinery by which the work of transportation 
 and conversion was to be effected thereby enriching the trader 
 and transporter at the cost of both consumer and producer. The 
 more perfectly it could be carried out, the smaller would be the 
 quantity of cloth obtainable by the man who produced sugar ; 
 the smaller would be the quantity of sugar obtainable by him to 
 whose labor the cloth was due ; the greater would be the tend 
 ency to have the appearance of population pressing on the limits 
 of subsistence ; and the greater would be the tendency to find in 
 erroneous arrangements of the Creator an apology for a state of 
 affairs whose existence was due solely to the contrivances of man. 
 
 3. Society, association, and commerce are, as has been 
 shown, but different forms of expression for the same idea and 
 that idea the first of all the needs of man. Without association 
 there can be no society, and without society there can be no com 
 merce. .All of these words describe the motion among men 
 resulting from exchange of services or ideas, the products of inus- 
 
292 CHAPTER XI. 3. 
 
 cular or intellectual effort. The more perfect the form of society, 
 the greater will always be the differences among its parts, the 
 more continuous and regular will be their motion among each 
 other, and the greater will be the force exerted. So is it with all 
 the machinery contrived by man for the purpose of subduing to his 
 service the wonderful forces of nature. The marvels accomplished 
 by the steam-engine are great so great, that they would be 
 deemed wholly incredible by a man who had passed from the 
 world half a century since ; and yet, it is scarcely possible to fix 
 a price that might not now be paid for the secret of a perfectly 
 acting rotary engine, because by its help the rapidity of motion 
 could be still so much increased. It is the continuous motion of 
 society that is sought for by men when they prefer to arrange 
 business face to face, by means of conversation, in preference to 
 the constantly intermitting motion of correspondence. It is that 
 motion which is sought by every inventor of a machine every 
 mill-owner every man, in fact, that desires to increase his power 
 over the natural forces furnished for the use of man. It is that 
 motion which is described by Adam Smith in the following pas 
 sages, given thus at length, because their illustrious author is so 
 frequently quoted as authority for the system that looks to the 
 building up of trade at the cost of commerce : 
 
 An inland country, naturally fertile and easily cultivated, 
 produces a great surplus of provisions beyond what is necessary 
 for maintaining the cultivators ; and on account of the expense 
 of land carriage, and inconveniency of river navigation, it may 
 frequently be difficult to send this surplus abroad. Abundance, 
 therefore, renders provisions cheap, and encourages a great num 
 ber of workmen to settle in the neighborhood, who find that their 
 industry can there procure them more of the necessaries and con 
 veniences of life than in other places. They work up the mate 
 rials of manufacture which the land produces, and exchange their 
 finished work, or, what is the same thing, the price of it, for more 
 materials and provisions. They give a new value to the surplus 
 part of the rude produce, by saving the expense of carrying it 
 to the water-side or to some distant market ; and they furnish the 
 cultivators with something in exchange for it, that is either useful 
 or agreeable to them, upon easier terms than they could have ob 
 tained it before. The cultivators get a better price for their sur- 
 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 293 
 
 plus produce, and can purchase cheaper other conveniences which 
 they have occasion for. They are thus both encouraged and 
 enabled to increase this surplus produce by a further improvement 
 and better cultivation of the land ; and as the fertility of the land 
 has given birth to the manufacture, so the progress of the manu 
 facture reacts upon the land, and increases still further its fertility. 
 The manufacturers first supply the neighborhood, and afterwards, 
 as their work improves and refines, more distant markets. For, 
 though neither the rude produce, nor even the coarse manufac 
 ture, could, without the greatest difficulty, support the expense 
 of a considerable land carriage, the refined and improved ma 
 nufacture easily may. In a small bulk it frequently contains 
 the price of a great quantity of the raw produce. A piece of 
 fine cloth, for example, which weighs only eighty pounds, con 
 tains in it the price, not only of eighty pounds of wool, but some 
 times of several thousand weight of corn, the maintenance of the 
 different working people, and of their immediate employers. 
 The corn which could with difficulty have been carried abroad in 
 its own shape, is in this manner virtually exported in that of the 
 complete manufacture, and may easily be sent to the remotest cor 
 ners of the world. In this manner have grown up naturally, and, 
 as it were, of their own accord, the manufactures of Leeds, Hali 
 fax, Sheffield, Birmingham, and Wolverhampton. Such manu 
 factures are the offspring of agriculture."* 
 
 The great commerce of every civilized society is that carried 
 on between the inhabitants of the town and those of the country. , 
 It consists in the exchange of rude for manufactured produce, 
 either immediately, or by the intervention of money, or of some 
 sort of paper which represents money. The country supplies the 
 town with the means of subsistence and the materials of manufac 
 ture. The town repays this supply, by sending back a part of 
 the manufactured produce to the inhabitants of the country. The 
 town, in which there neither is, nor can be, any reproduction of 
 substances, may very properly be said to gain its whole wealth 
 and subsistence from the country. We must not, however, upon 
 this account, imagine that the gain of the town is the loss of the 
 country. The gains of both are mutual and reciprocal, and the 
 division of labor is in this, as in all other cases, advantageous to 
 * Wealth of Nations, book 3, chap. iii. 
 
294 CHAPTER XT. 3. 
 
 all the different persons employed in the various occupations into 
 which it is subdivided. The inhabitants of the country purchase 
 of the town a greater quantity of manufactured goods with the 
 produce of a much smaller quantity of their own labor, than they 
 must have employed had they attempted to prepare them them 
 selves. The town affords a market for the surplus produce of the 
 country, or what is over and above the maintenance of the culti 
 vators ; and it is there that the inhabitants of the country ex 
 change it for something else which is in demand among them. 
 The greater the number and revenue of the inhabitants of the 
 town, the more extensive is the market which it affords to those 
 of the country ; and the more extensive that market, it is always 
 the more advantageous to a great number. The corn which 
 grows within a mile of the town sells there for the same price with 
 that which comes from twenty miles distance. But the price of 
 the latter must, generally, not only pay the expense of raising it 
 and bringing it to market, but afford, too, the ordinary profits 
 of agriculture to the farmer. The proprietors and cultivators of 
 the country, therefore, which lies in the neighborhood of the 
 town, over and above the ordinary profits of agriculture, gain, in 
 the price of what they sell, the whole value of the carriage of the 
 like produce that is brought from more distant parts ; and they 
 save, besides, the whole value of this carriage in the price of what 
 they buy. Compare the cultivation of the lands in the neighbor 
 hood of any considerable town, with that of those which lie at 
 some distance from it, and you will easily satisfy yourself how 
 much the country is benefited by the commerce of the town."* 
 
 The motion here described is properly characterized as com 
 merce. The plain good sense of Adam Smith enabled him 
 clearly to comprehend the error of the system which found in 
 exports and imports the only index to prosperity ; and also, fully 
 to understand the enormous waste of labor resulting from impds- 
 ing upon communities a necessity for exporting wool, corn, cot 
 ton, and other products of the earth, in their rudest shape, to be 
 returned again in the form of cloth. He was no believer in cen 
 tralization of any kind. Least of all did he believe in that 
 which looked to compelling all the farmers and planters to 
 go to a single market, and to augmenting the necessity for de- 
 
 *Ibid. 
 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 295 
 
 pendence on wagons and ships while increasing the profits of 
 trade, and the proportion of every population required to be em 
 ployed in the work of effecting changes of place. On the con 
 trary, he had full and entire faith in the system of local centres by 
 help of which, as he so clearly saw, commerce had been every 
 where so much developed and that was the system to whose 
 advantage he desired to call the attention of his countrymen; 
 From that hour to the present, however, the system he denounced 
 has been pursued all the efforts of his countrymen having been 
 directed towards producing the effect of continuing at its highest 
 point the tax of transportation ; and here it is, perhaps, that we 
 may find the cause of the idea of over-population. 
 
 4. From the date of the conquest of the several WEST INDIA 
 COLONIES, manufactures of every kind were strictly prohibited 
 the interdiction being carried so far that their inhabitants were not 
 permitted even to refine their own sugar. There was, of course, 
 no employment, even for women and children, but in the labors 
 of the field. All were required to remain producers of raw com 
 modities maintaining no commerce among themselves, except 
 through the intervention of a people thousands of miles distant, 
 who used their power to such effect as not only to prohibit 
 manufactures, but also to prevent diversification of employment 
 in agriculture itself. In Jamaica, indigo had been tried, but of 
 the price for which it sold in England so large a portion proved 
 to be absorbed by ship-owners, commission-merchants, and the 
 government, that its culture had been abandoned. Coffee was 
 extensively introduced, and as it grows on higher and more salu 
 brious lands, its cultivation would have been of great advantage 
 to the community ; but here, as in the case of indigo, so small a 
 portion of its price was received by the producer, that its pro 
 duction was almost abandoned, and was saved only by an agree 
 ment to reduce the claims of government to a shilling a pound. 
 The estimated produce being about seven hundred and fifty 
 pounds of merchantable coffee, this amounted to about $180 per 
 acre. * The ultimate effect of the system was that of terminating 
 all commerce among the people even that which previously had 
 existed between those who raised coffee, on the one hand, and those 
 * Dallas s History of the Maroons, vol. i. page c 
 
296 CHAPTER IX. 4. 
 
 who had sugar to dispose of, on the other all cultivation but 
 that of the sugar-cane, the one most destructive of life and health, 
 being entirely abandoned. 
 
 While commerce among themselves was thus prohibited, all 
 intercourse with foreign nations was interdicted, except through 
 the medium of British ships, ports, and merchants. The trade 
 direct with Africa, however, was sanctioned, for it furnished 
 slaves ; and this traffic was continued on a most extensive scale 
 most of the demand for the Spanish colonies being supplied from 
 the British islands. In It 75, however, the colonial legislature, 
 desirous to prevent the excessive importation of negroes, imposed 
 a duty of 2 per head ; but this being petitioned against by the 
 merchants of England, the home government directed its dis 
 continuance.* At this period, the annual export of sugar is 
 statedf to have been 980,346 hundredweights, the gross sales of 
 which, duty free, averaged 1 14s. Sd. per hundred making a 
 total of 1,699,421 ; so large a portion of which, however, was 
 absorbed by freight, commissions, insurance, &c., that the net 
 proceeds of seven hundred and seventy-five sugar estates are 
 stated to have been only 726,992, or less than 1000 each. If 
 to the 973,000 thus deducted, be now added the share of the 
 government, (12s. 3d. per hundredweight,) and the further 
 charges before the sugar reached the consumer, it will be seen 
 that the producer received but a fourth of the price at which it 
 sold. The planter was, therefore, little more than a superintend 
 ent of slaves, who were worked for the benefit of the merchants 
 and the government of Great Britain, and not for his own. 
 Placed between the slave, whom he was obliged to support, on 
 the one hand, and the mortgagee, the merchants and the govern 
 ment, whom he was also obliged to support, on the other, he could 
 take for himself only what was left ; and when the crop proved 
 large, and prices fell, he was ruined. The consequences of this 
 are seen in the fact, that in the twenty years following this period, 
 there were sold by the sheriff no less than one hundred and 
 seventy-seven estates ; while ninety -two remained unsold in the 
 hands of creditors, and fifty-five were wholly abandoned. Seeing 
 these things, it is not difficult to understand the cause of the extra 
 ordinary waste of life exhibited in the British islands. The plan- 
 * Macpherson, vol. iii. p. 574. f Ibid. vol. iv. p. 255. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 297 
 
 ter, unable to accumulate machinery by help of which to command 
 the services of nature, was obliged to depend upon brute force 
 alone ; and it was easier for him to buy such force, ready made, 
 on the coast of Africa, than to have it made on his own planta 
 tion. Hence it was, that a constant supply of negroes was 
 required for keeping up the population and hence it has been, 
 that of all who had been imported, little more than one in three 
 was represented on the day of emancipation.* 
 
 The planter himself, however, was nearly as much a slave as the 
 negro he had purchased. Ever in debt, his property was gene 
 rally in the hands of middlemen representing the parties to whom 
 he was indebted the factors in England, who accumulated for 
 tunes at his expense, and whose agents in the islands enriched 
 themselves at the cost of the nominal owner of the land, on one 
 hand, and of the slaves by whom it was worked, on the other, f 
 At the period above referred to, such persons, one hundred and 
 ninety-three in number, held in charge no less than six hundred 
 and six works yielding eighty thousand hogsheads of sugar, and 
 thirty-six hundred puncheons of rum, the value of which might be 
 taken at 4,000,000, upon which they were entitled to six per 
 cent. The more, however, the planter was distressed, the more 
 the attorney fattened and thus have we here a state of things 
 precisely similar to that existing in Ireland, where absentees 
 estates were managed by middlemen having no interest in the 
 land, or in the virtual slaves upon it ; and anxious only to 
 take from both all that could be taken giving as little as pos 
 sible back to either. In both, centralization, absenteeism, and 
 slavery walked hand in hand together, as they had done in the 
 days of the Scipios, the Catos, the Pompeys, and the Ceesars. 
 
 To what, however, was this absenteeism due ? Why was it 
 that in Jamaica, as well as in Ireland, the land-owners did not 
 reside on their estates attending personally to their manage 
 ment ? Because the policy which forbade that even the sugar 
 
 * The total number imported into the British islands cannot have been 
 less than 1,700,000; and yet the number at the date of emancipation was 
 but 660,000. The number imported into the United States cannot have ex 
 ceeded half a million ; but they have grown to three and a half millions. 
 
 f The reader who desires fully to understand the waste and robbery of a 
 British West Indian plantation, the slavery of its owner, and the causes of 
 the exhaustion of those fertile islands, may do so by consulting the History 
 of the Maroons, by R. C. DALLAS, 2 vols. 8vo: London, 1803. 
 
 VOL. I. 20 
 
298 CHAPTER XI. 4. 
 
 itself should be refined on the island and thus limited the whole 
 population, old and young, male and female, to the mere culture 
 of sugar effectually prevented the growth of any middle class to 
 form the population of towns in which the planter might find the 
 society required for inducing him to regard the island as his home. 
 In the French islands, all was different. The French government 
 never having interfered to prevent the growth of commerce among 
 their colonists, towns had grown up, and men of all descriptions had 
 come from France intending to make of the islands their home ; 
 whereas, the English colonists looked only to realizing fortunes, 
 and then returning to England to spend them. The one system 
 looked to the development of individuality and the promotion of 
 commerce ; whereas, the other looked to the destruction of both. 
 
 Widely different were the systems, and as widely so have been 
 the results the French islands presenting everywhere evidence 
 of their being occupied by men who feel themselves at home, and 
 the English ones offering almost everywhere evidence of having 
 been occupied by men bent on extracting from the land and the 
 laborer all that could be obtained, and then abandoning the one 
 and burying the other. In the one were to be found shops of 
 every kind, at which clothing, books, jewellery, and other commo 
 dities, could be obtained; whereas, in the other no such shops 
 existing those who had purchases to make, were obliged to im 
 port directly from England. In the one, there was combination 
 of effort. commerce, society; whereas, in the other, there was 
 only trade.* 
 
 Under such a system no towns could arise, and therefore could 
 there be no schools. Hence it was, that the planter was forced 
 to send his children to England to be educated ; there to con 
 tract a love for European, and a dislike for colonial, life. At 
 death, his property passed, as a matter of course, into the hands 
 of agents of men whose profits were to be augmented by in 
 crease of shipments, at whatever cost of life obtained. Such was 
 the natural result of a policy which denied to the men, the women, 
 and the children the privilege of giving themselves to any in-door 
 pursuits the mechanic not being needed where machinery could 
 not be used, and the town being unable to grow where there could 
 be neither artisans nor schools. 
 
 * COLERIDGE: Six Months in the West Indies, p. 131. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 299 
 
 The export of rum generally brought the planter in debt that is, 
 more than the whole amount for which it sold was absorbed in the 
 various charges upon it. The people of England paid a million 
 of pounds sterling for a certain product of the laborers of Jamaica, 
 not a shilling of which ever reached the planter to be applied to 
 the amelioration of his estate, to the improvement of his cultiva 
 tion, or to the advantage of the people by whom the work was 
 performed.* The reader will thus see that Mr. Gee did not ex 
 aggerate, when he gave it as one of the recommendations of the 
 colonial system, that the colonists left in England three-fourths of 
 all their products the difference being swallowed up by those 
 who made or superintended the exchanges. Such was the result 
 desired by those who compelled the planter to depend on a dis 
 tant market in which to sell all he raised, and to purchase all he 
 required to consume. The more he took from his land, the more 
 it was exhausted, and the less he obtained for its products large 
 crops swelling greatly the amount of freights, storages, commis 
 sions, and profits, while as much depressing prices ; as we see to 
 be now the case with cotton. The more his land was being 
 ruined, and his slaves were being destroyed, the less, consequently, 
 was his power to purchase machinery by help of which to increase 
 the powers of either. A slave himself to those by whom his 
 labors were directed, it would be unfair to attribute to him the 
 extraordinary waste of life resulting necessarily from the fact that 
 a whole people was thus limited to the labor of the field, and 
 deprived of all power for the maintenance of commerce. 
 
 With inexhaustible supplies of timber, the island possessed, 
 even in 1850, not a single saw-mill although affording an exten- 
 
 * The rum sold on its arrival at 3s. or 3s. 6d. a gallon, but the consumer 
 paid for it probably 17*., which were thus divided : 
 
 Government, representing the British people at large lls. 3d. 
 
 Ship-owners, wholesale and retail dealers, &c 5 9 
 
 Land-owner and laborer 
 
 17s. 
 
 If we look to sugar, we find a result somewhat better, but of similar cha 
 racter. The English consumer gave for it 80*. worth of labor, and those 
 shillings were nearly thus divided: 
 
 Government 27*. 
 
 Ship-owner, merchant, mortgagee, &c. 33 
 
 Land-owner and laborer 20 
 
 soT 
 
300 CHAPTER XI. 4. 
 
 sive market for lumber from abroad. Yielding, in the greatest 
 abundance, the finest fruits, there were yet no towns-people, with 
 their ships, to carry them to the markets of this country ; and 
 for want of markets, they rotted under the trees. " The manufac 
 turing resources of this island," says a recent traveller, "are inex 
 haustible ;"* ancfso have they always been, but, deprived of the 
 power of combination, its people have been compelled to waste 
 power that, if properly employed, would have paid, a hundred 
 times over, for all the commodities for which they were required 
 look to the distant market. " For six or eight months in the 
 year," as he further says, "nothing is done on the sugar or coffee 
 plantations." "Agriculture, as at present conducted, does not 
 occupy more than half their time" nor has it ever done so ; and 
 it is in this waste of labor, consequent upon the absence of diver 
 sification of employment, that we are to find the cause of poverty 
 and decline. 
 
 Population diminished, because there could be no improvement 
 in the condition of the laborer, who, while thus limited in the em 
 ployment of his time, was compelled to support not only himself 
 and his master, but the agent, the commission-merchant, the ship 
 owner, the mortgagee, the retail trader, and the government ; and 
 this under a system that looked to taking every thing from the 
 land and returning nothing to it. Of the amount paid in 1831 
 by the British people for the products of the 320,000 black la 
 borers of this island, the home government took no less than 
 3,736,113 10s. 6d.,f or about $18,000,000, being almost $60 
 per head ; and this for merely superintending the exchanges. 
 Had no such claim been made on the product of the labor of 
 these poor people, the consumer having his sugar cheaper 
 would have absorbed twice the quantity, and would thus have 
 enabled the sugar producers to become larger customers to 
 himself. 
 
 The contribution of each negro, old and young, male and 
 female, to the maintenance of the British government, amounted, 
 in that year, to not less than 5, or $24 a large sum to be 
 paid by a people limited entirely to agriculture, and destitute 
 of the machinery necessary for making even that productive. 
 If, now, to this heavy burden we add the commissions, freights, 
 
 * BIGELOW : Notes on Jamaica, p. 54. f Martin s West Indies. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 301 
 
 insurance, interest, and other charges, it will readily be seen that 
 a system of taxation so grinding could end no otherwise than as 
 it did in ruin. That such was the tendency of things was seen 
 in the steady diminution of production. In the three years ending 
 with 1802, the average exports were, of 
 
 Sugar, hhds. Rum, puncheons. Coffee, Ibs. 
 
 113,000 44,000 14,000,000 
 
 Whereas, those of the three ending 
 
 with 1829 were only 92,000 34,000 17,000,000 
 
 The system that looked to depriving the cultivator of the ad 
 vantage of a market near at hand, in which to sell his products ; 
 and from which he could carry home the manure thus maintain 
 ing the powers of his land was here producing its natural results, 
 in causing the slave to become from day to day more barbarized ; 
 and that such was the case was shown by the enormous excess of 
 deaths over births. Evidence of exhaustion was, therefore, seen 
 in every thing connected with the island. Labor and land were 
 declining in value, and the security for the payment of the debt 
 due in England was becoming less from year to year, as more and 
 more the people of other countries were being driven to the work 
 of cultivation, because of the impossibility of competing with Eng 
 land in manufactures. Sugar having declined to little more than 
 a guinea a hundredweight, and rum to little more than two shil 
 lings a gallon,* nearly the whole crop was swallowed up in com 
 missions and interest. Under such circumstances, waste of life 
 was inevitable ; and therefore it is, that we have seen the impor 
 tation of hundreds of thousands of men who have perished leav 
 ing behind them no traces of their existence. On whom, however, 
 must rest the responsibility for a state of things so hideous as that 
 which is here exhibited ? Not, surely, upon the planter, for he 
 exercised no volition whatsoever. He was not permitted to em 
 ploy his surplus power in refining his own sugar, nor could he 
 legally introduce a spindle or a loom into the island. He could 
 neither mine coal nor smelt copper ore. Unable to repay his bor 
 rowings from the earth, the loans he could obtain from her dimi 
 nished in quantity ; and then, small as they were, they were 
 absorbed by the exchangers and those who superintend the 
 exchanges exercising the duties of government. Being himself 
 * Tooke s History of Prices, vol. ii. p. 412. 
 
302 CHAPTER XI. 4. 
 
 a mere instrument in their hands for the destruction of negro 
 morals, intellect, and life, it is upon them, and not upon him, 
 must rest the responsibility for the fact that, of all the slaves im 
 ported into the island, not more than two-fifths were represented 
 on the day of emancipation. 
 
 Nevertheless, he it was that was branded as the tyrant and the 
 destroyer of morals and of life ; and public opinion the public 
 opinion of the same people who had absorbed so large a portion 
 of the product of negro labor drove the government to the mea 
 sure of releasing the slave from compulsory service, and appro 
 priating a certain amount to the payment, first, of the mortgage 
 debts due in England leaving the owner, in most cases, without 
 a shilling for carrying on the work of his plantation. The conse 
 quences are seen in the extensive abandonment of land, and in 
 the decline of its value. Any quantity of it may be purchased, 
 prepared for cultivation, and as rich as any in the island, for five 
 dollars an acre ; while other land, far richer, naturally, than any 
 in New England, ranges from fifty cents to one dollar. With 
 the decline in the value of land, the laborer tends towards bar 
 barism, and the reason of this may be found in the fact, that the 
 power of association has no existence that there is no diversity 
 of employment and that after centuries of connection with a 
 community that boasts of the perfection of its machinery, there is 
 not even a tolerable axe to be found on the island.* 
 
 * "I could not learn that there were any estates on the island decently 
 stocked with implements of husbandry. Even the modern axe is not in gene 
 ral use ; for felling the larger class of trees, the negroes commonly use what 
 they call an axe, which is shaped much like a wedge, except that it is a little 
 wider at the edge than at the opposite end, at the very extremity of which a 
 perfectly straight handle is inserted. A more awkward thing for chopping 
 could not be well conceived at least, so I thought until I saw the instru 
 ment in yet more general use about the houses in the country, for cutting 
 firewood. It was, in shape, size, and appearance, more like the outer half 
 of the blade of a scythe, stuck into a small wooden handle, than any thing 
 else I can compare it to : with this long knife, for it is nothing else, I have 
 seen negroes hacking at branches of palm for several minutes, to accomplish 
 what a good wood-chopper, with an American axe, would finish at a single 
 stroke. I am not now speaking of the poorer class of negro proprietors, 
 whose poverty or ighorance might excuse this, but of the proprietors of 
 large estates, which have cost their thousands of pounds." Bigelow s Notes 
 on Jamaica, p. 129. 
 
 " They have no new manufactories to resort to when they are in want of 
 work ; no unaccustomed departments of mechanical or agricultural labor are 
 open to receive them, to stimulate their ingenuity and reward their industry. 
 When they know how to ply the hoe, pick the coffee-berry, and tend the 
 
OP CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 303 
 
 That the artisan has always been the ally of the agriculturist in 
 his contest with the trader and the government, is shown in every 
 page of the world s history. The first desires to tax him by buy 
 ing cheaply and selling dearly. The second taxes him for the 
 privilege of maintaining commerce ; and the more distant the 
 place of exchange, the greater is the power of taxation. The arti 
 san coming nearer to him, the raw materials are converted on the 
 spot, subject to no tax for the maintenance of ship-owners, com 
 mission-merchants, or shopkeepers and then commerce grows 
 with great rapidity. 
 
 In a piece of cloth, says Adam Smith, weighing eighty pounds, 
 there are not only more than eighty pounds of wool, but also 
 several thousand weight of corn, the maintenance of the work 
 ing people ;" and it is the wool and the corn that travel cheaply 
 in the form of cloth. What, however, finally becomes of the corn ? 
 Although eaten, it is not destroyed. Going back upon the land, 
 and paying the debt of him by whose labor it had been produced, 
 the land itself becomes enriched, the larger become the crops, and 
 the greater is the power of the farmer to make demand for the 
 services of the artisan. The reward of human effort growing 
 with the growth of value in land, all become rich and free toge 
 ther and thus it is that the interests of all the members of a 
 community are so closely connected with the adoption of a policy 
 looking to increase in the amount of commerce, and in the value 
 of land. The more perfect the power of combination among men, 
 the greater will be the development of individual faculty, the less 
 will be the power of the trader and the greater will always be 
 the freedom of man. 
 
 The colonial policy above described looking to the produc 
 tion of results directly the reverse of this forbade association, 
 
 sugar-mills, they Lave learned almost all the industry of the island can teach 
 them. If, in the sixteen years during which the negroes have enjoyed their 
 freedom, they have made less progress in civilization than their philanthro 
 pic champions have promised or anticipated, let the want I have suggested 
 receive some consideration. It may be that even a white peasantry would 
 degenerate under such influences. Reverse this, and when the negro has 
 cropped his sugar or his coffee, create a demand for his labor in the mills 
 and manufactories of which nature has invited the establishment on this 
 island, and before another sixteen years would elapse the world would pro 
 bably have some new facts to assist them in estimating the natural capabi 
 lities of the negro race, of more efficiency in the hands of the philanthropist 
 than all the appeals which he has ever been able to address to the hearts or 
 the consciences of men." Ibid., p. 156. 
 
304 CHAPTER XI. 4. 
 
 because it limited the whole people to a single pursuit. It for 
 bade the immigration of artisans, the growth of towns, or the es 
 tablishment of schools ; and, consequently, forbade the growth of 
 intellect among the laborers, or their owners. It forbade the 
 growth of population, because it drove the women and children 
 to the culture of sugar among the richest and most unhealthy soils 
 of the island. It thus impoverished the land and its owners, 
 exterminated the slave, and weakened the community making it 
 a mere instrument in the hands of the people who effected and 
 superintended the exchanges the class of persons that, in all 
 ages, has thriven at the cost of the cultivators of the earth. By 
 separating the consumer from the producer, they were enabled, as 
 has been shown, to take to themselves three-fourths of the whole 
 product, leaving but one-fourth to be divided between the land 
 and labor that had produced it. They, of course, grew strong, 
 while the land-holder and laborer grew weak ; and the weaker 
 the latter became, the less was the need for regarding their rights 
 of person or of property. 
 
 In this state of things it was, that the master was required to 
 accept a fixed sum of money as compensation for relinquishing 
 his claim to demand of the slave the performance of the work to 
 which he had been accustomed. Unfortunately, however, the 
 system pursued had effectually prevented that improvement of feel 
 ing and taste required for producing in the latter a desire for any 
 thing beyond what was indispensable to the maintenance of exist 
 ence. Towns and shops not having grown, he had not been 
 accustomed even to see the commodities by which his fellow- 
 laborers in the French islands were tempted to exertion. Schools 
 not having existed, even for the whites, he had acquired no wish 
 for books for himself, or for instruction for his children. His 
 wife had acquired no taste for dress having always been limited 
 to field labor. Suddenly emancipated from control, he gratified 
 the only desire that had been permitted to grow up in him the 
 love of perfect idleness, to be indulged to whatsoever extent was 
 consistent with obtaining the little food and clothing needed for 
 the support of life. 
 
 Widely different would have been the state of affairs had they 
 been permitted to make their exchanges at home giving cotton 
 and sugar for cloth and iron produced by the labor, and from the 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 305 
 
 soil, of the island. The producer of sugar would then have had 
 all the cloth given for it by the consumer, instead of obtaining a 
 fourth of it and then the land would have increased in value, the 
 planter would have grown rich, and the laborer would have be 
 come free ; and that, by virtue of a great natural law, which pro 
 vides that the more rapid the augmentation of wealth, the greater 
 must be the demand for labor, the greater must be the quantity 
 of commodities produced by the laborer, the larger must be his 
 proportion of the product, and the greater must be the tendency 
 toward his becoming a free man, and himself a capitalist. 
 
 The more perfect the power of association and combination, the 
 less is the need of man for machinery required for effecting changes 
 of place, because his exchanges are chiefly made at home but 
 the greater is his power to obtain that machinery, because combi 
 nation enables him to obtain command over the great natural 
 forces given for his use. The less his power to maintain com 
 merce, the greater is his dependence on machinery of transporta 
 tion, and the less his power to obtain it ; and that such was the 
 case in the West Indies is shown by the fact, that in the capital 
 of the rich island of Jamaica, Spanishtown, with a population of 
 five thousand, there was not, five years since, to be found a single 
 shop, nor a respectable hotel, nor even a dray-cart ;* and in the 
 whole island there was not a stage, nor any other mode of regular 
 conveyance, by land or water, except on the little railroad, of fif 
 teen miles, from Kingston to the capital, f As a necessary conse 
 quence of this state of things, so large a proportion of the labor 
 of the community was required for performing the work of trans- 
 portion within and without the limits of the island, that but a very 
 small proportion of it could be given to any other purpose. J 
 
 5. The power to command the services of nature grows with 
 the growth of the power of association . and that the latter may 
 increase, it is essential that larger numbers should be enabled to 
 
 * Bigelow s Notes on Jamaica, p. 31. } Ibid. p. 69. 
 
 J Heavy duties on refined sugar still prevent the colonies from making 
 any step towards improvement. But recently, the governor of Deinerara, 
 in a despatch to the British government, stated that by a very trifling addi 
 tional outlay the planter could ship his whole crop "of a quality almost 
 equal to refined sugar, though made, bona fide, by a single process from the 
 raw materials;" but that he dared not do, because it would thereby be sub 
 jected to a duty so high as to be prohibitive. 
 
306 CHAPTER XI. 5. 
 
 obtain supplies of food from any given space. Modern political 
 economy, however, teaches directly the reverse of this that, as 
 numbers increase, there arises a necessity for resorting to inferior 
 soils, with constant decline in the power to command nature s 
 services, and constantly increasing difficulty in obtaining food ; 
 and that hence arises the disease of over-population. That theory, 
 as the reader has seen, had its origin in England, and was simply 
 an attempt to explain unnatural phenomena, the work of man, by 
 help of imaginary natural laws, attributed to man s Creator. 
 
 In a state of barbarism, population is always superabundant. 
 As civilization grows, larger numbers obtain more and better food 
 in return to diminished labor. That such is the fact is proved by 
 the history of the world, in its every page ; and yet, if we are to 
 believe Messrs. Malthus, Ricardo, and their disciples, the disease 
 that invariably accompanies the absence of the power of combina 
 tion, is the one that rages most when the power of association 
 most exists. 
 
 In order that the power of man shall increase, there must be 
 development of his latent faculties ; but in order that such deve 
 lopment may take place, it is indispensable that employments be 
 diversified, and men be enabled to associate. The more rapid 
 the growth of the power over nature, the less is the necessity for 
 effecting changes of place the less is the proportion of the labor 
 of society required for the work of transportation the less is the 
 power of the soldier, trader, or transporter and the more com 
 pletely is it proved that matter takes upon itself the form of food 
 for man in a ratio more rapid than that in which it tends to take 
 the form of man himself. 
 
 The system above described, and so much reprobated by Adam 
 Smith, tended to the production of results entirely different. 
 Looking, as it did, to the prevention of association, it increased 
 the proportion of the labor of society required for the work of 
 transportation ; while by preventing the development of the 
 latent faculties of man, it reduced the subject of its operations 
 to the condition of a mere brute beast. Hence it is that the 
 world has been called upon to witness the extermination of the 
 vast body of people imported into the British West India islands, 
 the pauperization of the people of England, and the invention of 
 a system of political economy that ignores the distinctive qualities 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 307 
 
 of man retaining only those he has in common with the ox, the 
 wolf, and the horse. 
 
 The destruction of life and happiness in both Jamaica and Eng 
 land resulted from the power of trade to control commerce, and 
 to tax it for its purposes. The man of Jamaica producing largely 
 of sugar, and the man of England producing largely of cloth, 
 could they have made their exchanges directly, both would have 
 been well fed and clothed ; but, in the process of making their 
 exchanges, so large a proportion was absorbed, that the one 
 could obtain but little cloth, and the other but little sugar. 
 Hence arose the idea of over-population. 
 
 That idea having had its origin among British economists, and 
 being now the received theory among the British people, it is 
 required for its refutation to examine the history of the various 
 communities subject to the British system, with a view to ascer 
 tain if it is really a law of nature, or if it is only a natural conse 
 quence of a policy that looked to the separation of the artisan 
 from the agriculturist, and to the creation of a single workshop 
 for the world. Portugal, Turkey, Ireland, and India having been 
 the countries most subjected to it, all of these will be now ex 
 amined, with a view to ascertain how far the phenomena there 
 observed correspond with those exhibited in Jamaica. . 
 
 * How widely different were the foundations upon which the French and 
 English colonial systems were based, may be seen in the facts first, that 
 Colbert granted to the colonists, the most entire liberty, as regarded the con 
 version of their rude products of every kind : second, that regarding their 
 dispersion as tending towards barbarism he prohibited them from engaging 
 in the collection of furs and skins : third, that he limited, as far as possible, 
 the exportation, to the colonies, of fermented liquors : and fourth, that he 
 interested himself, most warmly, in the prevention of that prostitution of 
 female slaves, which so much abounded in the British islands, and so much 
 disgraces the United States. For further information respecting the French 
 colonial system, see the recent work of M. Joubleau, jfitudes sur Colbert, 
 liv. iii., ch. iii. 
 
308 CHAPTER XII. 1. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 1. THE splendor of PORTUGAL in the sixteenth century, 
 resulting from the exercise throughout the East of her power of 
 appropriation, had, as has ever been the case, been attended with 
 growing weakness; and the close of that century found her, as the 
 reader has seen, reduced to the condition of a Spanish province. 
 Forty years later, she succeeded in re-establishing her independ 
 ence, and at the close of the seventeenth century she was seen to 
 be engaged in a vigorous effort for securing its continuance, by 
 establishing among her people the habit of association and com 
 bination which was required for the development of their faculties 
 and the extension of their commerce. From an early period she 
 had been celebrated for her wool, but had long been deficient in 
 the means of converting it into cloth. Now, however, with a view 
 to carry into effect the idea so well expressed by Adam Smith, 
 that to enable commerce to grow it is essential to compress "not 
 only" the "eighty pounds of wool " but also the "several thou 
 sand pounds of corn, the maintenance of the working people," 
 into " a piece of cloth," she had imported foreign artisans by help 
 of whom the woollen manufacture had already so rapidly grown, 
 as fully to meet the home demand for cloth ; and thus, while pro 
 moting commerce, greatly lessening her dependence on the chances 
 and changes of trade abroad. 
 
 The administration, however, passed into other hands, and in 
 1703 was signed the famous Methuen treaty, by which, in return 
 for favors accorded to her wines, the idea of creating at home a 
 market for food and wool, and thus promoting commerce, was en 
 tirely repudiated. At once, her markets were inundated, her manu 
 factures were ruined and the precious metals disappeared.* 
 
 * " But after the taking off of the prohibition, we brought away so much 
 of their silver as to leave them very little for their necessary occasions ; and 
 then we began to bring away their gold." British Merchant, vol. iii. p. 15. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 309 
 
 Thus reconverted into a purely agricultural country, exhaustion 
 of her soil followed as a necessary consequence ; and exhaustion 
 was followed by decline in the numbers of her people, so long 
 continued that the population is now only three millions the 
 decrease, in the last century alone, having been nearly seven 
 hundred thousand. With declining numbers and diminished 
 power of combination, there has been an increase in the difficulty 
 of effecting changes in the place of things or people ; and in 
 the country that even in the days of the Caesars was supplied 
 with roads, the mails are now carried on horseback, and at the 
 rate of three miles an hour, between the capital and the provin 
 cial cities. There being no public conveyance of any kind 
 throughout the country, except on the road between Lisbon and 
 Oporto, travellers are compelled to hire mules to enable them 
 selves to pass from place to place. "Not only," says a recent 
 traveller, "are there no roads worthy of the name," but "the 
 very streets and thoroughfares are converted into nurseries for 
 manure;" and "the only mode of conveying heavy goods from 
 one port to another is in bullock-carts, and for light goods on 
 mules, or on the backs of gallegos" the value of man being there 
 so small that he is regarded as a mere beast of burden. 
 
 Isolation follows necessarily in the train of depopulation, and 
 the human faculties diminish in their development machinery then 
 declining in quality, and nature acquiring power at the cost of 
 man. " It is surprising," says another traveller, "how ignorant, 
 or at least superficially acquainted, the Portuguese are with every 
 kind of handicraft : a carpenter is awkward and clumsy, spoiling 
 every work he attempts ; and the way in which the doors and 
 woodwork even of good houses are finished would have suited the 
 rudest ages. Their carriages of all kinds, from the hidalgo s 
 family coach to the peasant s market cart, their agricultural im 
 plements, locks and keys, &c., are ludicrously bad. They seem 
 to disdain improvement, and are so infinitely below par, so strik 
 ingly inferior to the rest of Europe, as to form a sort of disgrace 
 ful wonder in the middle of the nineteenth century." 
 
 The utility of the earth, and of its products, consequently dimi 
 nishes, with constant increase in the value of commodities required 
 for the use of man, and decline in the value of man himself 
 being directly the reverse of what is observed in all those coun- 
 
310 CHAPTER XII. 1. 
 
 tries in which he is permitted the indulgence of that prime want 
 of his nature which leads him to seek association and combina 
 tion with his fellow-men. 
 
 The system has endured for a century and a half, during all 
 which time the power to command the services of nature has 
 declined, as is manifest from the constantly growing difficulty of 
 obtaining the food, the clothing, and the shelter required for 
 man s support. The proportion of the products of labor required 
 for paying the expenses of transportation has steadily increased, 
 as the quantity of things produced has decreased ; and the result 
 is now seen in the fact that with the decline of commerce at home, 
 the power to maintain it abroad has so far diminished that Por 
 tugal has ceased to enter into the consideration even of those by 
 whom, in 1703, her trade was so greatly coveted. Individuality 
 of the community has disappeared with the disappearance of indi 
 viduality in the people of whom it is composed ; and, as we are 
 told in a recent work of high reputation, " the finances are in the 
 most deplorable condition, the treasury is dry, and all branches 
 of the public service suffer. A carelessness and a mutual apathy 
 reign not only throughout the government, but also throughout 
 the nation. While improvement is sought everywhere else 
 throughout Europe, Portugal remains stationary. The postal 
 service of the country offers a curious example of this, nineteen to 
 twenty-one days being still required for a letter to go and come 
 between Lisbon and Braganza, a distance of 423^ kilometres, (or 
 little over 300 miles.) All the resources of the state are exhausted, 
 and it is probable that the receipts will not give one-third of the 
 amount for which they figure in the budget."* 
 
 Such was the state of affairs a few years since, but the exhaustive 
 effects of an exclusive agriculture are becoming from year to year 
 more manifest. The domestic market for corn was exchanged for 
 a foreign one for the grape, but now that itself has failed because 
 of the unceasing withdrawal from the soil of all the elements of 
 which grapes are composed. Whole classes in Portugal are now 
 reduced to utter poverty, while in Madeira men perish by thou 
 sands for want of food as happens everywhere in the absence 
 of that diversification of employments which gives rise to com 
 merce, and developes the latent faculties of man. The nation 
 * Annuaire de 1 Economie Politique, 1849, p. 322. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 311 
 
 that commences with the export of the raw products of the soil, 
 must end with the export, or extermination, of men. 
 
 When population increases and men come together, even the 
 poor land is made rich; and thus it is, that "the power of manure 
 causes the poor lands of the department of the Seine to yield 
 thrice as much as those of the Loire."* When population dimi 
 nishes, and men are thereby forced to live at greater distances from 
 each other, even the rich lands become impoverished ; and of this 
 no better evidence need be sought than that here furnished. In 
 the one case, each day brings men nearer to that perfect freedom 
 of thought, speech, and action essential to the growth of com 
 merce. In the other, they become from day to day more barbar 
 ized and enslaved, and the women are more and more driven to 
 the field, there to become the slaves of fathers, husbands, bro 
 thers, and sons, while the community becomes, from day to day, 
 more and more the prey of those classes which "live, and move, 
 and have their being/ by virtue of the exercise of their powers of 
 appropriation the soldier and the trader. The strength of na 
 tions is in the inverse ratio of the proportions borne by them to 
 the mass of which the community is composed. Those propor 
 tions grow with the decline of commerce. Commerce grows with 
 every diminution in the necessity for effecting changes of place, 
 and for depending on the services of men who live by carrying 
 arms, sailing ships, or driving wagons. It declines with every 
 increase therein. Were evidence of this desired, it would be 
 found on comparing the past and present of the naturally rich 
 country of Portugal, so long subjected to the policy of the coun 
 try in which originated the theory of over-population. 
 
 2. Of all the countries of Europe, there is none possessed of 
 natural advantages to enable it to compare with those constitut 
 ing the TURKISH EMPIRE in Europe and Asia. Wool and silk, 
 corn, oil, and tobacco, might, with proper cultivation, be pro 
 duced in almost unlimited quantity ; while Thessaly and Macedo 
 nia, long celebrated for the production of cotton, abound in lands 
 uncultivated, capable of yielding it in sufficient extent to clothe all 
 Europe. Coal and iron ore abound, and in quality equal to any 
 in the world ; while in parts of the empire "the hills seem a mass 
 * De Jonnes s Statistique de la France, p. 129. 
 
312 CHAPTER XII. 2. 
 
 of 2arbonate of copper." Nature lias done every thing for that 
 country ; and yet, of all the people of Europe, the Turkish rayah 
 approaches in condition nearest to a slave ; and of all the govern 
 ments of Europe, that of Turkey is most compelled to submit to 
 the dictation, not only of foreign nations, but also of foreign and 
 domestic traders in money and other merchandise. Why it is so, 
 we may now inquire. 
 
 Two centuries since, the trade with Turkey constituted the 
 most important portion of that maintained by Western Europe ; 
 and Turkish merchants ranked among the wealthiest of those who 
 frequented the markets of the West. A little later, its govern 
 ment united with those of France and England in a treaty by 
 which it bound itself to charge no higher duty upon their imports 
 than three per cent. ; and as their vessels were, by the same treaty, 
 exempted from all port-charges, the system thus established was, 
 practically, one of the most absolute and entire freedom of trade. 
 
 For more than a century following, Turkey was still enabled to 
 some extent to compete in manufactures with the nations of the 
 West, and to preserve among her people the power and habit of 
 association. " Ambelakaia," says M. de Bcaujour, "supplied in 
 dustrious Germany, not by the perfection of its jennies, but by the 
 industry of its spindle and distaff. It taught Montpellier the art 
 of dyeing, not from experimental chairs, but because dyeing was 
 with it a domestic and culinary operation, subject to daily obser 
 vation in every kitchen ; and by the simplicity and honesty, not 
 the science, of its system, it reads a lesson to commercial associa 
 tions, and holds up an example unparalleled in the commercial 
 history of Europe of a joint-stock and labor company ably and 
 economically and successfully administered, in which the interests 
 of industry and capital were long equally represented. Yet the 
 system of administration with which all this is connected is com 
 mon to the thousand hamlets of Thessaly that have not emerged 
 from their insignificance ; but Ambelakaia for twenty years was 
 left alone."* 
 
 Revenue from the customs being at an end, whatever deficiency 
 might by the treaty have been created, required, of course, to be 
 supplied by means of direct taxation ; and, accordingly, the govern- 
 
 * Tableau du Commerce de la Grece, quoted by TJrquhart, Resources of 
 Turkey, p. 47. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 313 
 
 ment lias from that time to the present been wholly dependent upon 
 poll taxes, house taxes, and land taxes the latter collected first 
 in the form of an assessment upon the land itself, and again in 
 that of export duties.* Trade was freed from all let, or hind 
 rance; but commerce at home was shackled by means of constant 
 interferences. 
 
 Despite those interferences, the system of local centres, neutral 
 izing the attractions of the great political and trading capitals, 
 continued in existence, as we have seen, until the close of the last 
 century ; and, as a consequence, the country remained, as yet, 
 both rich and strong. Even then, however, Great Britain had 
 invented machinery for spinning cotton, and had by prohibiting 
 its export, as well as that of all the artisans by whose help it 
 might elsewhere have been made provided that all the cotton of 
 the world should be brought to her looms, to be there converted 
 into cloth. Turkey, having cotton to sell, had been accustomed 
 to sell it in the form of cloth ; and the power so to do had en 
 abled her to maintain commerce at home and abroad. Now, 
 however, that commerce was to cease giving place to trade ; and 
 cease it did Ambelakaia, and various other seats of manufac 
 tures, having been entirely abandoned within twenty years from 
 the date of the description given above. Of 600 looms at Scu 
 tari in 1812, but 40 remained in 1821 ; and of the 2000 weaving 
 establishments at Tournovo in 1812, but 200 remained in 1830. 
 Since then, the manufacture has, it is believed, entirely disap 
 peared. 
 
 For a time, cotton went abroad, to be returned in the form of 
 yarn, thus making a voyage of thousands of miles in search of the 
 little spindle ; but this trade, even, has passed away, and as a 
 consequence, there has been a great decline in wages, affecting 
 every description of labor. "The profits, twenty years since," 
 says Mr. Urquhart, writing in 1832, "had been reduced to one- 
 half, and sometimes to one-third, by the introduction of English 
 cottons, which, though they have reduced the home price, and ar- 
 
 * The reader who reflects that the price of the commodities exported is 
 fixed in the general market of the world, and is not in any manner affected 
 by the distribution of the proceeds between the people and the government, 
 will readily see that such duties are in effect a land tax, with the additional 
 disadvantage of involving constant interference with commerce. So far as 
 foreigners were concerned, the system was, and is, one of perfect free trade 
 and direct taxation. 
 
 YOL. I. 21 
 
314 CHAPTER XII. 2. 
 
 rested the export of cotton-yarn from Turkey," had then "not yet 
 supplanted the home manufacture in any visible degree" the peo 
 ple having been compelled to go on " working merely for bread, 
 and reducing their price, in a struggle of hopeless competition. 
 The industry, however, of the women and children," as he conti 
 nues, " is most remarkable ; in every interval of labor, tending the 
 cattle, and carrying water the spindle and distaff, as in the days of 
 Xerxes, being never out of their hands. The children are assidu 
 ously at work, from the moment their little fingers can turn the 
 spindle. About Ambelakaia, the former focus of the cotton-yarn 
 trade, the peasantry has suffered dreadfully from this, though for 
 merly the women could earn as much in-doors as their husbands in 
 the field, at present, their daily profit does not exceed twenty paras, 
 if realized, for often they cannot dispose of the yarn when spun.*" 
 
 Women s wages were then but four cents a day the "unre 
 mitting labor of a week" being required for earning a quarter 
 dollar. Men, employed in gathering mulberry-leaves and attend 
 ing silk-worms, could earn, when employed, five cents a day ; but 
 at Salonica, the shipping port of Thessaly, wages were as high as 
 fifty cents a week. Commerce had ceased, and with the decline 
 in the power of association, the value of man and the utility of 
 the earth had almost disappeared ; while the value of commodi 
 ties had become so great as to cause men, women, and children 
 to perish for want of food. 
 
 While manufactures existed, and while commerce could be 
 maintained, agriculture flourished; and it did so because the 
 market for its products being near at hand it was subject to 
 little taxation consequent upon the necessity for effecting changes 
 of place. Roads and bridges could then be kept in order ; but, as 
 manufactures declined, and as it became more and more necessary 
 to carry the bulky products of the earth to the distant market, the 
 need of roads increased, but the power to maintain them declined 
 always a result of the sacrifice of commerce at the shrine of trade. 
 "The increased expense of transport," says a recent traveller, 
 " enabled a few capitalists to monopolize the whole trade in all 
 articles of export" as a consequence of which "the ruin of the 
 landed proprietors and agriculturists soon commenced," and 
 "families were impoverished and villages disappeared;" while 
 * Resources of Turkey, p. 146. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 315 
 
 11 in many extensive districts the whole rural population aban 
 doned the cultivation of their native soil to emigrate to the near 
 est commercial cities."* Thus it is that as the dependence on the 
 distant market increases, the power to go to it declines ; while as 
 the dependence on it declines, the power to resort to it as stead 
 ily increases. In the one case, nature is constantly obtaining 
 greater power over man ; whereas, in the other, man is as con 
 stantly obtaining power over nature. In the one case, utility 
 diminishes, and the value of commodities increases ; whereas, in 
 the other, utilities increase, and value declines. In the one, man 
 becomes from day to day more enslaved ; whereas, in the other, 
 he becomes more free. 
 
 "No improvement," as we learn from the same authority, "can 
 now be attempted, except in the vicinity of large towns, which 
 affor.l a constant and immediate market for all kinds of agricultu 
 ral produce ;" or, in other words, those parts of the country in 
 which commerce is still maintained. Nothing of the kind is to 
 be hoped for in those districts from which "even the heaviest 
 articles must be transported by pack-horses," with an expense for 
 carriage "that has of late years been constantly increasing" 
 causing "the cultivation and export of several articles, peculiarly 
 adapted to the soil and climate, to have diminished ;" and yet 
 those are the portions of the country that most require it. The 
 proportion of the labor of the country given to the work of 
 transportation is a constantly increasing one, and, as a necessary 
 consequence, that given to production is a decreasing one, with 
 constant decline in the power of the community, and of the indi 
 viduals of whom it is composed. 
 
 Depopulation and poverty having, in every country of the 
 world, been consequent upon increase in the power of the trader, 
 and diminution of power to maintain commerce, it is no matter 
 of surprise that all recent travellers should have exhibited the 
 nation as passing steadily onward toward ruin, and the people 
 toward a state of slavery the most complete the inevitable 
 result of a policy that excludes the mechanic and prevents the 
 development of individuality among the people. Among the 
 latest, is Mr. Mac Farlane,f at the date of whose visit, not only 
 
 * Blackwood s Magazine, December, 1854. 
 
 f Turkey and its Destiny. By C. MAC FARLANE. London, 1850. 
 
316 CHAPTER XII. 2. 
 
 had the silk manufacture entirely disappeared, but even the fila 
 tures for preparing the raw silk were closed weavers having 
 become ploughmen, and women and children having been de 
 prived of all employment. The silk cultivators had become 
 entirely dependent on a foreign market in which there existed 
 no demand for the products of their land and labor. Great Bri 
 tain being then in the midst of one of her periodical crises, had 
 deemed it necessary to reduce the prices of all agricultural pro 
 ducts, with a view to stop their importation. On one occasion 
 during Mr. Mac Farlane s travels, there came a report that silk 
 had risen in England, producing a momentary stir and animation, 
 that, as he says, flattered his national vanity to think that an 
 electric touch parting from London, the mighty heart of commerce, 
 should thus be felt in a few days at a place like Biljek." Such is 
 trading centralization ! It renders the agriculturists of the world 
 mere slaves, dependent for food and clothing upon the will of a 
 few people, proprietors of a small amount of machinery, at " the 
 mighty heart of commerce." At one moment, speculation being 
 rife, commodities rise in price ; and every effort is made to induce 
 large shipments of raw produce. At the next, money is said to 
 be scarce, and the shippers are ruined. 
 
 The ruins of once prosperous villages may everywhere be seen 
 and the results of this diminution in the force of local attraction 
 exhibit themselves in the universal decline of agriculture. The 
 plough, the wine-press, and the oil-mill, now in use, are all 
 equally barbarous in their construction. The once productive 
 cotton-fields of Thessaly lie untilled, and even around Constan 
 tinople itself "there are no cultivated lands to speak of within 
 twenty miles in some directions within fifty miles. The com 
 monest necessaries of life come from distant parts : the corn for 
 daily bread from Odessa ; the cattle and sheep from beyond 
 Adrianople, or from Asia Minor ; the rice, of which such a vast 
 consumption is made, from the neighborhood of Philipopolis ; 
 the poultry chiefly from Bulgaria ; the fruit and vegetables from 
 Nicomedia and Moiidania. Thus a constant drain of money is 
 occasioned, without any visible return, except to the treasury or 
 from the property of the Ulema."* 
 
 The silk that is made being badly prepared, because of the 
 * Slade s Travels in Turk 37, vol. ii. p. 143. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 317 
 
 difficulty of obtaining good machinery is now required to go to 
 England in its rudest state, to be there prepared and sent to Per 
 sia . and thus does commerce with foreign nations decline with 
 the diminution of the power to maintain commerce at home. 
 
 Not only is the foreigner free to introduce his wares, but he 
 may, on payment of a trifling duty of two per cent., carry them 
 throughout the empire until finally disposed of. Travelling by 
 caravan, he is lodged without expense. He brings his goods to 
 be exchanged for money, or what else he needs ; and, the ex 
 change effected, he disappears as suddenly as he came. As a 
 necessary result of this entire freedom of trade, local commerce 
 has no existence the storekeeper, who paid rent and taxes, hav 
 ing found himself unable to contend with the travelling pedlar, 
 who paid neither the one nor the other.* The poor cultivator, 
 therefore, finds it impossible to exchange his products, small as 
 they are, for the commodities he needs, except on the occasional 
 arrival of a caravan, which has generally proved far more likely to 
 absorb the little money in circulation, than any of the more bulky 
 and less valuable products of the earth. 
 
 As usual in purely agricultural countries, the whole body of 
 cultivators is hopelessly in debt, and the money-lender fleeces all. 
 If he aids the peasant before harvest, he must have an enormous 
 interest, and be paid in produce at a large discount from the mar 
 ket price. Weakness and poverty among the agricultural classes 
 is found in all communities in which agriculture has not been per 
 mitted to strengthen itself by means of that natural alliance between 
 
 * "It is impossible to witness the arrival of the many-tongued caravan 
 at its resting-place for the night, and see, unladen and piled up together, 
 the bales from such distant places to glance over their very wrappers, 
 and the strange marks and characters which they bear without being 
 amazed at so eloquent a contradiction of our preconceived notions of indis 
 criminate despotism and universal insecurity of the East. But while we 
 observe the avidity with which our goods are sought, the preference now 
 transferred from Indian to Birmingham muslins, from Golconda to Glasgow 
 chintzes, from Damascus to Sheffield steel, from Cashmere shawls to English 
 broadcloth ; and while, at the same time, the energies of their commercial 
 spirit are brought thus substantially before us ; it is indeed impossible not 
 to regret that a gulf of separation should have so long divided the East and 
 the West, and equally impossible not to indulge in the hope and anticipation 
 of a vastly extended traffic with the East, and of all the blessings which follow 
 fast and welling in the wake of commerce." URQUHART : Resources of Tur 
 key, p. 143. 
 
 Nevertheless, every part of Mr. Urquhart s work is a record of the decline 
 of commerce, consequent upon the growing ascendency of trade and traders. 
 
318 CHAPTER XII. 2. 
 
 the plough and the loom, the hammer and the harrow, so much 
 admired by Adam Smith; and it is to the resemblance to each 
 other in this respect of Portugal, Jamaica, and Turkey, that we 
 may find the causes of their resemblance in the fact that the value 
 of man is steadily declining, and that he is, himself, becoming from 
 day to day more and more a slave to nature and to his fellow-man. 
 The government, as weak as the people, is so entirely dependent on 
 the will of domestic and foreign traders, that they may be regarded 
 as the real owners of the land, with power to tax its occupants at 
 discretion; and -to them, certainly, enure all the profits of cul 
 tivation. 
 
 As a consequence of this, real estate is almost wholly valueless. 
 In the great valley of Buyukdere, once known as the fair land, 
 and close in the vicinity of Constantinople, a property twelve 
 miles in circumference had, but a short time previously to Mr. 
 Mac Farlane s visit, been sold for less than five thousand dollars ; 
 while, elsewhere, another almost as large had been disposed of for 
 a much less sum. Small, even, as are these prices, they cannot 
 fail to become yet smaller, under a system that compels the poor 
 cultivator to exhaust the soil in the effort to supply a distant mar 
 ket. In the neighborhood of Smyrna, land may readily be pur 
 chased at six cents an acre ; but those who are content to go to a 
 little distance from the city may have it altogether free of charge. 
 Domestic commerce having scarcely an existence, it follows here, 
 as everywhere, that the foreign one is entirely insignificant. 
 But recently, the whole amount of exports was but thirty-three 
 millions of dollars, or about two dollars a head ; while the total 
 exports from Great Britain to Turkey were but 2,221,000, or 
 $11,000,000 being but little more than fifty cents per head; 
 arid yet, much of even this small quantity went there only en route 
 for foreign markets. 
 
 Throughout the world, commerce has grown, land has become 
 divided and has increased in value, men have become free, and 
 communities have become strong, in the direct ratio of the power 
 of combination for obtaining command over the forces of nature. 
 That power has everywhere grown with the growth of demand 
 for the various faculties of men resulting from variety in the 
 modes of employment, and leading to the development of indi 
 viduality among the people of whom the community has been 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 319 
 
 composed. With the progress of that development, thtre has 
 been witnessed an increased economy of human force, both men 
 tal and physical ; and the force thus economized at one instant 
 has constituted the capital to be used in the one that next 
 succeeded. The greater that economy, the greater has been the 
 power to obtain new machinery by help of which to obtain fur 
 ther dominion over nature compelling water, wind, steam, and 
 electricity to do the work that before had required the human 
 arm. As progress has diminished, and as differences among men 
 have become less numerous, individuality has declined, with con 
 stant increase in the waste of human force each step in that 
 direction being but the preparation for a new and greater one. 
 As mills have stopped, and manufactures have declined, the peo 
 ple who had wrought in them have been forced to seek abroad the 
 means of subsistence denied to them at home. As population has 
 diminished, the power to maintain roads and bridges has declined ; 
 and, as the bridges have disappeared, the rich lands have been 
 abandoned. Malaria next decimating the scattered population 
 that yet remains, we find, with every stage of the progress, a diminu 
 tion of the quantity of things produced, accompanied by an increase 
 in the obstacles lying between the producer and his market requir 
 ing, for their removal, a constantly increasing proportion, and en 
 abling the wagoner and the trader to grow rich at the expense of 
 the poor men who yet desire to till the earth. Trade thus tends as 
 certainly towards slavery as does commerce towards freedom. 
 
 In the real and permanent interests of nations there are no dis 
 cords. Whatever tends to the injury of one tends equally to that 
 of others, and the day may, perhaps, arrive, when such will be 
 admitted to be the case ; and when, too, it will be admitted that, 
 among nations as among individuals, an enlightened self-interest 
 dictates a constant observance of the golden rule lying at the 
 foundation of Christianity Do unto others as ye would that they 
 should do unto you ! But a century since, Turkey, Portugal, and 
 the West India islands, were the most profitable of all of Eng 
 land s customers those whose trade was most anxiously sought ; 
 yet where are they now and what are they ? The cause of wars, 
 difficulties, and expenditures, of all kinds ; poor in themselves, 
 and neglected and despised by all others ; and most especially so 
 by England herself. Compelled to the pursuance of a policy that 
 
320 CHAPTER XII. 3. 
 
 destroyed commerce among themselves, they have been becoming, 
 from year to year, more and more mere instruments to be used by 
 trade; until at length they have ceased at all to command respect 
 among the communities of the earth. Such is the real cause of the 
 decline and fall of the Turkish empire, whose strength would now 
 be greater than it ever before had been had its policy looked to 
 the development of the latent powers of its people and its land 
 and to the promotion of commerce. 
 
 As Portugal, Turkey, and Jamaica have become more entirely 
 dependent on trade, there has been a decline in their power to 
 consume the products of British labor and skill ; and thus it has 
 been that, in our own day, the fable of JEsop, of the goose and 
 the golden egg, has been re-enacted. Hence it is that, while, on 
 the one hand, we have had occasion to witness a decline in all the 
 foreign countries in which commerce was being sacrificed to trade ; 
 we have seen, on the other, a wonderful growth of pauperism in 
 England giving rise to the doctrine of over-population, and lead 
 ing to the belief that the necessities of trade require labor to be 
 cheap that capital may be enabled to command its services ; or, in 
 other words, that to enable trade to thrive, man must be enslaved. 
 Such is the moral of that modern political economy which ignores 
 the existence of all the distinctive qualities of man, and confines 
 itself to those material ones common to him, the ox, the horse, 
 and all other animals. .Real science leading us in a direction 
 totally opposed to this enables us to find in every page of his 
 tory confirmation of the truth of the proposition, that in the moral 
 as in the physical world, centralization, slavery, and death travel 
 always hand in hand with each other and that this is equally 
 true whether considered in relation to nations exercising power, 
 or those over whom it is so exercised. 
 
 3. At the date of the Revolution of 1688, the woollen manu 
 facture was rapidly advancing in IRELAND,* but the government 
 of William and Mary, in reply to the application of the London 
 
 * "Here is the Moneys gone, (and taken out of Trade in England,) and 
 carried into Ireland ; and our People too, with this Money, make Cloth, and 
 serve it cheap in all places where we send our Cloth ; and carry to Holland 
 cheap Wool, and cheap Victuals, and pay the Money back again in Four 
 years." YARRANTON: England s Improvement by Sea and Land, London, 
 1677, p. 182, 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 321 
 
 merchants, pledged itself to " discountenance" that manufacture, 
 with a view to compel the export of raw wool to England, where 
 as its export to foreign countries was prohibited ; and thus to 
 place the producers of wool entirely in the hands of the English 
 makers of cloth. Woollen cloth, or yarn, was allowed to go from 
 Ireland to England only through certain ports ; but its export, as 
 well as that of other manufactures, to the colonies, was entirely 
 prohibited. Irish ships were next deprived of all participation in 
 the benefits of the navigation laws, as well as excluded from the 
 fisheries. Sugar could be imported only through England ; and 
 as no drawback was allowed on its exportation to Ireland, the 
 latter was thus taxed for the support of the foreign government, 
 while maintaining its own. All other colonial produce had to be 
 carried first to England, after which it might be shipped to Ire 
 land ; and the voyage of importation was required to be made in 
 English ships, manned by English seamen, and owned by English 
 merchants thus increasing to the utmost the tax of transporta 
 tion, while denying to the Irish people any participation in the 
 expenditure of the taxes thus collected. 
 
 While thus, as far as practicable, prohibiting them from all 
 pursuits tending to the diversification of employments and thus 
 depriving them of the power of combination for the promotion of 
 their interests every inducement was held out to them to confine 
 themselves to the production of commodities required by the Eng 
 lish manufacturers ; and wool, hemp, and flax were admitted into 
 England free of duty. Men, women, and children were regarded 
 as instruments to be used by trade ; and here, as in Jamaica, they 
 were to be deprived of all employment except in the labor of the 
 field ; and of all opportunity for intellectual improvement, such 
 as elsewhere results from the combination of agriculture and the 
 mechanic arts. 
 
 Pending the war of the American Revolution, however, free 
 dom of commerce was claimed for Ireland, and under circum 
 stances that produced compliance with the demand ; as a conse 
 quence of which, changes were gradually made until at length, in 
 IT 83, her legislative independence came fully to be admitted. 
 First among the measures then adopted, was the imposition of 
 duties on various articles of foreign manufacture, with the avowed 
 intention of enabling the Irish people to employ their own surplus 
 
322 CHAPTER XII. 3. 
 
 labor in converting their com and their wool into cloth ; and 
 thereby enabling them to carry into effect the system so much 
 admired by Adam Smith. Thenceforward, commerce made rapid 
 progress, and was attended with corresponding development of 
 the intellectual faculties ; as may be inferred from the fact, that 
 small as was her population, there existed so great a demand for 
 books as to have warranted the reproduction of all the principal 
 English law reports of the day, very many of the earlier ones, as 
 well as the principal novels, travels, and miscellaneous works. 
 More books were published in Dublin by a single house, than 
 now, probably, are required for the supply of the kingdom, not 
 withstanding the increase of population. 
 
 With 1801, however centralization being established there 
 came a change. By the act of Union, the copyright laws were 
 extended to Ireland, and at once the large, and rapidly growing, 
 manufacture of books entirely disappeared. The patent laws being 
 also extended to that country, it became, at once, clear that Irish 
 manufactures, of every kind, must retrograde. England had the 
 home market, the foreign market, and that of Ireland open to 
 her ; while the Irish manufacturers were forced to contend for 
 existence, and under the most disadvantageous circumstances, on 
 their own soil. The former could afford to purchase expensive 
 machinery, and to adopt whatever improvements might be made ; 
 while the latter could not. As a natural consequence of this, 
 Irish manufactures gradually disappeared as the act of Union 
 took effect. By virtue of its provisions, the duties established by 
 the Irish Parliament, for the purpose of protecting the farmers of 
 Ireland in their efforts to bring the artisan into close proximity 
 with themselves, were gradually to diminish, until free trade 
 should fully be established ; or, in other words, Manchester and 
 Birmingham were to have a monopoly of supplying Ireland with 
 cloth and iron. The duty on English woollens was to continue 
 twenty years. The almost prohibitory duties on English calicoes 
 and muslins were to continue until 1808 ; after which they were 
 to be gradually diminished finally ceasing in 1821. Those on 
 cotton-yarn were to cease hi 1810. The effect of this in diminish 
 ing the demand for Irish labor is shown in the fact, that the master 
 woollen manufacturers of Dublin, who were in 1800 no less than 
 91 in number, had declined in 1840 to 12 that the hands em- 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE 323 
 
 ployed had fallen in number from 4918 to 602 ; and that the 
 wool-combers and carpet manufacturers had almost entirely dis 
 appeared. Such, too, was the case in Cork, Kilkenny, Wicklow, 
 and all other of the seats of manufacture. In the first of these, 
 cotton-spinners, bleachers, and calico-printers abounded ; while 
 in the last, braid and worsted weavers, hosiers, linen and woollen 
 weavers, counted by thousands; whereas, in 1834, the whole num 
 ber of people so employed did not exceed five hundred.* 
 
 Deprived of all employment, except in the labor of agriculture, 
 land became, of course, the great object of pursuit. " Land is 
 life," had said, most truly and emphatically, Chief Justice Black 
 burn ; and the people had now before them the choice between 
 the occupation of land, at any rent, or starvation. The lord of 
 the land was thus enabled to dictate his own terms ; and therefore 
 it has been, that we have heard of the payment of five, six, eight, 
 and even as much as ten, pounds an acre. " Enormous rents, low 
 wages, farms of an enormous extent, let by rapacious and indo 
 lent proprietors to monopolizing land-jobbers, to be re-let by 
 intermediate oppressors, for five times their value, among the 
 wretched starvers on potatoes and water," led to a constant suc 
 cession of outrages, followed by Insurrection Acts, Arms Acts, 
 and Coercion Acts ; when the real remedy was to be found in the 
 adoption of a system that would enable them to combine their 
 efforts together, and thus maintain the commerce that was then 
 being sacrificed at the shrine of trade. 
 
 That commerce may anywhere arise, or that it may anywhere 
 
 * "For nearly half a century Ireland has had perfectly free trade with 
 the richest country in the world; and what" says the author of a recent 
 work of great ability 
 
 "Has that free trade done for her? She has even now," he continues, 
 "no employment for her teeming population except upon the land. She 
 ought to have had, and might easily have had, other and various employ 
 ments, and plenty of it. Are we to believe," says he, "the calumny, that 
 the Irish are lazy and "won t work ? Is Irish human nature different from 
 other human nature ? Are not the most laborioxis of all laborers in London 
 and New York, Irishmen ? Are Irishmen inferior in understanding ? We 
 Englishmen, who have personally known Irishmen in the army, at the bar, 
 and in the church, know that there is no better head than a disciplined Irish 
 one. But, in all these cases, that master of industry, the stomach, has been 
 well satisfied. Let an Englishman exchange his bread and beer, and beef 
 and mutton, for no breakfast, for a lukewarm lumper at dinner, and no sup 
 per. With such a diet, how much better is he than an Irishman a Celt, as 
 he calls him ? No, the truth is, that the misery of Ireland is not from the 
 human nature that grows there it is from England s perverse legislation, 
 past and present." Sophisms of Free Trade, by J. BARNARD BYLES, Esq. 
 
324 CHAPTER XIT. 3. 
 
 be maintained, there must be differences among men, for farmers 
 do not need to exchange potatoes with each other, however great 
 may be their need for the services of the blacksmith, the carpen 
 ter, the miner, or the miller. Centralization was annihilating all 
 the differences that had existed, and driving all the people to 
 agriculture ; and the results obtained were precisely those which 
 might reasonably have been expected. The demand for human 
 effort, whether of mind or of body, gradually ceasing, millions of 
 people found themselves forced into the position of consumers of 
 capital in the form of food, while totally unable to sell the labor 
 thence produced. Go where the traveller might, he found hun 
 dreds and thousands anxious to work, but unemployed ; while 
 tens of thousands were wandering throughout Great Britain, seek 
 ing to sell their labor for the pittance by help of which they might 
 pay their rent at home. Interdicted from all pursuits but one, 
 they were compelled to waste more power than would have paid, 
 a hundred times over, for all the British manufactures they now 
 consumed ; and thus it was that they became, as the London Times 
 expresses it, "iiewers of wood and drawers of water for the 
 Saxon."* 
 
 English writers assure us that Ireland has been deficient in the 
 capital required for manufactures ; but such must always be the 
 case with purely agricultural countries. Nothing is required, in 
 any country, for making capital abundant, but the existence of 
 that power of combination which enables each and every man to 
 find a purchaser for his own labor, and to become a purchaser of 
 that of others. The power to render either bodily or mental ser 
 vice is a result of capital consumed, and it constitutes the capital 
 the laborer has to offer in exchange. When diversity of employ 
 ments exists, the motion of society is rapid, and all that capital 
 reappears in the form of new commodities ; but when there is no 
 pursuit but agriculture, the motion is slow, and most of it is 
 
 * " There are nations of slaves, but they have, by long custom, been made 
 unconscious of the yoke of slavery. This is not the case with the Irish, who 
 have a strong feeling of liberty within them, and are fully sensible of the 
 weight of the yoke they have to bear. They are intelligent enough to know 
 the injustice done them by the distorted laws of their country; and while 
 they are themselves enduring the extreme of poverty, they have frequently 
 before them, in the manner of life of their English landlords, a spectacle of 
 the most refined luxury that human ingenuity ever invented." KOHL : Tra 
 vels in Ireland. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 325 
 
 wasted. Millions of Irishmen were daily wasting capital ; and 
 therefore it was, that capital was deficient. No such deficiency 
 was experienced in the period between 1183 and 1801, because 
 commerce was then steadily growing producing a demand for 
 all the physical and intellectual force of the community. From 
 and after that time, commerce gradually declined until it finally 
 died away ; and then was wasted, in each and every year, an 
 amount of Irish capital equal, if properly applied, to the crea 
 tion of all the cotton and ivoollen machinery existing in Eng 
 land. To this enforced waste of capital we must look, if we 
 desire to find the cause of the decline and fall of the Irish nation. 
 
 As commerce declined, the power of the trader grew; and mid 
 dlemen accumulated fortunes that they could not invest in machi 
 nery of any kind, and would not apply to the improvement of the 
 land of Ireland as a consequence of which, large quantities of 
 capital were, from year to year, transferred to England. By an 
 official document, it was shown, that in the thirteen years follow 
 ing the final triumph of trade over commerce, in 1821, the trans 
 fer of the British public securities from England to Ireland 
 amounted to as many millions of pounds sterling ; and thus it 
 was that cheap labor and cheap capital were forced to contribute 
 towards building up "the great works of Britain." Further, it 
 was provided by law, that, whenever the poor people of a neigh 
 borhood contributed to a saving fund, the amount should not be 
 applied in any manner calculated to furnish local employment ; 
 but should be transferred for investment in the British funds. The 
 landlords fled to England, and their rents followed them. The 
 middlemen sent their capital to England. The trader, or the 
 laborer, that could accumulate a little capital saw it sent to Eng 
 land ; and he was then compelled to follow it. 
 
 That centralization, slavery, depopulation, and death travel 
 always together, is a fact whose proof is to be found in every page 
 of history; but in none is the proof more thorough and complete 
 than in that which records the story of Ireland, from the day when 
 she ceased to have a Parliament, and became a mere appendage 
 to the crown of England. 
 
 The form in which rents, profits, and savings, as well as taxes, 
 went abroad, was that of raw products of the soil, to be consumed 
 elsewhere yielding nothing to be returned to the land, which 
 
326 CHAPTER XII. 3. 
 
 became, of course, impoverished. The export of grain in the 
 first three years following the passage of the act of Union, ave 
 raged about 300,000 quarters ; but, as the domestic market gra 
 dually disappeared, it increased, until at the close of thirty years, 
 it had attained an annual average of two and a half millions, or 
 22,500,000 of our bushels. The poor people were, in fact, sell 
 ing their soil to pay for cotton and woollen goods that they 
 should have manufactured themselves ; for coal which abounded 
 among themselves ; for iron, all the materials of which existed at 
 home in great profusion ; and for a small quantity of tea, sugar, 
 and other foreign commodities ; while the amount required to pay 
 rent to absentees, and interest to mortgagees, was estimated at 
 more than thirty millions of dollars. Here was a drain that no 
 nation could bear, however great its productive power ; and its 
 existence was due to the system which by forbidding the appli 
 cation of labor, talent, or capital to any thing but agriculture 
 forbade advance in civilization. The inducements to remain at 
 home steadily diminished. Those who could live without labor 
 finding that society had changed fled to England, France, or 
 Italy. Those who desired to work, and felt that they were quali 
 fied for something beyond mere manual labor, fled to England or 
 America ; and thus by degrees was the unfortunate country de 
 pleted of every thing that could render it a hmne in which to 
 remain, while those who could not fly were "starving by mil 
 lions,"* and happy when a full-grown man could find employment 
 at sixpence a day, without clothing, lodging, or even food. 
 
 The existence of such a state of things was, said the advocates 
 of the system which looks to converting all the world, outside of 
 England, into one great farm, to be accounted for by the fact, that 
 the population was too numerous for the land ; and yet a third of 
 the surface, including the richest lands in the kingdom, was lying 
 unoccupied and waste. " Of single counties," said an English 
 
 * " Throughout the west and south of Ireland, the traveller is haunted by 
 the face of the popular starvation. It is not the exception it is the condition 
 of the people. In this fairest and richest of countries, men are suffering and 
 starving by millions. There are thousands of them, at this minute, stretched 
 in the sunshine at their cabin doors, with no work, scarcely any food, no hope 
 seemingly. Strong countrymen are lying in bed, l for the hunger 1 because 
 a man lying on his back does not need so much food as a person afoot. 
 Many of them have torn up the unripe potatoes from their little gardens, 
 and to exist now must look to winter, when they shall have to suffer starva 
 tion and cold too." Thackeray. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 327 
 
 writer, "Mayo, with a population of 389,000, and a rental of 
 only 300,000, has an area of 1,364,000 acres, of which 800,000 
 are waste ! No less than 470,000 acres, being very nearly equal 
 to the whole extent of surface now under cultivation, are declared 
 to be reclainiable. Galway, with a population of 423,000, and a 
 valued rental of 433,000, has upwards of 700,000 acres of waste, 
 410,000 of which are reclainiable ! Kerry, with a population of 
 293,000, has an area of 1,186,000 acres 727,000 being waste, 
 and 400,000 of them reclainiable ! Even the Union of Glenties, 
 Lord Monteagle s ne plus ultra of redundant population, has 
 an area of 245,000 acres, of which 200,000 are waste, and for 
 the most part reclaimable, to its population of 43,000. The 
 Barony of Ennis, that abomination of desolation, has 230,000 
 acres of land to its 5000 paupers a proportion which, as Mr. 
 Carter, one of the principal proprietors, remarks in his circular 
 advertisement for tenants, is at the rate of only one family to 
 230 acres ; so that if but one head of a family were employed to 
 every 230 acres, there need not be a single pauper in the entire 
 district; a proof/ he adds, that nothing but employment is 
 wanting to set this country to rights / In which opinion we 
 fully coincide." 
 
 Nothing but employment nothing but the power to maintain 
 commerce was needed ; but commerce could not exist under the 
 system which had, in a brief period, caused the annihilation of 
 the cotton manufacture of India, notwithstanding the advantage 
 of having the cotton on the spot, free from all cost for carriage. 
 As in Jamaica, and as in India the land having been gradually 
 exhausted by the exportation of its products in their rudest state, 
 the country had been drained of capital ; as a necessary conse 
 quence of which the labor, even of men, found no demand, while 
 women and children starved, that the women and children of Eng 
 land might spin cotton, and weave cloth, that Ireland was too 
 poor to purchase. 
 
 Bad, however, as is all we have thus far seen, a state of things 
 far worse was near at hand. Poverty and wretchedness compel 
 ling the wretched people to fly in thousands and tens of thou 
 sands across the Channel thus following the capital and the soil 
 that had been transferred to Birmingham and Manchester the 
 streets and cellars of those towns, and of London, Liverpool, and 
 
328 CHAPTER XII. 3. 
 
 Glasgow, were filled with men, women, and children, unable to 
 sell their labor, and perishing for want of food. Throughout the 
 country, men were offering to perform the farm labor for food 
 alone; and a cry arose among the people of England, that the 
 laborers were likely to be swamped by these starving Irishmen ; 
 to provide against which it was needed that Irish landlords 
 should be compelled to support their own poor, as they were 
 forthwith required by act of Parliament to do although for 
 about half a century previously, England had rung with denun 
 ciations of poor laws, as being in entirely in contravention of all 
 sound economical principles. The system, however looking as 
 it did to the destruction of the power of association, and to the 
 consequent waste of labor was, itself, in opposition to all such 
 principles ; and therefore was it, that the action of the legislature 
 was required to be directly opposed to all that had been taught 
 in the schools. The practice, under a sound system, may be con 
 sistent ; but under an unsound one, it cannot be. 
 
 With the passage of the Irish poor law, there arose, of course, 
 an increased desire to rid the country of people who, unable to 
 sell their labor, could pay no rent ; and from that time to the pre 
 sent, Ireland has presented the most shocking scenes, consequent 
 upon the destruction of houses and the expulsion of their inhabit 
 ants scenes far more worthy of the most uncivilized portions of 
 Africa, than of an integral portion of the British Empire.* 
 
 Thus far, Irish agriculture had been protected in the English 
 market, as some small compensation for the sacrifice of the domes 
 tic one ; but now, even that boon, trivial as it was, was with 
 drawn. Like the people of Jamaica, those of Ireland had become 
 poor, and their trade had ceased to be of value, although but 
 seventy years before they had been the best customers of England. 
 The system having exhausted all the countries in which commerce 
 
 * " In Galway Union, recent accounts declared the number of poor evicted, 
 and their houses levelled, within the last two years, to equal the numbers in 
 Kilrush 4000 families and 20,000 human beings are said to have been here 
 also thrown upon the road, houseless and homeless. I can readily believe 
 the statement, for to me some parts of the country appeared like an enor 
 mous graveyard the numerous gables of the unroofed dwellings seemed to 
 be gigantic tombstones. They were, indeed, records of decay and death far 
 more melancholy than the grave can show. Looking on them, the doubt rose 
 in my mind, Am I in a civilized country ? Have we really a free constitu 
 tion? Can such scenes be paralleled in Siberia or Caffraria?" Irish 
 Journal. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 329 
 
 had been sacrificed to trade India, Portugal, Turkey, the West 
 Indies, and Ireland herself it had become necessary to make an 
 effort to obtain markets in those which had to a greater or less 
 extent placed the consumer by the side of the producer, to wit : 
 this country, France, Belgium, Germany, and Russia ; and the 
 mode of accomplishing this was that of offering them the same 
 system by which Ireland had been exhausted. The farmers were 
 everywhere invited to impoverish their soil by sending its pro 
 ducts to England to be consumed ; and the corn laws were 
 repealed for the purpose of enabling them to enter into competi 
 tion with the starving Irishman, who was thus at once deprived 
 of the market of England, as, by the act of Union, he had been 
 deprived of his own. The cup of wretchedness, before well-nigh 
 full, was now filled. The price of food fell, and the laborer was 
 ruined, for the whole product of his land would scarcely pay his 
 rent. The landlord was ruined, for while unable to collect rents, 
 he was heavily taxed for the support of his impoverished tenants. 
 His land was encumbered with mortgages and settlements, created 
 when food was high ; but he could now no longer pay the interest 
 thereon. In this state of things it was, that the British people 
 resorted to the revolutionary measure of creating a special court 
 for the sale of all encumbered property, and the distribution of its 
 proceeds thus furnishing the clearest evidence of the unsound- 
 ness of the system under which Ireland had been governed. 
 
 The impoverished landholder now experienced the same fate 
 that had befallen his poor tenant ; and from that date famine and 
 pestilence, levellings and evictions, have been the order of the 
 day. Their effect having everywhere been to drive the poor peo 
 ple from the land, its consequences are seen in the fact that the 
 population numbered, in 1850, one million six hundred and 
 fifty -nine thousand less than it did in 1840 ; while the starving 
 population of the towns had largely increased. The county of 
 Cork had diminished 222,000, while Dublin had grown in num 
 bers 22,000. Galway had lost 125,000, while the city had gained 
 7422. Connaught had lost 414,000, while Limerick and Belfast 
 had gained 30,000. The number of inhabited houses had fallen 
 from 1,328,000 to 1,041,000, or more than twenty per cent. 
 Announcing these startling facts, the London Times stated that 
 " for a whole generation man had been a drug in Ireland, and 
 
 VOL. I. 22 
 
330 CHAPTER XII. 3. 
 
 population a nuisance." The "inexhaustible Irish supply had," 
 as it continued, "kept down the price of English labor, "but this 
 cheapness of labor had "contributed vastly to the improvement 
 and power" of England, and largely to " the enjoyment of those 
 who had money to spend." Now, however, a change appeared 
 to be at hand, and it was to be feared that the prosperity of Eng 
 land, based as it had been on cheap Irish labor, might be inter 
 fered with, as famine and pestilence, evictions and emigration, 
 were thinning out the Celts who had so long, as it is said, fur 
 nished that "stagnant weight of unemployed population," by 
 help of which English capital had obtained so entire a control of 
 the labor of England. 
 
 To the stagnation resulting from the absence of differences 
 among the various portions of the community all these effects are 
 due. The whole system tends to separate the consumer from the 
 producer, and to augment to the highest degree the taxation inci 
 dent to the necessity for effecting changes of place ; and to this 
 are due the exhaustion of Ireland, the ruin of its landholders, the 
 starvation of its people, and the degradation of the country which 
 has furnished to the continent its best soldiers, and, to the empire, 
 not only its most industrious and intelligent laborers, but also its 
 Burke, its Grattan, its Sheridan, and its Wellington. English 
 journals, nevertheless, rejoice at the gradual disappearance of the 
 native population, and find in the abstraction of the Celtic race 
 at the rate of a quarter of a million a year, a surer remedy for the 
 inveterate Irish disease than any human wit could have imagined." 
 
 The " disease" here spoken of is a total absence of demand for 
 labor, resulting from the unhappy determination of the people of 
 England to destroy the power of association throughout the world. 
 The sure remedy for it is found in famines, pestilences, and expa 
 triation, the necessary results of that exhaustion of the land which 
 follows the exportation of its products in their rudest state. A 
 stronger confirmation of the destructive character of such a course 
 of policy to the people of England themselves, than is contained 
 in the following paragraph, could scarcely be imagined : 
 
 "When the Celt has crossed the Atlantic, he begins for the 
 first time in his life to consume the manufactures of this country, 
 and indirectly to contribute to its customs. We may possibly 
 live to see the day when the chief product of Ireland will be cat- 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 331 
 
 tie, and English and Scotch the majority of her population. The 
 nine or ten millions of Irish who by that time will have settled in 
 the United States, cannot be less friendly to England, and will 
 certainly be much better customers to her than they now are. ? * 
 
 When the Celt leaves Ireland, he leaves an almost purely agri 
 cultural country, and in such countries man is always little better 
 than a slave. Coming here, he finds himself in a country in which 
 to some little extent the farmer and the artisan have been enabled 
 to come together ; and here he becomes a freeman, and a customer 
 of England. 
 
 That the nation that commences by exporting raw products 
 must end by exporting men, is proved by the following figures, 
 furnished by the last four censuses of Ireland : 
 
 1821, population, 6,801,827 
 
 1831, 7,767,491 Increase, 965,574 
 
 1841, 8,175,124 Increase, 407,723 
 
 1851, " 6,515,794 Decrease, 1,659,330 
 
 To what causes may this extraordinary course of events be attri 
 buted ? Certainly not to any deficiency of land, for nearly one- 
 third of the whole surface including millions of acres of the 
 richest soils of the kingdom remains in a state of nature. Not 
 to original inferiority of the soil in cultivation, for it has been 
 confessedly among the richest in the empire. Not to a deficiency 
 of mineral ores or fuel, for coal abounds, and iron ores of the 
 richest kind, as well as those of other metals, exist in vast profu 
 sion. Not to any deficiency in the physical qualities of the Irish 
 man it being an established fact that he is capable of performing 
 far more labor than the Englishman, the Frenchman, or the Bel 
 gian. Not to a deficiency of intellectual ability Ireland having 
 given to England her most distinguished soldiers and statesmen ; 
 and having throughout the world furnished evidence that the Irish 
 man is capable of the highest intellectual improvement. Never 
 theless, while possessed of every natural advantage, he is, at 
 home, a slave to the severest taskmasters, and in a condition of 
 poverty and distress such as is exhibited in no other portion of 
 the civilized world. No choice being left him but between expa 
 triation and starvation, we see him, everywhere, abandoning the 
 * London Times. 
 
332 CHAPTER XII. 3. 
 
 home of his fathers, to seek elsewhere that subsistence which Ire 
 land rich as she is in soil and in her minerals, in her navigable 
 rivers, and in her facilities for communication with the world can 
 no longer afford him. 
 
 The value of land and labor being altogether dependent upon 
 the power to maintain commerce and that power having no ex 
 istence in Ireland the reader can now have little difficulty in 
 understanding why both are there, as well as in Turkey, Portu 
 gal, and Jamaica, so nearly valueless. Neither can be utilized, 
 because of the enormous extent to which they are subjected to that 
 heaviest of all taxes the one resulting from a necessity for 
 dependence on ships, wagons, and all other of the machinery of 
 trade and transportation. In his recent work on Ireland, Cap 
 tain Head speaks of a property containing 10,000 acres, that had 
 been purchased at five cents an acre ; and in a paper read before 
 the Statistical Section of the British Association, it was shown 
 that the estates then purchased in Ireland, by English capital, em 
 braced 403,065 acres ; the purchase-money had been 1,095,000, 
 or about 2 15s. ($13 20) per acre being little more than is 
 paid for farms, with very moderate improvements, in the new 
 States of the Mississippi Valley. 
 
 The sugar of the laborer of Jamaica exchanges in Manchester 
 for three shillings, of which he receives perhaps one ; and he 
 perishes because of the difficulty of obtaining clothing, or the 
 machinery by help of which to make it. The Hindoo sells his 
 cotton for a penny a pound, and buys it back, in the form of 
 cloth, at eighteen or twenty pence. The Virginia negro raises 
 tobacco that exchanges for six shillings worth of commodities, of 
 which he and his owner obtain threepence all the difference be 
 ing absorbed by the various persons who live by trade, and stand 
 in the way of commerce. The Irishman raises chickens which 
 sell in London for shillings, of which he receives pence ; and thus 
 sugar that has yielded the free negro of Jamaica a penny, com 
 mands in the west of Ireland a pair of chickens, or a dozen lob 
 sters.* Having studied these facts, the reader will be at no loss 
 
 * The enormous loss incident to the wide separation of the consumer from 
 the producer, is thus exhibited by Captain Head : 
 
 " Chickuns are about 5d. a couple docks, IQd. A couple of young gaise, 
 lOrf. ; when auld, not less than Is. or 14c?. 
 
 " And turkeys? I asked. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 333 
 
 to understand the destructive effects on the value of land and labor 
 resulting from the absence of markets, such as arise naturally where 
 the plough and the loom are permitted, in accordance with the 
 doctrines of Adam Smith, to take their places by each other s 
 side. More than seventy years since, that great man denounced 
 the system which looked to compelling the exports of raw pro 
 duce, as one productive of infinite injustice ; and, certainly, the 
 histories of Jamaica and Virginia, Ireland and India, since his 
 time, would afford him, were he now present, little reason for 
 changing the opinions then expressed. 
 
 4. It is usual to ascribe the state of things now existing in 
 Ireland to the rapid growth of population that in its turn being 
 charged. to the account of the potato, the excessive use of which, 
 as Mr. McCulloch informs his readers, has lowered the standard 
 of living, and tended to the multiplication of men, women, and 
 children. "The peasantry of Ireland live," as he says, in 
 miserable mud cabins, without either a window or a chimney, or 
 any thing that can be called furniture," and are distinguished 
 from their fellow-laborers across the Channel by their "filth and 
 misery ;" and hence, in his opinion, it is that they work for low 
 wages.* We have here effect substituted for cause. The absence 
 of demand for labor causes wages to be so low, that the laborer 
 can obtain nothing but mud cabins and potatoes. It is admitted 
 everywhere throughout the continent of Europe, that the intro 
 duction of the potato has tended greatly to the improvement of 
 the condition of the people ; but then, there is no portion of the 
 continent in which it constitutes an essential part of the national po 
 licy to deprive millions of people of all mode of employment except 
 agriculture thus placing those millions at such a distance from 
 market, that the chief part of their labor and its products is lost 
 in the effort to reach it ; and that their land is exhausted because 
 
 " I can t say ; we haven t many of thim in the counthry, and I don t want 
 to tell yere Arn r a lie. Fish, little or nothing. A large turbot, of 80 pounds 
 weight, for 3*. Lobsters, a dozen for 4d. Soles, 2d. or 3d. a-piece. T other 
 day I bought a turbot, of 15 pounds weight, for a gentleman, and I paid ISd. 
 for ut. " - Walks and Talks in Ireland, p. 178. 
 
 " What do you pay for your tea and sugar here ? I inquired. 
 
 < Very dare, sir, he replied. We pay 5s. for tea, 5d. for brown sugar, 
 and Sd. for white; that is, if we buy a single pound. " Ibid, p. 187. 
 
 * Treatise on Wages, p. 33. 
 
334 CHAPTER XII. 4. 
 
 of the impossibility of returning to the soil any of the elements of 
 which its crops are composed. Trading centralization produces 
 all these effects. It looks to the destruction of the value of labor 
 and land, and to the enslavement of man. It tends to the divi 
 sion of the whole population into two classes, separated by an 
 impassable gulf the mere laborer and the land-owner. It tends 
 to the destruction of the power of association for any purpose of 
 improvement, whether by the making of roads or the founding of 
 schools ; and, of course, to the prevention of the growth of towns, 
 as we see to have been the case with Jamaica, so barbarous in 
 this respect when compared with Martinique or Cuba islands 
 whose governments have not looked to the perpetual divorce of 
 the artisan and the agriculturist. 
 
 The decay of towns in Ireland, subsequent to the Union, led to 
 absenteeism, and thus added to the exhaustion of the land Irish 
 wheat being now needed to pay not only for English cloth, but for 
 English services ; and the more the centralization resulting from 
 absenteeism, the greater, necessarily, was the difficulty attendant 
 upon the maintenance of the productive powers of the soil. Mr. 
 McCulloch, however, assures his readers, that "it is not easy to 
 imagine any grounds for pronouncing the expenditure of the rent 
 at home more beneficial " to the country than if it had been ex 
 pended abroad.* By another distinguished political economist we 
 are told that 
 
 " Many persons" are "perplexed by the consideration that all 
 the commodities which are exported as remittances of the absen 
 tee s income are exports for which no return is obtained ; that 
 they are as much lost to this country as if they were a tribute paid 
 to a foreign state, or even as if they were periodically thrown into 
 the sea. This is unquestionably true ; but it must be recollected 
 that whatever is unproductively consumed, is, by the very terms 
 of the proposition, destroyed, without producing any return. "( 
 
 The view is, as the reader will see, based upon the idea of the 
 total destruction of the commodities consumed. Were it even 
 correct, it would still follow that there had been transferred from 
 Ireland to England a demand for services of a thousand kinds, 
 tending to cause a rise in the price of labor in the one and a fall 
 
 * Principles of Political Economy, p. 157. 
 
 f SENIOR: Outlines of Political Economy, p. 160. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 335 
 
 in the other ; but if it were altogether incorrect, it would then 
 follow, necessarily, that the loss to the country would be as great 
 as if the remittances were " a tribute paid to a foreign state, or 
 even as if they were periodically thrown into the sea. " That the 
 latter is the case the reader may readily convince himself. Man 
 consumes much, but he destroys nothing. In eating food, he is 
 merely acting as a machine for preparing the elements of which it 
 is composed, for future production ; and the more he can take out 
 of the land, the more he can return to it, and the more rapid will 
 be the improvement in the productive power of the soil. 
 
 If the market is near, he takes hundreds of bushels of turnips, 
 carrots, or potatoes, or tons of hay, from an acre of land vary 
 ing the character of his culture from year to year ; and the more, 
 he borrows from the great bank the more he can repay to it, the 
 more he can improve his mind and his cultivation, and the more 
 readily he can command improved machinery, by aid of which to 
 obtain still increased returns. If, however, the market is distant, 
 he must raise only those things that will bear carriage, and thus 
 is he limited in his cultivation ; and the more he is limited the 
 more rapidly does he exhaust his land, the less is his power to 
 obtain roads, to have association with his fellow-men, to obtain 
 books, to improve his mode of thought, to purchase machinery, 
 or to make roads. Such is the case even when he is compelled 
 to sell and buy in distant markets ; but still worse is it when, as in 
 the case of rents paid to an absentee, nothing is returned to the 
 land. Production then diminishes without a corresponding dimi 
 nution of the rent the poor laborer being daily more and more 
 thrown upon the mercy of the landlord, or his agent, and becom 
 ing more and more subjected to his will. The proportion of rent 
 then rises, but its quantity declines. The value of commodities 
 increases, but that of man diminishes and with every step in this 
 direction we witness a growing tendency to depopulation, such as 
 has been exhibited in Turkey, Portugal, Jamaica, and especially 
 in Ireland. 
 
 We are told of the principle of population, in virtue of which 
 men increase faster than food ; and, for evidence that such must 
 always be the case, are pointed to the fact, that, when men are 
 few in number, they always cultivate the rich soils, and then food 
 is abundant ; but, that, as population increases, they are forced 
 
336 CHAPTER xn. 4. 
 
 to resort to the poor soils, when food becomes scarce. That the 
 contrary of all this is true, is shown by the history of England, 
 France, Italy, Greece, India, and most especially by the fact that 
 Ireland possesses millions of acres of the most fertile soil remain 
 ing in a state of nature, and so likely to remain until she shall have 
 markets for their produce enabling their owners readily to ex 
 change turnips, potatoes, cabbages, and hay, for cloth, machinery, 
 and MANURE. 
 
 It is singular that modern political economy should so entirely 
 have overlooked the fact that man is a mere borrower from the 
 earth, and that when he does not pay his debts, she does as do all 
 other creditors expelling him from his holding. England makes 
 of her soil a grand reservoir for the waste yielded by the sugar, 
 coffee, wool, indigo, cotton, and other raw commodities of almost 
 half the world thus obtaining manure that has been valued at 
 five hundred millions of dollars a year, or five times more than 
 the value of the cotton crop produced by so many millions of 
 people in this country ; and yet so important is that commodity, 
 that she imports in a single year more than two hundred thousand 
 tons of guano, at a cost of almost two millions of pounds, or ten 
 millions of dollars. Nevertheless, her writers teach other nations 
 that the true mode of becoming rich is to exhaust the land by 
 sending from it all its products in their rudest state ; and then, 
 when the Irishmen attempt to follow the soil that has been sent to 
 England, the world is assured by Mr. McCulloch that 
 
 " The unexampled misery of the Irish people is directly owing 
 to the excessive augmentation of their numbers; and" that 
 " nothing can be more perfectly futile than to expect any real or 
 lasting amendment of their situation until an effectual check has 
 been given to the progress of population. It is obvious too," he 
 continues, that the low and degraded condition into which the 
 people of Ireland are now sunk is the condition to which every 
 people must be reduced whose numbers continue, for any con 
 siderable period, to increase faster than the means of providing 
 for their comfortable and decent subsistence."* 
 
 Such is the erroneous view to which men of high ability are led 
 by the Malthusian doctrine, that man the being of highest deve 
 lopment tends to increase more rapidly than potatoes, turnips, 
 * Principles of Political Economy, p. 383. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 337 
 
 fish, and oysters, the things of lowest development, on which he 
 feeds ; and by the Ricardo doctrine, that it is upon the fertile 
 soils that men begin the work of cultivation. All Ireland proves 
 that the richest soils are yet undrained and uncultivated that 
 those in cultivation have been exhausted by reason of the necessity 
 imposed upon their owners for sending away their produce, in its 
 rudest state and that the real cause of difficulty is to be found 
 in the annihilation of the power to maintain commerce, and con 
 sequent destruction of the capital daily consumed in the mainte 
 nance of so many millions of human beings compelled to waste 
 their days in idleness, when they would so gladly be at work. 
 " How, " asks the Times, " are they to be fed and employed?" 
 "That, " as it continues, "is the question which still baffles an 
 age that can transmit a message round the world in a moment of 
 time, and point out the locality of a planet never yet seen. There 
 is the question which founders both the bold and the wise." 
 
 It is, nevertheless, a question readily answered. Let them have 
 commerce let them be emancipated from the dominion of trade 
 and they will find at once a demand for their powers, whether 
 mental or intellectual. All then meeting purchasers for what they 
 have to part with, all will be able to become purchasers of the 
 labor of others their friends and neighbors, and the wives and 
 children of those friends. What Ireland needs is, the motion of 
 society the power of combination which results from differ 
 ences in the modes of employment. Let her have that, and she 
 will cease to export food, while her people perish of famine at 
 home.* Give her that, and her land ceasing to be impove 
 rished by the extraction and exportation of its most valuable ele 
 ments her people will be both " fed and employed ;" and then, 
 the doctrine of over-population will cease to find support in the 
 harrowing details of Irish history. 
 
 * The exports of food from Ireland in 1849, 50, 51 years in which 
 
 famine and pestilence combined to limit the growth of population were as 
 follows : 
 
 Year. Wheat, qrs. Flour, qrs. Live stock, No. 
 
 1849 844,000 1,176,000 520,000 
 
 1850 751,000 1,055,000 475,000 
 
 1851 850,000 823,000 472,000 
 
338 CHAPTER XIH. 1. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 1. IN no part of the world has there existed a greater tend 
 ency to voluntary association, the distinguishing mark of freedom, 
 than in INDIA. In none did the smaller communities to a greater 
 extent exercise the power of self-government. Each village had 
 its distinct organization, and under its simple and "almost patri 
 archal arrangements, the natives of Hindoostan seem to have 
 lived from the earliest, down, comparatively speaking, to late 
 times if not free from the troubles and annoyances to which men 
 in all conditions of society are more or less subject, still in the full 
 enjoyment, by each individual, of his property, and of a very con 
 siderable share of personal liberty. " * * "Leave 
 him in possession of the farm which his forefathers owned, and 
 preserve entire the institutions to which he had from infancy been 
 accustomed, and the simple Hindoo would give himself no con 
 cern whatever as to the intrigues and cabals which took place at 
 the capital. Dynasties might displace one another ; revolutions 
 might recur ; and the persons of his sovereigns might change 
 every day; but so long as his own little society remained undis 
 turbed, all other contingencies were to him subjects scarcely of 
 speculation." " Perhaps there are not to be 
 found on the face of the earth a race of human beings whose 
 attachment to their native place will bear a comparison with that 
 of the Hindoos. There are no privations which the Hindoo will 
 hesitate to bear, rather than voluntarily abandon the spot where 
 he was born ; and if continued oppression drive him forth, he will 
 return to it again after long years of exile with fresh fondness."* 
 
 The Mohammedan conquest left these simple and beautiful in 
 stitutions untouched. " Each Hindoo village," says Col. Briggs, 
 in his work on the land tax, " had its distinct municipality, and 
 GREIG : History of British India, vol. i. p. 46. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 339 
 
 over a certaiu number of villages, or district, was an hereditary 
 chief and accountant, both possessing great local influence and 
 authority, and certain territorial domains or estates. The Mo 
 hammedans early saw the policy of not disturbing an institution 
 so complete, and they availed themselves of the local influence of 
 these officers to reconcile their subjects to their rule." 
 
 Local action, and local combination, are everywhere conspicu 
 ous in the history of India. Having numerous rulers, some of 
 whom, to a certain extent, acknowledged the superiority of the 
 distant sovereign, the taxes required for the support of govern 
 ment were heavy, but being locally expended if the cultivator 
 contributed too large a portion of his grain, it was at least con 
 sumed in a neighboring market, and nothing went from off the 
 land. Manufactures, too, were widely spread, and thus was made 
 a demand for the labor not required in agriculture. " On the 
 coast of Coromandel," said Orme,* "and in the province of Ben 
 gal, when at some distance from a high road or principal town, it 
 is difficult to find a village in which every man, woman, and child 
 is not employed in making a piece of cloth. At present," he con 
 tinues, "much the greatest part of whole provinces are employed 
 in this single manufacture." Its progress, as he said, included 
 " no less than a description of the lives of half the inhabitants of 
 Hindostan." 
 
 While employment was thus locally subdivided, and neighbor 
 was thus enabled to exchange with neighbor, the exchanges be 
 tween the producers of food, or of salt, in one part of the coun 
 try, and the producers of cotton and manufacturers of cloth in 
 another, tended to the production of commerce with more distant 
 men whether within, or without, the limits of India itself. Ben 
 gal was celebrated for the finest muslins, the consumption of which 
 at Delhi, and in Northern India generally, was large ; while the 
 Coromandel coast was equally celebrated for the best chintzes 
 and calicoes leaving to Western India the manufacture of strong 
 and inferior goods of every kind. Under these circumstances, it 
 is no matter of surprise that the country was rich, and that its 
 people, though often over-taxed, and sometimes plundered by in 
 vading armies, were prosperous in a high degree. 
 
 * Historical Fragments, London, 1805, p. 409. 
 
340 CHAPTER XIII. 1. 
 
 From the date of the battle of Plassey, by the event of which 
 British power was established in India, centralization grew 
 rapidly, and, as usual in such cases, the country became filled 
 with adventurers, very many of whom were wholly without prin 
 ciple men whose sole object was that of the accumulation of 
 fortune by any means, however foul ; as is well known to all fami 
 liar with the indignant denunciations of Burke.* England was 
 thus enriched as India became impoverished, and as centraliza 
 tion became more and more established. 
 
 Step by step, the power of the Company was extended, and 
 everywhere was adopted the Hindoo principle, that the sovereign 
 as proprietor of the soil, and sole landlord was entitled to 
 one-half of the gross produce of the land. Under the earlier 
 Mohammedan sovereigns, this land tax, now designated as rent, 
 had been limited to a thirteenth, and from that to a sixth ; but in 
 the reign of Akbar (sixteenth century) it was fixed at one-third 
 numerous other taxes being then abolished. With the decline 
 and gradual dissolution of the empire, the local sovereigns had 
 not only increased it, but had also revived the taxes that had 
 been discontinued while instituting others of a most oppressive 
 kind all of which were continued by the Company while allow 
 ing no reduction of the rent.f Further, the Company having 
 a monopoly of trade could dictate the prices of all it had to 
 sell, as well as of all that it needed to buy ; and here was another 
 
 * " The country was laid waste with fire and sword, and that land distin 
 guished above most others by the cheerful face of fraternal government and 
 protected labor, the chosen seat of cultivation and plenty, is now almost 
 throughout a dreary desert covered with rushes and briers, and jungles full 
 of wild beasts." " That universal, systematic breach 
 
 of treaties, which had made the British faith proverbial in the East ! These 
 intended rebellions are one of the Company s standing resources. When 
 money has been thought to be hoarded up anywhere, its owners are univer 
 sally accused of rebellion, until they are acquitted of their money and their 
 treasons at once ! The money once taken, all accusation, trial, and punish 
 ment ends." Speech on Fox s East India Bill. 
 
 f "Wherever the British power supplanted that of the Mohammedans in 
 Bengal, we did not, it is true, adopt the sanguinary part of their creed ; but 
 from the impure fountain of their financial system did we, to our shame, 
 claim the inheritance to a right to seize upon half the gross produce of the 
 land as a tax ; and wherever our arms have triumphed, we have invariably 
 proclaimed this savage right : coupling it, at the same time, with the sense 
 less doctrine of the proprietary right to these lands being also vested in the 
 sovereign, in virtue of the right of conquest." EJCKARDS : India, vol. i. 
 p. 275. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MxlTTER IN PLACE. 341 
 
 and most oppressive tax, imposed for the benefit of absentee land 
 lords.* 
 
 With the farther extension of power, the demands on the Com 
 pany s treasury increased without an increase of means with which 
 to meet them exhaustion being a natural consequence of absen 
 teeism, or centralization ; as has so well been proved in Ireland. 
 The ability to pay taxes being in course of diminution, there was 
 thus produced a necessity for resorting to the creation of a sort 
 of landed aristocracy, that should be responsible to the govern 
 ment for their payment ; for which purpose the private rights of 
 the small proprietors were sacrificed in favor of the Zemindars, 
 hitherto mere officers of the crown. Become, now, great landed 
 proprietors, the latter were constituted masters of a host of poor 
 tenants, holding their lands at will, and liable to torture and 
 punishment of every kind, if they failed to pay a rent to whose 
 amount the only limit was found in deficiency of power to compel 
 its payment. The middleman system of Ireland, and of the West 
 Indies, was thus transplanted to India. 
 
 At first, however, it worked unfavorably to the Zemindars 
 themselves, the rents for which they had become bound being so 
 entirely out of proportion to the ability of the poor tenants, that 
 even torture could not compel their payment ; and but a few 
 years elapsed before they in turn were sold out, to make way for 
 another set, " as keen and as hard-hearted as they themselves had 
 been." That system having failed to answer the purpose, it was 
 next determined to arrest the extension of the permanent settle 
 ment, and to settle with each little ryot, or cultivator, to the 
 entire exclusion of the village authorities, by whom, under the 
 native governments, the taxes had uniformly been so equitably 
 
 * "The misgovernment of the English was carried to a point such as 
 seemed hardly compatible with the existence of society. They forced the 
 natives to buy dear and sell cheap. They insulted with impunity the tribu 
 nals, the police, and the fiscal authorities of the country. Enormous for 
 tunes were thus rapidly accumulated at Calcutta, while 30,000,000 of human 
 beings were reduced to the extremity of wretchedness. They had been ac 
 customed to live under tyranny, but never under tyranny like this. They 
 found the little finger of the Company thicker than Surajah Dowlah s loins. 
 Under their old masters, they had at least one resource : when the evil be 
 came insupportable, the people rose and pulled down the government. But 
 the English government was not to be so shaken off. That government, 
 oppressive as the most oppressive form of barbarian despotism, was strong 
 with all the strength of civilization. It resembled the government of evil 
 genii, rather than the government of human tyrants." Macaulay 
 
342 CHAPTER XIII. 1. 
 
 distributed. The perfectly centralized ryotwar system was thus 
 established, and how it has operated may be judged from the fol 
 lowing sketch, presented by Mr. Fullerton, a member of the 
 Council at Madras : 
 
 " Imagine the revenue leviable through the agency of one hun 
 dred thousand revenue officers, collected or remitted at their dis 
 cretion, according to the occupant s means of paying, whether 
 from the produce of his land or his separate property ; and in 
 order to encourage every man to act as a spy on his neighbor, 
 and report his means of paying, that he may eventually save him 
 self from extra demand, imagine all the cultivators of a village 
 liable at all times to a separate demand, in order to make up for 
 the failure of one or more individuals of the parish. Imagine 
 collectors to every county, acting under the orders of a board, on 
 the avowed principle of destroying all competition for labor by a 
 general equalization of assessment, seizing and sending back run 
 aways to each other. And, lastly, imagine the collector the sole 
 magistrate or justice of the peace of the county, through the me 
 dium and instrumentality of whom alone any criminal complaint 
 of personal grievance suffered by the subject can reach the supe 
 rior courts. Imagine, at the same time, every subordinate officer 
 employed in the collection of the land revenue to be a police offi 
 cer, vested with the power to fine, confine, put in the stocks, and 
 flog any inhabitant within his range, on any charge, without oath 
 of the accuser or sworn recorded evidence of the case."* 
 
 Under such a system, there could be no circulation no 
 commerce ; and, without that, there could be neither force nor 
 progress. Exert himself as he might, the poor cultivator found 
 that the profits of his exertion were required for the benefit of the 
 Company s treasury an increase of rent at once being claimed 
 whenever increase of products had been obtained. In some dis 
 tricts, the government s share is stated to have been no less than 
 sixty or seventy per cent, of the whole ; and yet, to this were fur 
 ther added, taxes upon all the machinery in use requiring 
 interferences of the most inquisitorial kind, and forbidding all 
 improvement. In settling the taxes paid by looms, it was 
 required that the weaver should report how many children he 
 had, and what assistance they rendered him ; and the more they 
 * Quoted in Thompson s Lectures on India, p. 61. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 343 
 
 all exerted themselves, the higher became the amount of contri 
 bution.* 
 
 The oil-mill, the potter s kiln, the goldsmith s tools, the saw 
 yer s saw, the blacksmith s anvil, the carpenter s tools, the cotton- 
 beater s bow, the weaver s loom, and the fisherman s boat all 
 were taxed. No machinery of any description was allowed to 
 escape ; and to guard against the employment of untaxed labor, 
 either in cultivation or manufactures, large allowances were made 
 to informers, with a view to induce those who did not desire to 
 work to become spies on those who did and this system is still 
 in force. \ 
 
 2. The tendency thus far has been, as we see, to sweep away 
 the rights not only of kings and princes, but of all the native 
 authorities, and to centralize in the hands of foreigners in Cal 
 cutta the power to determine for the cultivator, the artisan, or the 
 laborer, what work he should do, and how much of its products 
 he might retain thus placing the latter in precisely the position 
 of a mere slave to people who having no interest in him but 
 simply as a tax-payer were represented by strangers in the 
 country, whose authority was everywhere used by the native offi 
 cers in their employ, to enable them to amass fortunes for them 
 selves. 
 
 The poor manufacturer, as heavily taxed as the cultivator of 
 the earth, found himself compelled to obtain advances from his 
 employers, who, in their turn, claimed, as interest, a large pro 
 portion of the little profit that was made. The Company s 
 agents, like the native merchants, advanced the funds necessary to 
 produce the goods required for Europe ; and the poor workmen 
 are described as having been "in a state of dependence almost 
 amounting to servitude, enabling the resident to obtain his labor 
 at his own price. "J 
 
 Further taxes were collected, at local custom-houses, on all 
 
 * RICKARDS : India, vol. i. p. 500. 
 
 j- " Fifty per cent, on the assessment is allowed as a reward to any infor 
 mer of concealed cultivation, &c. ; and it is stated that there are, in almost 
 every village, dismissed accountants desirous of being re-employed, and un 
 employed servants who wish to bring themselves to notice, whose services 
 as informers can be relied on." CAMPBELL: Modern India, London, 1852, 
 p. 356. 
 
 J BAINES : History of the Cotton Manufacture. 
 
344 CHAPTER XIII. 2. 
 
 exchanges between the several parts of the country ; and to these 
 were again added others imposed by means of monopolies of 
 opium and tobacco ; as well as of salt, one of the most import 
 ant necessaries of life. The manufacture of coarse salt from the 
 earth was strictly prohibited.* The salt lakes of the upper 
 country furnish a supply so great that it is of little value on the 
 spot ;f but they being even yet in the possession of native princes, 
 the monopoly could then, and can now, be maintained only by aid 
 of strong bands of revenue officers, whose presence renders that 
 which is almost worthless on one side of an imaginary line so 
 valuable on the other, that it requires the produce of the sixth 
 part of the year s labor to enable the poor Hindoo to purchase 
 salt for his family. Along the sea-shore, it is abundantly fur 
 nished by nature the solar heat causing its constant deposition ; 
 but the mere fact of its collection was constituted an offence pun 
 ishable by fine and imprisonment ; and the quantity collected by 
 the Company s officers was limited to that required for meeting 
 the demand at a monopoly price all the remainder being regu 
 larly destroyed, lest the poor ryot should succeed in obtaining for 
 himself, at cost, such a supply as was needed to render palatable 
 the rice which constituted almost his only food. The system has 
 since been rendered less oppressive, but the mere money tax, even 
 now, is ten times greater than it was under enlightened Moham 
 medan sovereigns | but, if we add to this that the poor ryot is 
 forced to waste the labor that might be employed in collecting 
 the salt his family requires to consume, it will be seen that the 
 loss in this single case is enormous in amount. 
 
 Under the native princes, the produce of taxation was locally 
 expended producing a demand for commodities, or services, at 
 home ; but, under the centralized system that now exists, it is 
 required to go abroad, to be employed in purchasing the services, 
 or paying the dividends, of distant people ; and thus is the real 
 weight of taxation almost indefinitely increased by the destruction 
 of the power of association and combination. Commerce is, thus, 
 everywhere sacrificed to trade. 
 
 * CAMPBELL: Modern India, p. 382. f Ibid. p. 381. J Ibid. p. 105. 
 
 % The difference between an absentee landlord expending at a distance all 
 his rents, and a resident one distributing them again among his tenants in ex 
 change for services, and the difference in the value of the products of the 
 land resulting from proximity to market, are so well exhibited in the follow- 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 345 
 
 3. Cotton abounded ; and to so great an extent, half a cen 
 tury since, was the labor of men, women, and children applied to 
 its conversion into cloth, that, even with their imperfect machi 
 nery, they not only supplied the home demand for the beautiful 
 
 ing passage from a recent work on India, that the reader cannot fail to profit 
 by its perusal : 
 
 "The great part of the wheat, grain, and other exportable land produce 
 which the people consume, as far as we have yet come, is drawn from our 
 Nerbudda districts, and those of Malwa which border upon them ; and, par 
 consequent, the price has been rapidly increasing as we recede from them in 
 our advance northward. Were the soil of those Nerbudda districts, situated 
 as they are at such a distance from any great market for their agricultural 
 products, as bad as it is in the parts of Bundelcund that I came over, no net 
 surplus revenue could possibly be drawn from them in the present state of 
 arts and industry. The high prices paid here for land produce, arising from 
 the necessity of drawing a great part of what is consumed from such distant 
 lands, enables the rajahs of these Bundelcund states to draw the large reve 
 nue they do. These chiefs expend the whole of their revenue in the main 
 tenance of public establishments of one kind or other ; and as the essential 
 articles of subsistence, wheat and grain, &c., which are produced in their 
 own districts, or those immediately around them, are not sufficient for the 
 supply of these establishments, they must draw them from distant territories. 
 All this produce is brought on the backs of bullocks, because there is no road 
 from the districts whence they obtain it over which a wheeled carriage can 
 be drawn with safety ; and, as this mode of transit is very expensive, the 
 price of the produce, when it reaches the capitals, around which these local 
 establishments are concentrated, becomes very high. They must pay a price 
 equal to the collective cost of purchasing and bringing this substance from 
 the most distant districts to which they are at any time obliged to have re 
 course for a supply, or they will not be supplied ; and as there cannot be 
 two prices for the same thing in the same market, the wheat and grain pro 
 duced in the neighborhood of one of these Bundelcund capitals fetch as high 
 a price there as that brought from the most remote districts on the banks of 
 the Nerbudda river ; while it costs comparatively nothing to bring it from 
 the former lands to the markets. Such lands, in consequence, yield a rate 
 of rent much greater compared with their natural powers of fertility than 
 those of the remote districts whence produce is drawn for these markets or 
 capitals ; and as all the lands are the property of the rajahs, they draw all 
 these rents as revenue. 
 
 " Were we to take this revenue, which the rajahs now enjoy, in tribute for 
 the maintenance of public establishments concentrated at distant seats, all 
 these local establishments would of course be at once disbanded ; and all the 
 eifectual demand which they afford for the raw agricultural produce of dis 
 tant districts would cease. The price of the produce would diminish in pro 
 portion ; and with it the value of the lands of the districts around such capi 
 tals. Hence the folly of conquerors and paramount powers, from the days 
 of the Greeks and Romans down to those of Lord Hastings and Sir John 
 Malcolm, who were all bad political economists, in supposing that conquered 
 and ceded territories could always be made to yield to a foreign state the 
 same amount of gross revenue they had paid to their domestic government, 
 whatever their situation with reference to the markets for their produce 
 whatever the state of the arts and their industry and whatever the charac 
 ter and extent of the local establishments maintained out of it. The settle 
 ments of the land revenue in all the territories acquired in Central India 
 
 VOL. I. 23 
 
346 CHAPTER XIII. 3. 
 
 tissues of Dacca and the coarse products of Western India, but 
 exported to other parts of the world no less than 200,000,000 of 
 pounds of cloth per annum. Exchanges with every part of the 
 world were so greatly in their favor, that a rupee, which would 
 now sell for but Is. 10d, or 44 cents, was then worth 2s. Sd. } or 
 64 cents. The Company had a monopoly of collecting taxes in 
 India, but, in return therefor, it preserved to the people the con 
 trol of their domestic market, by aid of which they were enabled 
 
 during the Mahratta war, which ended in 1817, were made upon the suppo 
 sition that the lands would continue to pay the same rate of rent under the 
 new, as they had paid under the old, government, uninfluenced by the dimi 
 nution of all local establishments, civil and military, to one-tenth of what 
 they had been ; that, under the new order of things, all the waste lands 
 must be brought into tillage ; and be able to pay as high a rate of rent as 
 before tillage ; and, consequently, that the aggregate available net revenue 
 must greatly and rapidly increase! Those who had the making of the settle 
 ments, and the governing of these new territories, did not consider that the 
 diminution of every establishment was the removal of ^market of an effectual 
 demand for land produce ; and that when all the waste lands should be 
 brought into tillage, the whole would deteriorate in fertility, from the want 
 of fallows, under the prevailing system of agriculture, which afforded the 
 lands no other means of renovation from over-cropping. The settlements 
 of the land revenue which were made throughout our new acquisitions upon 
 these fallacious assumptions, of course failed. During a series of quinquen 
 nial settlements, the assessment has been everywhere gradually reduced to 
 about two-thirds of what it was when our rule began ; and to less than one- 
 half of what Sir John Malcolm, and all the other local authorities, and even 
 the worthy Marquis of Hastings himself, under the influence of their opi 
 nions, expected it would be. The land revenues of the native princes of 
 Central India, who reduced their public establishments, which the new 
 order of things seemed to reader useless, and thereby diminished their only 
 markets for the raw produce of their lands, have been everywhere falling 
 off in the same proportion ; and scarcely one of them now draws two-thirds 
 of the income he drew from the same lands in 1817. 
 
 " There are, in the valley of the Nerbudda, districts that yield a great 
 deal more produce every year than either Orcha, Jansee, or Duteea ; and 
 yet, from the want of the same domestic markets, they do not yield one- 
 fourth of the amount of land revenue. The lands are, however, rated 
 equally high to the assessment, in proportion to their value to the farmers 
 and cultivators. To enable them to yield a larger revenue to the govern 
 ment, they require to have larger establishments as markets for land pro 
 duce. These establishments may be either public, and paid by government, 
 or they may be private, as manufactories, by which the land produce of 
 these districts would be consumed by people employed in investing the value 
 of their labor in commodities suited to the demand of distant markets, and 
 more valuable than land produce in proportion to their weight and bulk. 
 These are the establishments Avhich government should exert itself to intro 
 duce and foster, since the valley of the Nerbudda, in addition to a soil 
 exceedingly fertile, has, in its whole line from its source to its embouchure, 
 rich beds of coal reposing, for the use of future generations, under the sand 
 stone of the Sathpore and Vindhya ranges ; and beds no less rich of very 
 fine iron. These advantages have not yet been justly appreciated ; but they 
 will be so by-and-by." SLEEMAN : Rambles in India, vol. i. p. 296. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 34t 
 
 to conrert their rice, their salt, and their cotton into cloth that 
 could be cheaply carried to the most distant countries. Such 
 protection was required, because, while England prohibited the 
 export of even a single collier who might instruct the people of 
 India in the mode of mining coal of a steam-engine to pump 
 water, or raise their coal, or a mechanic who could make one 
 of a worker in iron who might smelt the ore such vast bodies of 
 which exist of a spinning-jenny, or power -loom or, of an arti 
 san who could give instruction in the use of such machines ; and 
 thus systematically prevented them from acquiring control over 
 the great forces of nature she at the same time imposed very 
 heavy duties on the produce of Indian looms received in England. 
 The day was at hand, however, when that protection was to dis 
 appear. The Company did not, it was said, export sufficiently 
 largely of the produce of British industry; and in 1813 the trade 
 to India was thrown open but the restriction on the export of 
 machinery and artisans was maintained in full force ; and thus 
 were the poor and ignorant people of that country exposed to 
 competition with a community possessed of machinery greatly more 
 effective than their own ; while not only by law deprived of the 
 power to purchase machinery, but also of the power of competing 
 in the British market with the produce of British looms. Further 
 than this, every loom in India, and every machine calculated to 
 aid the laborer, was subject to a tax increasing in amount with 
 every increase in the industry of its owner, and generally absorb 
 ing all the profit resulting from its use.* Such were the circum- 
 
 * The following humble petition of the unfortunate natives exhibits in 
 full force the character of the system : 
 
 "CALCUTTA, September 1, 1831. 
 " To the Right Honorable the Lords of His Majesty s Privy Council for 
 
 Trade, &c. 
 
 " The humble Petition of the undersigned Manufacturers and Dealers in 
 Cotton and Silk Piece Goods, the fabrics of Bengal ; 
 
 " SHOWETH That of late years your Petitioners have found their business 
 nearly superseded by the introduction of the fabrics of Great Britain into 
 Bengal, the importation of which augments every year, to the great preju 
 dice of the native manufacturers. 
 
 "That the fabrics of Great Britain are consumed in Bengal, without any 
 duties being levied thereon to protect the native fabrics. 
 
 "That the fabrics of Bengal are charged with the following duties when 
 they are used in Great Britain : 
 
 "On manufactured cottons, 10 per cent. 
 "On manufactured silks, 24 per cent. 
 " Your Petitioners most humbly implore your Lordships consideration of 
 
348 CHAPTER XIII. 3. 
 
 stances under which the poor Hindoo was called upon to meet 
 unprotected, the "unlimited competition" of foreigners in his 
 own market. Four years afterwards, the export of cottons from 
 Bengal still amounted to 1,659,994 ; but ten years later, it had 
 declined to 285,121 ; and at the end of twenty years we find a 
 whole year to have passed by without the export of a single piece 
 of cotton cloth from that country and thus did commerce perish 
 under the oppressive demands of trade. 
 
 When the export of cotton, woollen, steam, and all other ma 
 chinery was prohibited, it was done with a view to compelling all 
 the wool of the world to come to England to be spun and woven, 
 thence to be returned to be worn by those who had raised it 
 thus depriving all other nations of the power to apply their labor 
 except in taking from the earth cotton, sugar, indigo, and other 
 commodities, for the supply of the great "workshop of the 
 world." How effectually that object has been accomplished in 
 India, will be seen from the following facts : From the date of 
 the opening of the trade, in 1813, the domestic manufacture, and 
 the export of cloth, have gradually declined, until the latter has 
 finally ceased ; and the export of raw cotton to England has gra 
 dually risen until it had, six years since, attained a height of 
 about sixty millions of pounds,* while the import of twist from 
 England had risen to twenty-five millions of pounds, and of cloth, 
 to two hundred and sixty millions of yards, weighing probably 
 
 these circumstances, and they feel confident that no disposition exists in 
 England to shut the door against the industry of any part of the inhabitants 
 of this great empire. 
 
 "They therefore pray to be admitted to the privilege of British subjects, 
 and humbly entreat" your Lordships to allow the cotton and silk fabrics of 
 Bengal to be used in Great Britain free of duty, or at the same rate which 
 may be charged on British fabrics consumed in Bengal. 
 
 " Your Lordships must be aware of the immense advantages the British 
 manufacturers derive from their skill in constructing and using machinery, 
 whioh enables them to undersell the unscientific manufacturers of Bengal in 
 their own country ; and, although your Petitioners are not sanguine in ex 
 pecting to derive any great advantage from having their prayer granted, 
 their minds would feel gratified by such a manifestation of your Lordships 
 good-will toward them ; and such an instance of justice to the natives of India 
 would not fail to endear the British government to them. 
 
 "They therefore confidently trust that your Lordships righteous conside 
 ration will be extended to them as British subjects, without exception of sect, 
 country, or color. 
 
 "And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray." 
 [Signed by 117 natives of high respectability.] 
 
 * CHAPMAN: Cotton and Commerce of India, London, 1851. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 349 
 
 fifty millions of pounds, which, added to the twist, make seventy- 
 five millions requiring for their production somewhat more than 
 eighty millions of raw cotton. We see thus that every pound of 
 the raw material sent to England is returned. The cultivator 
 receives for it one penny, and pays for it, when returned in the 
 form of cloth, from one to two shillings the whole difference 
 being absorbed in the payment of the numerous brokers, trans 
 porters, manufacturers, and operatives of all descriptions, that 
 have thus been interposed between the producer and the con 
 sumer. 
 
 The power of consumption is consequently small ; and the 
 great domestic seats of manufacture, at which men, women, and 
 children were accustomed to combine their labors, have disap 
 peared. Dacca, one of the principal seats of the cotton manufac 
 ture, contained 90,000 houses, but its splendid buildings, facto 
 ries, and churches are now a mass of ruins, and overgrown with 
 jungle. The cotton of the district found itself compelled to go 
 to England, that it might there be twisted and sent back again 
 thus performing a voyage of twenty thousand miles in search of 
 the little spindle ; because it was a part of the British policy not 
 to permit the spindle, anywhere, to take its place by the side of 
 the cultivator of cotton. 
 
 The change thus effected has been shown, in official documents, 
 to have been attended with ruin and distress, to which "no paral 
 lel can be found in the annals of commerce." What were the 
 means by which it was effected is shown in the fact that, at the 
 time at which it was being accomplished, Sir Robert Peel stated 
 that, in Lancashire, children were employed fifteen and seven 
 teen hours per day, during the week ; and on Sunday morning, 
 from six until twelve, in cleaning the machinery. In Coventry, 
 ninety-six hours in the week was the time usually required ; and 
 of those employed, many obtained but 2s. 9cZ. 66 cents as tho 
 wages of a week. The object to be accomplished was that of 
 underworking the poor Hindoo, and driving him from the mar 
 ket of the world ; after which he was to be driven from his own. 
 
 The mode of accomplishment was that of cheapening labor the 
 
 laborer, according to modern doctrines, being only an instrument 
 to be used by trade. 
 
 With the decline of Indian manufactures, the demand for the 
 
350 CHAPTER XIII. 3. 
 
 services of women or children has ceased, and they are forced either 
 to remain idle, or to seek employment in the field ; and here we 
 have one of the distinguishing marks of a retrocession towards 
 slavery and barbarism. The men, too, who had been accustomed 
 to fill up the intervals of other employments in pursuits connected 
 with the cotton manufacture, were also driven to the field all 
 demand for labor, physical or intellectual, being at an end, ex 
 cept so far as it was required for raising indigo, sugar, cotton, or 
 rice. This last they were not permitted even to clean, having 
 been debarred therefrom by a duty twice greater than that which 
 was paid on paddy, or rough rice, on its import into England. 
 The cotton-grower, after paying to the government seventy-eight 
 per cent.* of the product of his labor, found himself deprived of 
 the power to trade directly with the man of the loom, and forced 
 into "unlimited competition" with the better machinery and 
 almost untaxed labor of our Southern States thus being sub 
 jected to "the mysterious variations of foreign markets," in 
 which the fever of speculation was followed by the chill of revul 
 sion, and with a rapidity and frequency that set at naught all 
 calculation. If American crops were small, his English custo 
 mers would take his cotton ; but if they were large, the Indian 
 article became a mere drug in the market. To such an extent 
 was this the case, that, on one occasion, as was stated in the 
 House of Commons, a Mr. Turner, unable to find a purchaser, 
 threw upon the dunghill cotton that had cost him tOOO. 
 
 With every increase in the necessity for effecting changes of 
 place, the motion of society or commerce diminishes ; and the 
 less that motion, the greater must be the quantity of labor and its 
 products pressing on the market, to the advantage of those who 
 live by appropriation, and to the destruction of the value of land 
 and labor. The direct effects of the system above described hav 
 ing been that of destroying commerce and diminishing the demand 
 for the laborer s services, they, in their turn, were followed by 
 
 * " Taking the last six of the thirteen years, the price of cotton was 2d. 
 a pound, and if the produce of a beegah was 6s. 6d., of this the govern 
 ment took sixty-eight per cent, of the gross produce ; and, taking the two 
 years 1841 and 1842, cotton was Ifrf. a pound, and the produce of a beegah 
 was 5s. Sd. On this the assessment was actually equal to seventy-eight per 
 cent, on the gross produce of the land." Speech of Mr. Bright in the House 
 of Commons. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 351 
 
 diminution of his power to make demand for cloth, attended, neces 
 sarily, by increase in the quantity of cotton for which a foreign 
 market was required. The more these effects were produced, the 
 lower became the price of cotton ; and thus was realized the effect 
 of an almost total annihilation of the value of agricultural labor, 
 as a consequence of measures adopted with a view to compel the 
 whole people to look to agriculture alone for the means of sup 
 porting life. Further, while the price of cotton has thus been 
 rendered wholly dependent upon the market of England, there, 
 too, is fixed the price of cloth the consequences of which are 
 seen in the facts, that this whole people has become a mere instru 
 ment to be used by trade, and that in India, as in Ireland, Por 
 tugal, Turkey, and the West Indies, may, in most abundance, be 
 found the data upon which to rest the doctrine of over-population. 
 
 4. The poor ryot pays, as we see, twelve, fifteen, or twenty 
 pence for the pound of cotton that had yielded him but a single 
 penny ; and all this difference is paid for the services of others, 
 while he, himself, is unemployed. "A great part of the time 
 of the laboring population in India is," says Mr. Chapman, 
 "spent in idleness. I," as he continues, "don t say this to 
 blame them in the smallest degree. Without the means of ex 
 porting heavy and crude surplus agricultural produce, and with 
 scanty means, whether of capital, science, or manual skill, for ela 
 borating on the spot articles fitted to induce a higher state of 
 enjoyment and of industry in the mass of the people, they have 
 really no inducement to exertion beyond that which is necessary 
 to gratify their present and very limited wishes : those wishes are 
 unnaturally low, inasmuch as they do not afford the needful sti 
 mulus to the exercise requisite to intellectual and moral improve 
 ment ; and it is obvious that there is no remedy for this but 
 extended intercourse. Meanwhile, probably the half of the human 
 time and energy of India runs to mere waste. Surely, we need 
 not wonder at the poverty of the country."* 
 
 " Half the human time and energy," as we are here told, "runs 
 
 to waste, but the author of this passage might have gone much 
 
 further, and yet been far within the truth. Where there is no 
 
 commerce, and men are, consequently, forced to depend on the 
 
 * CHAPMAX: Cotton and Commerce of India, p. 110. 
 
352 CHAPTER XIII. 4. 
 
 distant trade, nine-tenths of the physical and mental efforts of a 
 community " run to waste ;" and therefore it is that not only does 
 capital not accumulate, but the accumulations of past times are 
 then in course of daily diminution. With the decline in the 
 power to maintain commerce, there is a daily increase in the 
 necessity for resorting to the distant market, but with every such 
 increase the commodities requiring to be transported increase in 
 bulk and decline in value ; and therefore it is, that the trader and 
 transporter are enabled to take for themselves a constantly increas 
 ing proportion of a diminished product leaving a constantly 
 diminishing one for the cultivator. Their cotton and their food 
 travelled readily to all portions of the world in the form of cloth, 
 and they then consumed liberally of clothing ; but now, when 
 their raw cotton, their rice, and their sugar, have to go abroad 
 in their rudest shapes, the quantity of finished commodities they 
 have the power to pay for is so small, that the price paid for their 
 transportation scarcely enters into the compensation of the men, 
 oxen, wagons, and ships, required for the work. Nearly the 
 whole burden of the double voyage is therefore borne by the raw 
 material ; and, as in Turkey, Portugal, Ireland, and all other 
 agricultural countries, the difficulty of making new roads, or of 
 maintaining old ones, increases from year to year. 
 
 From important cotton districts, transportation is effected at 
 the rate of seven miles per day, and requires more than a hundred 
 days ; and if the " herd of bullocks is overtaken by rain, the cot 
 ton, saturated by moisture, becomes heavy, and the black clayey 
 soil, through which lies the whole line of road, sinks under the 
 feet of a man above the ankle, and under that of a laden ox to 
 the knees. In this predicament the cargo of cotton lies sometimes 
 for weeks on the ground, and the merchant is ruined."* 
 
 "So miserably bad," says another writer, "are the existing 
 means of communication with the interior, that many of the most 
 valuable articles of produce are, for want of carriage and a mar 
 ket, often allowed to perish on the farm, while the cost of that 
 which found its way to the port was enormously enhanced ; but 
 the quantity did not amount to above twenty per cent, of the 
 whole of the produce, the remainder of the articles always being 
 greatly deteriorated." 
 
 * London Economist. 
 
OP CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 353 
 
 Such being the modes of transportation, we can readily under 
 stand why it is that cotton yields its cultivator but a penny a 
 pound and why, too, it is, that the producer of the more bulky 
 food is in a condition that is even worse, now that the consumer 
 has disappeared from his side. When the crop is large, scarcely 
 any price can be obtained for grain ;* and when it is small, the 
 people perish, by thousands and tens of thousands, of famine, 
 because, in the existing state of the roads, there can be little or 
 no exchange of the rude products of the earth. 
 
 5. The state of things above described, results necessarily 
 from the maintenance of a system which looks to the annihilation 
 of commerce through the exclusion of the great middle class of 
 mechanics and working-men ; and which thus resolves a great 
 nation into a mass of wretched cultivators on the one hand, and 
 grasping money-lenders on the other. The chain of society is, 
 here, totally destitute of the connecting links, as a consequence 
 of which there is neither motion nor force. Capital being 
 wasted weekly to an amount greater than the annual value of the 
 goods imported, there can be no accumulation. "None," says 
 Colonel Sleeman,f have stock equal to half their rent." They 
 are dependent, everywhere, on the produce of the year, and how 
 ever small may be its amount, the taxes must be paid ; and, of all 
 that thus goes abroad, nothing is returned. The soil gets no 
 thing, J and, as the condition upon which the earth makes her 
 loans to man is daily, hourly, and universally violated, no sur 
 prise need be felt on reading, in Colonel Sleeman s interesting 
 volumes, the numerous evidences he has furnished of the growing 
 infertility of the land. 
 
 The works constructed in former times, for the purposes of irri 
 gation, have been allowed to go to ruin, and the richest lands 
 are being abandoned. Even in the valley of the Ganges, not a 
 third of the cultivable lands is, says Mr. Chapman, under cultiva 
 tion ; || while elsewhere he tells his readers, that of the cultivable 
 
 * "In 1846 or 1847, the collector was obliged to grant remission of land 
 tax, because the abundance of former years lay stagnating in the province, 
 and the low prices of grain from that cause prevented the ryots from being 
 able to pay their fixed land assessment. " CHAPMAN: Cotton and Commerce 
 of India, p. 97. 
 
 f Rumbles in India, vol. i. p. 205. J Ibid. p. 268. 
 
 I CHAPMAN : Cotton and Commerce of India, p. 97. || Ibid. p. 22. 
 
354 CHAPTER XIII. 5. 
 
 surface of all India, one-half is waste.* In the Madras presi 
 dency, not one-fifth of the land is cultivated ;f and yet famines 
 are of constant occurrence, and of a severity known in no other 
 portion of the world, while labor and land abound for which no 
 employment can be obtained. The site of the so recently great 
 manufacturing city of Dacca, presented to the view of Bishop 
 Heber but an "impenetrable jungle ;" and it is as a necessary 
 result of this, that East Indian journals are required to remind 
 their readers of the millions of acres of rich lands that might be 
 made to yield cotton that now are lying waste. Look to what 
 quarter we may of that magnificent country, we meet with evi 
 dence of declining individuality and diminished power of combi 
 nation, accompanied by daily increasing centralization, of which 
 the annexation of Oude affords the most striking of all the late 
 examples J and centralization, slavery, and death travel always 
 together, whether in the material or the moral world. 
 
 When population and wealth diminish, the rich soils are first 
 abandoned, as is shown in the Campagna of Rome, in the valley 
 of Mexico, and in the deltas of the Ganges and the Nile. With 
 out combination of eifort, they could never have been brought 
 under cultivation, and their present abandonment is but the evi 
 dence of the disappearance of the power of association and com 
 bination. Driven back to the poor soils, and forced to send abroad 
 the product, the wretched Hindoo becomes poorer from day to 
 day, and the less he obtains, the more does he become a slave to 
 the caprices of his landlord ; and the more is he thrown upon the 
 mercy of the money-lender, who lends on good security at three 
 
 * Cotton and Commerce of India, p. 25. 
 
 f "If a ryot sunk a well, his rent was raised; if he cut a small canal, it 
 was nearly doubled. There was, therefore, no possibility of improvement. 
 Moreover, the land being divided among cottiers whose only capital was their 
 labor, two bad seasons reduced them to the verge of starvation. In such 
 cases, the whole revenue was occasionally lost in remissions. Of course, 
 nobody ever grew rich, and in all the presidency there are probably not ten 
 farmers worth 1000. The area of cultivation is only one-fifth the area of 
 the presidency, and shows no tendency to increase." London Times. 
 
 t Hitherto, the proceeds of the taxation of the people of Oude have been, 
 to a considerable extent, locally expended ; and have aided in making a 
 demand for labor and its products. Now, they are to be transferred to Cal 
 cutta, and are likely to add, as we are told, two millions of pounds to the 
 Company s revenue. Taxation, when its proceeds are locally expended, is 
 but a question of distribution. When not so expended, it is a question 
 of exhaustion. Ten millions, in the one case, would not work as large an 
 amount of ruin, as one in the other. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 355 
 
 per cent, per month, but /row- him must have fifty or a hundred 
 per cent, for a loan until harvest. That, under such circum 
 stances, the wages of labor are very low, even where the wretched 
 people are employed, is only what might naturally be expected. 
 In some places, the laborer has two, and in others three, rupees, 
 or less than a dollar and a half, per month. The officers employed 
 on the great zemindary estates have from three to four rupees, and 
 the police receive but forty-eight rupees ($23) per annum, out of 
 which they supply themselves with food and clothing ! Such are 
 the rewards of labor in a country possessing every conceivable means 
 of accumulating wealth ; and they become less from year to year. * 
 
 6. Throughout the world, and in all ages, the advance 
 towards civilization having been in the ratio of the tendency 
 towards local activity, and towards the development of individual 
 faculty, and the system now under consideration looking to re 
 sults directly the reverse of this, we might reasonably expect to 
 find, at every step, an increasing tendency in the reverse direction. 
 Growing civilization is marked by increased security of person 
 and property, and that increase is found as we pass from the old 
 possessions of the Company, and towards the newly-acquired 
 ones.f Crime of every kind, gang robbery, perjury, and forgery, 
 abound in Bengal and Madras, and the poverty of the cultivator 
 
 * " The Court of Directors inform us that there has been a diminution in 
 the total receipts from land in the old provinces of Bengal since 184344; 
 and certainly no one can be surprised to hear it. In the Madras presidency 
 the people are wretchedly poor, the land of little value, and cultivation kept 
 up only by forced methods, the inhabitants being unwilling to cultivate it on 
 any terms. In Bombay, the receipts have fallen off, and the country gene 
 rally, we are told, is not prosperous. From a member in the council of 
 that presidency we learn that India is verging to the lowest ebb of pauper 
 ism; and that the payments to government are made by the inhabitants 
 pawning or selling their personal ornaments, and even their cattle, furni 
 ture, and tools ; that is, the capital of the country is encroached upon to 
 pay the taxes. It was the same officer who told a parliamentary committee, 
 five years since, that the condition of the cultivators in India was greatly 
 depressed, and, he feared, declining. The aristocracy among the natives 
 are sinking out of sight, the race of native gentry has almost everywhere 
 disappeared, and the peasantry are becoming reckless through ruin. Every 
 few years a famine occurs ; and government spends, in hopeless efforts to 
 keep the people alive, the money which would have made roads to the gra 
 naries, to the ports, and to the surplus of happier provinces. Where food 
 should have been passing, in exchange for other commodities, the way was 
 strewn with the gaunt corpses of half millions of people starved to death." 
 London Daily News. 
 
 f See Campbell s Modern India, chap. xi. 
 
35 G CHAPTER XIII. 6. 
 
 is so extreme, that the revenue is there the least, and is col 
 lected with the greatest difficulty ; and there, too, it is that the 
 power of association has been most effectually annihilated. Pass 
 ing to the northwestern provinces, more recently acquired, person 
 and property become comparatively secure, and the revenue in 
 creases ; but when we reach the Punjab until recently subject to 
 the rule of Runjeet Singh and his successors we find that, tyrants 
 as he and they have been represented, the village communities, and 
 the beautiful system of association, have remained untouched. Offi 
 cers of all kinds are there more responsible for the performance of 
 their duties than are their fellows in the older provinces, and pro 
 perty and person are more secure than in any other part of India. 
 Gang robbery is rare, perjury is unfrequent, and, as Mr, Camp 
 bell assures his readers, a solemn oath is " astonishingly binding." 
 "The longer we possess a province," he continues, "the more 
 common and general does perjury become; "and the stronger, 
 consequently, becomes the evidence of the fact that the feeling of 
 responsibility towards God and man declines with the decline of 
 individuality and the diminution of the power of association. 
 That feeling grows, everywhere, with the growth of the power 
 to maintain commerce, and it declines, everywhere, as man is 
 made the mere instrument to be used by trade. The " hill tribes" 
 of India are remarkable for their "strict veracity," "as little 
 falsehood" being, says Colonel Sleeman, "spoken in the village 
 communities," as in any other part of the world with equal area 
 and population.* 
 
 In the newly-acquired provinces, the people read and write 
 with facility, and they are men of physical and moral energy, 
 good cultivators and understanding well both their rights and 
 their duties ; whereas from the older ones education has disap 
 peared, and, with it, all power to associate together for any use 
 ful purpose. In the new provinces, commerce is large, as is 
 shown by the following facts, representing the population and 
 post-office revenue of Bengal, the N. W. Provinces and the Pun 
 jab, placed in the order of their acquisition by the Company : 
 
 Population. Post-office revenue. 
 
 Bengal 41,000,000 480,500 rupees. 
 
 N. W. Provinces... 24,000,000 978,000 " 
 
 Punjab 8,000,000 178,000 
 
 * Rambles in India, vol. ii. p. 109. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 357 
 
 We have here presented the remarkable fact, that, in the coun 
 try of the Sikhs, so long represented as a scene of grasping 
 tyranny, eight millions pay as much postage as is paid by fifteen 
 millions in Bengal, although in the latter we find Calcutta, the 
 seat of all the operations of a great centralized government. That 
 such should be the case is not extraordinary, for the power advan 
 tageously to employ labor diminishes with the approach to the 
 centre of British power, and increases as we recede from it. 
 Idleness and drunkenness go hand in hand with each other, and 
 therefore it is that Mr. Campbell finds himself obliged to state 
 that " intemperance increases where our rule and system has been 
 long established ;"* while Captain Westmacott tells his readers 
 that in places the longest under our rule, there is the largest 
 amount of depravity and crime." 
 
 Calcutta grows, the city of palaces, but poverty and wretched 
 ness grow as commerce is more and more sacrificed for the pro 
 motion of the interests of trade. Under the native rule, the people 
 of each little district could exchange with each other giving 
 food for cotton, or cotton cloth, paying nobody for the privilege. 
 Now, every man must send his cotton to Calcutta, thence to go 
 to England with the rice and the indigo of his neighbors before 
 he and they can exchange food for cloth, or cotton ; and the 
 larger the quantity they send, the greater is the tendency to de 
 cline in price. Centralization grows daily, and every stage of its 
 growth is marked by increased inability to pay the taxes, and 
 increased necessity for seeking new markets in which to sell cloth 
 and collect what are called rents and the more wide the exten 
 sion of the system, the greater is the difficulty of collecting reve 
 nue sufficient for keeping in motion the machine of government. 
 This it was, that forced the representatives of British power and 
 civilization into becoming traders in that pernicious drug, opium, 
 by means of which the people of China are taxed, annualty, to the 
 extent of nearly twenty millions of dollars, and not less than half 
 a million of lives. " The immolations of an Indian Jugger- 
 nauth," says a recent writer, "dwindle into insignificance before 
 it;" and yet for the maintenance of this trade it was that the 
 towns and cities of China were sacked, and their people ruined, 
 even where not exterminated. Trade and war have, however, 
 
 * Modern India, p. 394. 
 
358 CHAPTER XIII. 7. 
 
 gone hand in hand with each other from the commencement of 
 the world, and all their triumphs have been obtained at the ex 
 pense of commerce. 
 
 7. The gross land revenue obtained from a country with an 
 area of 491,448 square miles, or above three hundred millions of 
 acres, is 151,786,743 rupees, equal to fifteen millions of pounds 
 sterling, or seventy-two millions of dollars.* What is the value 
 of private rights of property, subject to the payment of this tax, 
 or rent, may be judged from the following facts : In 1848-49, 
 there were sold for taxes, in that portion of the country subject to 
 the permanent settlement, 1169 estates, at something less than four 
 years purchase of the tax. Further south, in the Madras govern 
 ment, where the ryotwar settlement is in full operation, the land 
 " would be sold " for balances of rent, but " generally it is not," 
 as we are told, " and for a very good reason, viz. that nobody will 
 buy it." Private rights in land being there of no value whatso 
 ever, "the collector of Salem," as Mr. Campbell informs us, 
 " naively mentions various unauthorized modes of stimulating the 
 tardy, rarely resorted to by heads of villages, such as placing 
 him in the sun, obliging him to stand on one leg, or to sit with 
 his head confined between his knees. "f 
 
 In the Northwest Provinces, the settlement, as our author 
 states, "has certainly been successful in giving a good market 
 value to landed property ;" that is, it sells at about " four years 
 purchase on the revenue."! Still further north, in the newly- 
 acquired provinces, we find great industry, "every thing" being 
 "turned to account ;" the assessment to which the Company suc 
 ceeded on the deposition of the successors of Runjeet Singh more 
 easy ; and land more valuable. The value of land, like that of 
 labor, therefore increases as we pass from the old to the new set- 
 
 * Campbell, p. 377. 
 
 f CAMPBELL: Modern India, p. 359. That torture of various kinds is one 
 of the established modes of collecting revenue, is a fact admitted by the Com 
 pany, and one to which the attention of the British Parliament has recently 
 been called. It being one, however, whose existence grows out of the neces 
 sity of the case, no remedy can be applied. The poverty of the people grows 
 daily, and with that growth the difficulty of collecting revenue increases 
 and whatever may be the disposition of the governors, they must, under such 
 circumstances, claim a constantly increasing proportion of the constantly de 
 creasing products of land and labor. 
 
 J Ibid. p. 332. \ Ibid. p. 345. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 359 
 
 tlements, being precisely the reverse of what would be the case if 
 the system looked to the extension of commerce ; and precisely 
 what should be looked for in a country in which commerce was 
 being sacrificed to trade. 
 
 With the data thus obtained, we may now ascertain, with per 
 haps some approach to accuracy, the value of all the private 
 rights in the land of India. In no case does that subject to tax 
 appear to be worth more than four years purchase ; while, in a 
 very large portion of the country it appears to be worth abso 
 lutely nothing. There being, however, some tax-free lands, it is 
 possible that the whole may be worth four years purchase giv 
 ing two hundred and eighty-eight millions of dollars, or sixty 
 millions of pounds sterling, as the value of all the rights in land 
 acquired by the people of India in the thousands of years it has 
 been under cultivation. The few people that have occupied the 
 little and sandy State of New Jersey, with its area of 6900 square 
 miles, have acquired rights in, and on, the land that are valued, 
 subject to the claims of government, at one hundred and fifty 
 millions of dollars ; and those of the few that have occupied the 
 little island on which stands the city of New York, would sell for 
 almost twice as much as could be obtained for all the proprietary 
 rights to land in India, with three huudred millions of acres and 
 ninety-six millions of inhabitants ! 
 
 8. Under the native princes," says Mr. Campbell, "India 
 was a paying country." Under absentee rule, it has ceased to 
 be so, and for the reason, that under that rule all power of com 
 bined action has been annihilated, by aid of the system that looks 
 to compelling the whole people, men, women, and children, to 
 work in the field producing commodities to be exported in their 
 rudest state. Every act of association being an act of commerce, 
 whatever tends to destroy the former must destroy the latter. The 
 internal commerce of India declines steadily, and the external one 
 amounts to but fifty cents per head, and by no eifort can it be 
 increased to any extent. Cuba, exporting to the large amount 
 of twenty-five dollars per head or almost fifty times as much as 
 India takes of cotton goods from Britain four times as much per 
 head ; and this she does because it is a part of the policy of 
 Spain to bring about combination of action, and to enable the 
 
360 CHArTER XIII. 8. 
 
 planter and the artisan to work together ; whereas the policy of 
 the former looks to the destruction, everywhere, of the power of 
 association, and thus, to the annihilation of the domestic com 
 merce upon which, alone, the foreign one can be built. Centrali 
 zation is adverse to commerce and to the freedom of man. Spain 
 does not seek to establish centralization. Provided she receives 
 a given amount of revenue, she is content to permit her subjects 
 to employ themselves at raising sugar, or making cloth, and thus 
 to advance in civilization ; and by this course it is that she is en 
 abled to obtain the aid she needs. 
 
 The people of Jamaica having never been permitted to apply 
 their spare labor even to the refining of it are obliged to 
 export their sugar in its crudest state ; and the more they send, 
 the lower is the price, and the larger the proportion taken by the 
 government ; but the poor negro is ruined. Spain, on the con 
 trary, permits the Cubans to engage in whatsoever pursuits ap 
 pear to them likely to afford a return to labor and capital ; and, 
 as a necessary consequence of this, towns and cities grow up, and 
 capital is attracted to the land, which becomes from day to day 
 more valuable. The power to resort to other modes of employ 
 ment diminishes the necessity for exporting sugar, and when 
 exported to Spain, the producer is enabled to take for himself 
 nearly the whole price paid by the consumer, the government 
 claiming only a duty of fifteen per cent. 
 
 " Vast heaps of humanity, festering in compulsory idleness, 
 encumber the soil of India,"* because the Hindoo, like the negro 
 of Jamaica, is shut out from the workshop. If he attempts to 
 convert his cotton into yarn, his spindle is taxed to the extent of 
 all of the profit it might yield him. If he attempts to make cloth, 
 his loom is subjected to a heavy tax, from which that of his 
 wealthy English competitor is exempt. His iron ore and his coal 
 must remain in the ground, and if he dares even to collect the salt 
 which crystallizes before his door, fine and imprisonment are the 
 reward of all his labor. He must raise sugar to be transported 
 to England, there to be exchanged, perhaps, for English salt. 
 For the sugar, arrived in that country, the workman pays at the 
 rate perhaps of forty shillings a hundred, of which the govern 
 ment claims one-third, the ship-owner, the merchant, and others, 
 * CHAPMAN : Cotton and Commerce of India. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 361 
 
 another third, and the remaining third is to be divided between 
 the agents of the Company, anxious for revenue, and the poor 
 ryot, anxious to obtain a little salt to eat with his rice, and as 
 much of his neighbor s cotton, in the form of English cloth, as 
 will suffice to cover his loins. 
 
 Iron, by aid of which the people might improve their processes 
 of cultivation and manufacture, has little tendency toward India 
 the average export of it to that country in 1845 and 46 hav 
 ing been but 13,000 tons, value 160,000 ; or about twopence- 
 worth for every live of the population. Efforts are now being- 
 made for the construction of railroads, but their object is that of 
 carrying out the system of centralization, and thus still further 
 destroying the power of association, because they look to the an 
 nihilation of what still remains of domestic manufacture and thus 
 cheapening cotton. With all the improvements in the transpor 
 tation of that commodity, its poor cultivator obtains less for it 
 than he did thirty years since ; and the effect of further improve 
 ment can be only that of producing a still further reduction, and 
 still further deterioration of the condition of the men who raise 
 food and cotton. As yet, the power of association continues in 
 the Punjab, but it being proposed now to hold there great fairs 
 for the sale of English manufactures the day cannot be far dis 
 tant when the condition of the new provinces will be similar to 
 that of the old ones ; as no effort is spared to carry out the sys 
 tem which looks to limiting the whole people to agriculture, and 
 thus compelling exhaustion of their land. It is needed, says Mr. 
 Chapman, the great advocate of railways in India, that the con 
 nection between "the Indian grower and English spinner" become 
 more intimate, and " the more the English is made to outweigh 
 the native home demand, the more strongly will the native agri 
 culturist feel that his personal success depends on securing and 
 improving his British connection"* that is, the more that com 
 merce can be annihilated, and the more the natives can be pre 
 vented from combining their efforts, the greater, as Mr. Chapman 
 thinks, will be the prosperity of India. Centralization has impo 
 verished, and to a considerable extent depopulated, that country ; 
 but its work is not yet done. It remains yet to reduce the people 
 
 * Cotton and Commerce of India, p. 86. 
 
 YOL. I. 24 
 
362 CHAPTER XIII. 9. 
 
 of the Punjab, of Afghanistan, and of Burmah, to the condition 
 of the Bengalese. 
 
 That there is, throughout India, a steady decline in the power 
 of association, in the development of individuality, in the feeling 
 of responsibility, and in the capacity for progress, no one can 
 doubt who will study carefully the books on that country. By 
 several of the persons that have been quoted Messrs. Thomp 
 son, Bright, and others the responsibility for all this is charged 
 upon the Company; but none that read the works of Messrs. 
 Campbell and Sleeman can hesitate to believe that its direction is 
 now animated by a serious desire to improve the condition of its 
 poor subjects. Unfortunately, however, the Company is nearly 
 in the condition of the landholders of Jamaica, and is itself tend 
 ing towards ruin, because its subjects are limited to agriculture, 
 and because they receive so small a portion of the value of their 
 very small quantity of products. Now, as in the days of Joshua 
 Gee, the largest portion remains in England, whose people eat 
 cheap sugar while its producer perishes of famine in India. Cheap 
 sugar and cheap cotton are obtained by the sacrifice of the inte 
 rests of a great nation ; and while the policy of England shall 
 continue to look to limiting the whole population of India to the 
 labors of the field, the soil must continue to grow poorer, the 
 power of association must continue to decline, and the govern 
 ment must find itself more and more dependent on the power to 
 poison the people of China ; and therefore must it be that, how 
 ever good the intentions of the gentlemen charged with the duties 
 of government, they must find themselves more and more com 
 pelled to grind the poor ryot in the hope of obtaining revenue. 
 
 9. An eminent English economist informs his readers that 
 notwithstanding " the extreme cheapness of labor in India, and 
 the excellence to which the natives had long attained, " " the 
 wonderful genius of our machinists, the admirable skill of our 
 workmen, and our immense capital have far more than counter 
 vailed the apparently insuperable drawback of high wages, and 
 have enabled our manufacturers to bear down all opposition, and 
 to triumph over the cheaper labor, contiguous material, and tra 
 ditional art of the Hindoos," as a consequence of which "the 
 native manufacture has received a shock from which it is not 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 3C3 
 
 likely it will ever recover."* "From Smyrna to Canton, from 
 Madras to Samarcand," elsewhere says the same writer, "we are 
 supplanting the native fabrics" and, of course, everywhere anni 
 hilating that power of association which enables man to command 
 the services of nature, and to pass from a state of slavery towards 
 one of freedom. 
 
 Capital always grows as wages rise, and diminishes as wages 
 fall. Wages always rise with the decline in the necessity for 
 effecting changes of place, and always decline as it increases. 
 The measures resorted to for the destruction of the manufactures 
 of India looked to increasing that necessity on the part of the 
 Hindoo producer of food and cotton, and thus inflicting upon him 
 a taxation more severe than any other that could have been 
 devised and to diminishing it on the part of the British grower 
 of food, and thus relieving him from the taxation to which he had 
 before been subjected ; and the effect is seen in the rise of wages 
 and rapid accumulation of capital in the latter, as well as in the 
 decline of wages and disappearance of capital in the former. 
 When, therefore, Mr. McCulloch, in thus enumerating the causes 
 of the change that has taken place, omits to add that further one 
 of the exercise of power by the strong over the weak of the 
 power of the associated traders over the scattered people who 
 desired to maintain commerce he omits the most important of 
 all the elements of the calculation. The Hindoo was as capable of 
 applying the machinery of Arkwright as the Englishman, and, had 
 the people of England and India been one, had their rights been 
 held to be equal, that machinery would have made its way to the 
 cotton-fields of India enabling its people still more closely to 
 associate, still more intimately to combine their operations, still 
 more fully to develop their individual faculties, and still more 
 extensively to maintain commerce at home and abroad. Under 
 such circumstances, all India would now exhibit a scene of the 
 highest prosperity, in place of which we meet with nothing but a 
 constant succession of famines and pestilences, accompanied by 
 decline of individuality and of freedom and producing a neces 
 sity for a constant succession of wars for the acquisition of new 
 territory in which to trade, and constantly increasing difficulty of 
 
 * McCuLLOCH : Commercial Dictionary, article Calcutta. 
 
364 CHAPTER XIII. 9. 
 
 obtaining the revenue by means of which the machinery of govern 
 ment is to be maintained.* 
 
 The history of the world is but a record of the efforts of the few 
 who were strong, to restrain the growth of the power of associa 
 tion to prevent the organization of society to interfere with 
 the maintenance of commerce and to retard the acquisition of 
 that power over nature which constitutes wealth ; and thus to 
 enslave the many who were weak. Its every page presents evi 
 dence of the fleeting character of all prosperity obtained by aid 
 of measures in violation of that great and fundamental law of 
 Christianity requiring us to respect the rights of our neighbor 
 as we would have our own to be respected ; but in none is found 
 a more instructive lesson than in that which records the annihila 
 tion of commerce in India, and the growth in England of that 
 pauperism which gave rise to the doctrine of over-population. 
 Both waxed together, and together both must wane the mea 
 sures required for the relief of the Hindoo being precisely those 
 required for the extirpation of pauperism among the Britons. 
 
 * " We are at war with the Burmese. Everybody knows it, and, what is 
 more, everybody expects that we should be always at war with some power 
 or other in the East. It was so at Rome. Everybody took it as a matter of 
 course that there were one or two wars on the confines of the empire with 
 the Carthaginians, or the Mauritanians, or the Celtiberians, or the Helve 
 tians, or the Syrians, or the Egyptians ; and when at last it was found out, 
 one wonderful year, that such was the terror of Rome, or the exhaustion of 
 the whole human race, that there was no war actually raging, the temple of 
 Janus was closed in state, games were celebrated, hymns were sung, and the 
 emperor pronounced a present god. It has been so with all great empires." 
 * * # "On the great fact of this disgraceful and now disastrous 
 war there is no difference of statement. The cause of the Burmese war is 
 not the claims of the two British captains, for they were promised settle 
 ment ; not the conduct of the governor that gave rise to those claims, for he 
 was promptly dismissed ; not the absurd and fabulous grievances of the very 
 scum of Rangoon raked together by the commodore after his arrival, for they 
 were never formally urged ; not any serious act or refusal whatever, but sim 
 ply and solely that four officers of very miscellaneous and unequal rank, who 
 had forced their way into the courtyard of the royal commissioner without 
 previous arrangement, and at a very unusual time of the day, were kept a 
 quarter of an hour in the sun. Explanations and apologies were offered in 
 numerable, but none were received." London Times. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 365 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 1. THE reader has now had placed before him a picture of 
 the movements of four considerable nations, and of one assem 
 blage of nations comprising, in the whole, two hundred millions 
 of people, or one-fifth of the total population of the globe. All 
 of these have been subject to that system of policy which looks to 
 the prevention of association, or combination ; and to the main 
 tenance at its highest point of that most oppressive of all taxes 
 the one resulting from the necessity for effecting changes in the 
 place of matter, and requiring ships or wagons for its accomplish 
 ment. In all, he has seen the same results to have been obtained 
 an increase in the proportion of the labor of the community re 
 quired to be given to the work of transportation an increase in 
 the proportions and in the power of the class that lives by means 
 of simple appropriation a diminution in the development of indi 
 vidual faculty a diminution in the proportion of the labor of 
 the community that could be given to increasing the quantity of 
 things susceptible of being transported or exchanged a decline 
 of freedom, and a decay of commerce. Others might be added, 
 and the list might be so extended as to embrace every country in 
 the world in whicli the proportion of its labor required to be 
 given to the work of transportation is an increasing one ; for it 
 is in the necessity for effecting changes of place that is found 
 the great obstacle to human improvement, to the development of 
 intellect, to the growth of freedom, and to the increase of com 
 merce as was so clearly seen by Adam Smith when urging npon 
 his countrymen the consideration of the advantage resulting from 
 converting the bulky corn and wool into the compact cloth, that 
 could so readily travel to the remotest corners of the world 
 Whenever the course of man is in the direction that thus was in 
 dicated, and wherever, consequently, he is gradually surmount 
 ing the obstacles standing in the way of commerce, the proportion 
 
366 CHAPTER XIV. 1. 
 
 borne by the trading and transporting classes to the rest of the 
 community is, necessarily, a diminishing one ; and then it is that 
 he becomes from year to year more civilized. Whenever, on the 
 contrary, the manufacturer disappears, and wherever there is thus 
 produced an increased necessity for exporting commodities in an 
 unfinished state, the tendency is directly the reverse of this man 
 then relapsing into barbarism, because of the diminished power 
 of combination. This latter is the case in all the countries whose 
 history has above been sketched ; and it is so for the reason that 
 the policy to which they have been subjected is one which looks 
 to having but a single workshop for the world, to which are to be 
 sent all the rude products of the earth, at greatest cost of trans 
 portation. In all of them, consequently, nature is daily obtain 
 ing greater power over man. In all, wealth diminishes, with 
 constant decrease in the value of man, who becomes from year to 
 year more and more the slave of his fellow-man. 
 
 It will, however, be said, that the people of India are indolent 
 that those of Turkey are Mohammedans and fatalists, and other 
 wise disqualified from entering into competition with those of the 
 British isles that the Portuguese and Irish peoples have a reli 
 gious faith that is adverse to the development of mind that the 
 laborers of Jamaica are but little removed from barbarism and 
 that in facts like these may be found the causes of the growing 
 weakness of the several- communities whose situation is above 
 described. The people of the Turkish Empire had, however, 
 precisely the same modes of thought a century since that they 
 have now, and they clung to them even more steadfastly than in 
 modern times ; and the commerce then maintained with them was 
 accounted the most valuable portion of that of Western Europe. 
 The enlightened Moors of the south of Spain held to a belief that 
 was the same with that of the men who now are found on the 
 shores of the Hellespont ; but there was found therein, as we 
 know, no obstacle to the advance of civilization. The Portu 
 guese are no more Catholic than were their predecessors who 
 made the Methuen treaty, and whose commerce was deemed of 
 such high importance. They and the Irish people hold to the 
 same faith with those of France, among whom agriculture and 
 manufactures are now so rapidly advancing, and in whom, indivi 
 duality is becoming so much developed. The negroes imported 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 367 
 
 into Jamaica were no more barbarian than were those received in 
 Virginia and Carolina ; and yet, while each of these latter is 
 represented by seven of his descendants, the British islands pre 
 sent to view but two for every five that were received. The rea 
 sons above referred to not accounting for the state of things that 
 has been described, we must look elsewhere for the causes of its 
 existence. 
 
 Differing in religious faith, in color, in latitude, and in longi 
 tude, these communities are alike in the one respect, that they 
 have been deprived of the power so to diversify the employments 
 of their members as to develop their various individualities, and 
 thus fit them for that association without which man can obtain 
 no power to command the services of nature. Limited entirely to 
 agriculture, they have been compelled to export their produce in 
 its rudest state a proceeding involving the exhaustion of the soil 
 upon which they are dependent for support, with constant diminu 
 tion in the return to human effort. Under such circumstances, 
 commerce would necessarily decline, and the power of the trader 
 and transporter would as necessarily increase ; while the cultivator 
 would become more and more a mere instrument to be used by 
 those who lived by the exercise of their powers of appropriation. 
 That he does so in all these countries is clear ; and that such are the 
 inevitable consequences of a policy which looks to the prevention 
 of combination, and to diminution in the development of the latent 
 powers of man, cannot admit of a moment s doubt. In attribut 
 ing to it, then, the existing state of things, we obtain one great 
 and uniform cause for one great and uniform effect a policy 
 tending to the production of barbarism, leading to famines and 
 pestilences, ending in decay and death, and thus giving color to 
 the theory of over-population. 
 
 2. That man may acquire power over nature, it is indispen 
 sable that the market for his labor, and for his products, be near 
 at hand. When it is distant, however perfect may be the means 
 of transportation, the manure cannot be returned to the land, and 
 unless its powers are maintained, he and it must become impove 
 rished together, with constant diminution in the power of main 
 taining commerce. The facilities of transportation throughout 
 Ireland were greatly increased in the half century that has just 
 
368 CHAPTER XIV. 2. 
 
 elapsed ; but, with every stage of that improvement, famines and 
 pestilences increased in number and in force, until, at length, the 
 completion of an extensive system of railroads was signalized by 
 one of such severity as entirely to have distanced all that had pre 
 ceded it. With each such stage, the power of association de 
 clined the soil was more rapidly impoverished and now its 
 laborers are everywhere flying from the homes of their youth ; its 
 property-holders are everywhere being dispossessed ; and its men 
 of intellect have almost entirely disappeared. 
 
 Railroads are now being made for, but not by, the people of 
 India, but their effects must, inevitably, be the same with those 
 observed in Ireland. The object for the attainment of which they 
 are being made, is the further promotion of the export of the raw 
 produce of the soil, and the further extension of the centralizing 
 power of trade ; to be followed by increased exhaustion of the 
 land, declining power of association among its occupants, and 
 more rapid decay of commerce. The little that yet remains of 
 Indian manufactures must speedily disappear, and cotton must 
 more and more be required to find its way from its producer in 
 the heart of India, to his immediate neighbor and even to his 
 own wife and children by the circuitous route of Calcutta or Bom 
 bay, and Manchester a proceeding involving the use of bullocks, 
 wagons, ships, and railroad cars, with constant increase in the 
 proportion of the labor of the community required for effecting 
 changes of place, and diminution in that which may be given to 
 increasing the quantity susceptible of being converted or ex 
 changed. The more railroads made in India, the smaller will be 
 the demand for labor, and the less the price of cotton * the 
 greater will be the tendency of Indian men to abandon their wives 
 and children, and fly to the sugar plantations of the Mauritius 
 in search of food the greater must be the decline in the power 
 of combination and the less the tendency to the development of 
 individuality among the people. 
 
 Mexico has declined steadily from the time that her trade be- 
 
 * Mr. Chapman furnishes tables showing that while the reduction in the 
 cost of transporting cotton from the place of production in India has been 
 but seven pence per pound, the reduction in England has been ten pence 
 thus showing that the reward of land and labor in that country has fallen 
 considerably with the substitution of trade for the commerce that before ex 
 isted. Cotton and Commerce of India, p. 77. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 369 
 
 came more open to the world. Desiring to to find the cause of 
 her decay and approaching dissolution, we must seek it in the 
 fact, that her manufactures have almost altogether disappeared, 
 that individuality has declined, and that trade has superseded 
 commerce. Throughout Spanish America generally, the same 
 phenomena have been presented the labor required for transpor 
 tation steadily augmenting, and that given to production dimi 
 nishing ; with constant decline in the power of the soil to yield 
 return to labor, and decline in the power of man to subdue to 
 cultivation the richer soils. Italy, Greece, Africa, Brazil, and 
 the rich islands of the Indian Ocean, are similarly situated 
 having little commerce within themselves, and being compelled 
 to depend almost exclusively on trade with distant countries. The 
 distresses of the people of the Ionian islands are as constant in 
 occurrence as are the famines of Madeira ; and for the reason, 
 that while compelled to depend exclusively on agriculture, there 
 is, necessarily, an unceasing waste of capital. 
 
 The greater the power for good, the greater is that for evil. 
 The most potent poisons are the most active remedies ; and the 
 men whose powers qualify them for conferring the greatest bene 
 fits on mankind, are precisely those who, when viciously disposed, 
 are most injurious to society. Steam and gunpowder, properly 
 directed, are of inestimable advantage to man ; but when misdi 
 rected, their power for mischief is in the ratio of their capability 
 of rendering service. So is it with the human body and its nou 
 rishment the food that is capable of producing, in one state of 
 the system, the greatest amount of force, being precisely that 
 which, in another of its states, most tends to the destruction of 
 force and the annihilation of life. So is it with roads and other 
 improvements. To the highly organized community the one in 
 which diversity of employment most exists, and whose commerce 
 is, therefore, great every new road brings with it increase of 
 power over nature, with increase of life ; whereas to the one of low 
 organization, each new one may but furnish another drain through 
 which its life s blood may more readily be carried off as we see 
 to have been the case with Ireland. Trade has been "the curse 
 of Polynesia ;" and the greater that now becomes its power, the 
 more rapid is the progress of deterioration among the people of 
 the islands. Trade has been the curse of Northern and Western 
 
370 CHAPTER XIV. 2. 
 
 Africa ; and the Hottentots are disappearing from the earth as 
 the facilities of intercourse with foreigners increase. Trade 
 sweeps off the aborigines of the West, and it will do with the Ja 
 panese, when once it shall have been admitted, precisely what it 
 has already done with the people of the Sandwich Islands and of 
 India. 
 
 That such should be the case, results solely from the fact that 
 communities have yet to learn and to appreciate the advantage 
 that would accrue from carrying out, in their relations with other 
 and weaker societies, the great law which prescribes to man that 
 he shall do to others as he desires that they shall do towards him. 
 In affairs of state, morality is unknown ; and, as a necessary 
 consequence, the great and permanent good is constantly sacri 
 ficed to the trivial and temporary profit nations everywhere 
 being governed in their conduct towards each other by motives 
 precisely similar to those which so often prompt the individual to 
 earn a place in the penitentiary by picking his neighbor s pocket, 
 when by a different course of conduct he might readily place him 
 self in a situation of permanent ease and comfort.* 
 
 Had the people of Africa been instructed in the ways of real 
 civilization had they been taught, in pursuance of the advice of 
 Adam Smith, to combine their raw materials together, and thus 
 fit them for distant transportation they might now have roads, 
 and might now be prepared to supply to Europe, to an almost 
 unlimited extent, the productions of the tropics ; while they, them 
 selves, would be rapidly advancing in the development of their 
 various faculties. Had the Irish people, and those of Turkey, 
 and of Portugal, been permitted to acquire, and to extend, the arts 
 of manufacture, they would now be adding largely to the stock of 
 raw materials for the world, and the commerce with them would 
 be of high importance. That it has become entirely valueless, 
 is due to the fact that they have been compelled to have free 
 intercourse with communities in a higher state of organization 
 than themselves potent for good or evil, and using their power 
 as a means of securing advantage for themselves. Seeking always 
 
 * "When we pass from internal to international concerns, we seek in vain 
 for a virtuous nation. Each community, as it in turn rises to power, dis 
 dains all law of right, and submits only to that law of force which it every 
 where seeks to impose. Hence the history of the world is stained with every 
 crime that makes man odious." Westminster Review, January, 1851. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 371 
 
 the present and temporary good, while careless in regard to the 
 future and lasting injury, the latter have sought to strengthen 
 themselves by weakening all around them the doing of which 
 intentionally would be a crime ; but, as a result of want of know 
 ledge of the true principles of social science, it has been " a blun 
 der;" and would therefore, in the judgment of Talleyrand, be 
 regarded as "even worse than a crime." 
 
 3. An enlightened self-interest teaches all men that they pro 
 fit by the improvement of their neighbors and to such extent is 
 this the case, that we see throughout a large portion of this coun 
 try the rich gladly, and largely, contributing to the education of 
 their poorer neighbors and feeling themselves abundantly repaid 
 therefor by the increased security thereby obtained for the enjoy 
 ment of their own rights of person and of property. Where there 
 exists that feeling, the closer the connection between those who 
 are strong of mind, or of body, and those who are weak in either, 
 the better is it for all ; but where the feeling is the reverse of this 
 where each man seeks to make of his fellow-man his prey the 
 less the intercourse, the better it must be for all. This last is the 
 state of things existing in the early stages of society, when the 
 soldier and the trader are the masters of those by whom they are 
 surrounded ; whereas, the former is that which tends to arise as 
 the powers of the earth become more and more developed as 
 wealth increases as men are more enabled to live in connection 
 with each other as commerce grows and as society tends more 
 and more to assume its highest form. 
 
 In the first of these conditions society being in a state of low 
 development the resistance to gravitation is very small indeed. 
 In the last being that in which the various faculties of man are 
 well developed the attractive force is great. In the first, there 
 is little power for good or evil. In the last, there is much 
 for either, or for both; and whether its existence shall be a 
 blessing, or a curse, to mankind at large, is as much dependent 
 upon the manner in which its societary force is directed, as is the 
 case with steam, at one time used for facilitating the acquisition 
 of food and clothing, and at another devoted to the battering of 
 city walls, and to the destruction of human life. 
 
 Between two communities differing in the manner above de- 
 
372 CHAPTER XIV. 3. 
 
 scribed, an enlightened self-interest would induce the stronger to 
 protect and strengthen the weaker to facilitate the division of 
 employments and the development of individuality to increase 
 the power of association, with a view to enable its neighbor to 
 obtain control over the forces of nature and thus to aid the 
 growth of freedom and of commerce. Such, however, is not, nor 
 has ever been, the policy of nations ; and the reason why it has 
 not been so is, that they have, to so great an extent, been mere 
 instruments in the hands of the class that lives by appropriation 
 the soldier, the slave-owner, the trader, and the politician. 
 To this it is due that, even in the case of these United States, 
 there has been so great a disposition to plunder and oppress 
 their weaker neighbors the Mexican Republic, and the poor 
 remains of the native tribes. Even now, instead of rendering to 
 the former the friendly counsel, or the aid, by help of which she 
 might, perhaps, emerge from her present depressed condition, the 
 American people, and their government, are waiting anxiously 
 for the moment when it may become possible to make new trea 
 ties by means of which they may facilitate the resolution of Mexi 
 can society into its original elements, and thus enable themselves 
 to acquire additional territory. Animated by the trading spirit, 
 they seek to make good bargains, careless of their effect on the 
 people with whom they are made. Hence it is that trade now 
 grows as commerce declines: that cities increase in size as towns 
 and villages become less populous that property in land in the 
 older States is becoming less and less divided that political and 
 trading centralization is rapidly superseding the local activity that 
 once prevailed that the slavery of man is now being viewed as 
 but a consequence of great natural laws instituted by the Creator 
 of all mankind and that distrust has now so entirely replaced 
 the confidence once felt by all the people of this continent, in the 
 honor and honesty of the American government. 
 
 By no people of the world, however, has this course been so 
 uniformly pursued, as by that of England the only one whose 
 policy has looked wholly to the advancement of the trader s inte 
 rests ; and the only one, too, that now recognises, as its cardinal 
 principle, the trader s motto, "Buy in the cheapest market, and 
 sell in the dearest one." By none has trade been so systematic 
 ally pursued. By none has commerce been so much oppressed ; 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 373 
 
 and by none has the power for oppression been so great. Prohi 
 biting association where it did not as yet exist, and annihilating 
 it where it did, the results are seen in the reduction to a dead 
 level of mere tillers of the earth, of the people of all the commu 
 nities subjected to its system ; and in the decline and ruin of the 
 communities themselves, as exhibited in the several cases above 
 referred to. In all of them there is a yearly diminution of 
 those differences of society required for the development of indi 
 vidual faculty, and for the perfection of organization. In all, 
 society becomes from year to year more imperfect, and more obe 
 dient to the force of gravitation.* In all, there is a yearly increase 
 of centralization ; and centralization, slavery, and death go always 
 hand in hand with one another. In all, the difficulty of obtaining 
 food is a steadily increasing one ; and in all, therefore, counte 
 nance is afforded to the idea that population tends to increase 
 faster than the food required for man s support. Such, however, 
 are but the consequences that, in the existing state of national 
 immorality, must everywhere result from perfect freedom of inter 
 course between a strong and well-developed community on one 
 side, and a weak and imperfect one on the other. f 
 
 * "The more imperfect a body, the more," says Goethe, "do the parts 
 resemble the whole." In a purely agricultural community, all the parts are 
 precisely similar, and the whole is but as one of the parts magnified. 
 
 | The author of the following passages, although differing greatly from 
 the writer of this work in relation to highly important questions, has found 
 himself forced, by an observation of facts occurring in our Southern States, 
 into an agreement with the ideas above expressed : 
 
 " Under the system of free trade, a fertile soil, with good rivers and roads 
 as outlets, becomes the greatest evil with which a country can be afflicted. 
 The richness of soil invites to agriculture, and the roads and rivers carry off 
 the crops, to be exchanged for the manufactures of poorer regions, where 
 are situated the centres of trade, of capital, and manufactures. In a few 
 centui ies, or less time, the consumption abroad of the crops impoverishes 
 the soil where they are made. No cities or manufactories arise in the coun 
 try with this fertile soil, because there is no occasion. No pursuits are car 
 ried on requiring intelligence or skill ; the population is of necessity sparse, 
 ignorant, and illiterate; universal absenteeism prevails; the rich go off for 
 pleasure and education the enterprising poor for employment. An intelli 
 gent friend suggests that, left to nature, the evil will cure itself. So it may 
 when the country is ruined, if the people, like those of Georgia, are of high 
 character, and betake themselves to other pursuits than mere agi iculture, 
 and totally repudiate free-trade doctrines. Our friends objection only 
 proves the truth of our theory. We are very sure that the wit of man can 
 devise no means so effectual to impoverish a country as exclusive agricul 
 ture. The ravages of war, pestilence, and famine are soon effaced ; centu 
 ries are required to restore an exhausted soil. The more rapidly money is 
 made in such a country, enjoying free trade, the faster it is impoverished, 
 for the draft on the soil is greater, and those who make good crops spend 
 
3*74 CHAPTER XIV. 4. 
 
 4. The steam-engine digests fuel, and power is produced. 
 Man digests fuel in the form of food, by help of which he obtains 
 power to labor with his body, or his mind, or with both together. 
 Alike in the fact that both thus digest capital in one form, and 
 reproduce it in another, they differ in the one important respect, 
 that while the iron locomotive can exist without food, the other 
 cannot. The railroad manager carefully avoids the consumption 
 of fuel when he does not need the services of the engine, knowing 
 that such a proceeding would be waste of capital. The manager 
 of the human locomotive must burn the fuel even when there is 
 no demand for power ; and therefore is it that in countries in 
 which the diversity of employments declines, and in which, conse 
 quently, commerce diminishes, the quantity of capital consumed 
 so largely exceeds that which is reproduced, as to cause wealth 
 to disappear, and man to return to his original position that of 
 the slave of nature. Muscular force and mental energy there go 
 to waste, while the powers of the soil decline from year to year, 
 because of the unceasing withdrawal of the constituent elements 
 of food and clothing a course of proceeding to which nature has 
 affixed the penalties of poverty, famine, disease, and death. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be said that the people of all the countries we 
 have named are uncivilized that they dislike change, even when 
 it is improvement that they would continue to use their wretched 
 substitutes for ploughs, hoes, and steam-engines, even were the latter 
 offered to them ; but this state of things results, necessarily, from 
 the absence of power to maintain for themselves local centres of 
 action, furnishing the attractive force required for resisting cen 
 tral attraction so great as that which exists in the British islands. 
 Local attraction is as necessary for the maintenance of communities 
 in the presence of each other, as is local gravitation in the planets 
 in the presence of the sun. Under the centralizing influence of 
 
 them abroad those who make small ones, at home. In the absence of free 
 trade, this rich region must manufacture for itself, build cities, erect schools 
 and colleges, and carry on all the pursuits and provide for all the common 
 wants of civilized man. Thus the money made at home would be spent and 
 invested at home ; the crops would be consumed at home, and each town 
 and village would furnish manure to fertilize the soil around it. We believe 
 it is a common theory that, without this domestic consumption, no soil can 
 be kept permanently rich. A dense population would arise, because it would 
 be required ; the rich would have no further occasion to leave home for plea 
 sure, nor the poor for employment." FITZHUGH: Sociology for the South, 
 pp. 14-16. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 375 
 
 Great Britain, the societies of India, of Ireland, of Portugal, and 
 of Turkey have become so entirely decomposed, that they are now 
 little better than masses of ruins ; and as such must they conti 
 nue unless there be a change of system. Such having been the 
 case with old and established societies, how impossible must it 
 have been to establish in Jamaica any system of counter-attrac 
 tion, even had there existed none of the prohibitions of manufac 
 ture to which the reader s attention has above been called ! It is 
 the first step in the way of improvement that is always the most 
 difficult and the least productive but no such step is possible 
 in presence of a system that prohibits association, and that is 
 armed with power to give the prohibition full effect. There lies 
 the difficulty, and not in the character of the people. Out of Ire 
 land, Irishmen have, at all times, and everywhere, manifested the 
 possession of all the qualities required for the production of one 
 of the most distinguished nations of the world. The Portuguese 
 of the present day have all the faculties of their predecessors, but 
 they remain latent, waiting to be stimulated into activity ; and 
 that they will be, whenever the power of association and combi 
 nation shall be obtained. The powers of the Hindoo are as great 
 now as they were when Europe was indebted to India for all the 
 fine commodities she used ; and as regards his moral qualities, all 
 unite in giving him the highest character.* The people of Tur 
 key maintained a great commerce among themselves, two centu 
 ries since ; and they could now do more, had they the same faci 
 lities therefor their predecessors then possessed. So, too, with 
 those of Jamaica, to whom a nominal freedom has been given, 
 but under circumstances that cause a constant destruction of capi 
 tal, and as constant a diminution in the power to maintain com 
 merce. 
 
 Commerce economizes the power resulting from the consump 
 tion of food and clothing, and therefore it is that capital so 
 
 * " I do not exactly know what is meant by civilizing the people of India. 
 In the theory and practice of good government they may be deficient; but 
 if a good system of agriculture if unrivalled manufactures if a capacity to 
 produce what convenience or luxury demands if the establishment of 
 schools for reading and writing if the general practice of kindness and 
 hospitality and, above all, if a scrupulous respect and delicacy towards the 
 female sex, are among the points that denote a civilized people, then the 
 Hindoos are not inferior in civilization to the people of Europe." Sir Tho 
 mas Munro. 
 
376 CHAPTER XIV. 5. 
 
 rapidly accumulates where the power of association and combina 
 tion rapidly grows with steady tendency to increase in the 
 ability to repay the debt contracted to our great mother earth. 
 Commerce declines with every increase in the necessity for the 
 services of the trader ; and does so because every step in that 
 direction is attended with increase in the waste of that physical 
 and mental power in which consists the most important portion of 
 the real capital of a country the representative of that which, 
 in the form of food, is from day to day consumed. At twenty- 
 five cents a head, the daily capital consumed in this country is 
 nearly seven millions of dollars, and little short of fifty millions a 
 week, or two thousand six hundred millions a year. The enforced 
 loss here, of even a single hour per day, being equal to an annual 
 one of more than two hundred millions, howeuormous must be that 
 of communities situated as are Ireland and India, where not even 
 a tenth of the power of physical and mental effort is put to use ! 
 Add to this, the waste resulting from the constant exhaustion of 
 the soil, and it will be seen that the injury to the former alone, 
 from her limitation to the single pursuit of agriculture, is more 
 than would be paid for, thrice over, by the free gift of the exports 
 from England to all the world. 
 
 Annihilate in England herself those differences which at once 
 qualify for, and lead to, association and combination, and her 
 people would sink to the condition of the serfs of the days of the 
 Plantagenets ; and such, t6o, would be the case with those of 
 all the other countries of Europe. Association is the condition 
 of existence of MAN of the being made in the likeness of his 
 Creator. By means of it, and it alone, he obtains power to 
 command the great forces of nature. When that is denied to him, 
 he sinks to the condition of slave to her and to his fellow-man 
 and then it is, that population becomes superabundant. 
 
 5. Every diminution of commerce, and increase in the neces 
 sity for the use of machinery of transportation, is attended with 
 increase in the power of the few who live by trade, or by war, to 
 tax the many for the accomplishment of their purposes ; and with 
 a diminution in the power of the latter to protect themselves 
 from such taxation. The larger the surplus requiring to be 
 transported; the greater become the facilities for combination for 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 377 
 
 reduction of prices, and increase of freight and charges ; and con 
 sequent increase of the trader s profits with large increase in his 
 proportion of the total products. The less the commerce, and 
 the less the demand for labor, the greater is the facility with 
 which armies may be recruited, to the profit of the man who lives 
 by plundering his neighbor. In no country of the world has 
 commerce more declined than it has done in India ; and there it 
 is that we witness a constant series of wars for the extension of 
 trade * the bill of costs for which is not presented to the people 
 of England, for whose purposes they are made, but, as Mr. Cob- 
 den most truly says, "to the unhappy ryots of Hindostan ; " f 
 and when the new territories prove unprofitable, the poor laborer 
 is further taxed for the maintenance of government in the posses 
 sions thus acquired. 
 
 The people, white and black, of Jamaica, had no interest in 
 the wars of the French Revolution ; and yet more than half of the 
 price paid for their sugar by their English fellow -subjects was 
 taken for the payment of its expenses. So, too, with Ireland, 
 taxed to the uttermost for the maintenance of wars from which 
 she had nothing to gain, and whose chief effect was that of con 
 verting into soldiers, at sixpence a day, hundreds of thousands of 
 men, who, under a different system, would have become excellent 
 artisans, or agriculturists. Every increase in the necessity for 
 transportation being exhaustive, the supremacy of trade is seen 
 everywhere to be attended by desire for war as a means of extend 
 ing the fields in which to operate. Like Alexander, it sighs for 
 worlds to conquer ; and this it does, because of the unceasing 
 failure of the conquests already made to realize the anticipations 
 that had been formed. J 
 
 * "Out of the nineteen years of the present, charter, fifteen have been 
 passed in war." London Daily News. 
 
 f How Wars are got up in India, p. 5G. 
 
 j- .. Trade is not absolutely powerful to support and extend itself, without 
 it be pioneered and protected by other influences. If we had not been 
 blinded by certain dominant economical dogmas, we might have learned 
 that in other quarters of the globe." "Wo have taken 
 
 these instances at random ; we might extend the list ; but we have already 
 sufficient to prove that (he sivord may carve out the path for commerce, that 
 diplomacy may accomplish alliances and open territories, and that personal 
 influence, such as that of an Ashburton or a Dunham, may bring large 
 classes, or great continents, within the commercial league of free trade. 
 It was boasted, not long since, that trade could act by itself; that it could 
 excavate its own tunnels, purchase its own protection, and open its own ter- 
 
 YOL. I.25 
 
378 CHAPTER XIV. 5. 
 
 That this must ever be the case, and that such discord is a 
 necessary consequence of a system looking to exaggeration of the 
 difficulties attendant upon the necessity for effecting changes of 
 place, will be obvious to the reader on consideration of the fol 
 lowing facts : Ships are to be regarded but as floating bridges, 
 and when we arrange them end to end, we are enabled to deter 
 mine the extent of their capabilities for occupying the place of 
 commerce, as they have been made to do, in all the operations of 
 the hundreds of millions of whom the populations of Ireland, 
 India, Turkey, and Portugal are composed. A foot in length, 
 of a ship, being about the equivalent of ten tons, to bridge the 
 Atlantic with ships, so as to make a road thirty feet in width, 
 would require more than sixty millions of tons ; but to make such 
 a bridge connecting India, Australia, and America with England, 
 would require some hundreds of millions ; and as the total ocean 
 tonnage of the world does not exceed five millions, it follows that 
 all the shipping now in existence does not afford means of com 
 munication with the single market at which raw materials are to 
 be converted into cloth and iron, equal to a road an inch in 
 breadth. It is, nevertheless, by means of such a narrow strait 
 as this, thirty thousand miles in length, that the Hindoo who 
 produces cotton maintains commerce with his next-door neigh 
 bor, who requires to consume cloth. By means of such a strait 
 as this, many thousand miles in length, the people of Portugal 
 and Turkey maintain commerce among themselves, and with the 
 world at large ; and it is through such an one that the people of 
 Jamaica at this moment make every exchange of service with each 
 other as a consequence of which there is no circulation of men 
 or things, nor is there any value in their labor or in their land. 
 
 Being limited to the use of a passage so narrow as this, it fol 
 lows, necessarily, that when nature is most bounteous when she 
 showers her benefits upon the heads of the people who raise rice, 
 wheat, cotton, or wool the markets become glutted with pro 
 duce, to the ruin of the producers but enabling the transporter 
 to rejoice over his rapid accumulations. Further, the very fact 
 
 ritories; but^ere we find that commerce waits upon the achievements of the sword, 
 and the negotiations of diplomacy." Spectator, September 4, 1854. 
 
 Views similar to these are contained in all the recent. English journals 
 all of which find compensation for the extraordinary waste of life and trea 
 sure in the Crimea, in the probable future increase of trade. 
 
OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 
 
 that his profits are so large tends to render the glut yet more 
 complete ; and for the reason, that the larger his proportion of 
 the cargo, the smaller is that of the producer, and the less the 
 ability of the latter to make purchases in the great central mar 
 ket, and thus to help to make demand for the raw materials that 
 he himself has furnished. Hence results the remarkable fact that 
 it is precisely when cotton cloth is cheapest that the planter can 
 least afford to purchase it and that when refined sugar is cheap 
 est the sugar-planter can least afford to consume it. 
 
 The greater the time required to elapse, and the greater the 
 space required to be travelled over, between production and con 
 sumption, the greater must be the friction, the less the motion of 
 society, and the less its force but the greater will be the powers 
 of the trader, transporter, and money-lender the larger the pro 
 portion of the product that enures to them and the greater the 
 tendency towards the production of the disease of over-popula 
 tion, with its accompaniments, famine, disease, and death. 
 
 6. The more rapid the circulation, the greater must be the 
 economy of human power, and the greater the force of the com 
 munity itself. The less the rapidity, the greater must be the waste 
 of power, and the less the force. To have motion in society, 
 there must be diversification in the demands for the various facul 
 ties of man. No such demand existing in any of the countries 
 that have above been named, there is in all of them a constant- 
 waste of the capital produced in the form of mental or physical 
 capacity for exertion, yielded in return to the capital consumed 
 in the form of food. 
 
 In India, nine-tenths are wasted, while, of the trivial product 
 of the remainder, a large portion is claimed by those who exer 
 cise the powers of government. The balance is subjected to the 
 exhaustive process above described, by help of which the cotton 
 that has yielded its producer but a penny returns to him at a cost 
 of twelve, fifteen, or twenty pence. So is it in Ireland ; and so, 
 too, is it in Jamaica, Portugal, and Turkey in all of which the 
 men engaged in effecting those mechanical and chemical changes 
 in tli e forms of matter commonly designated by the term manu 
 factures become from year to year more widely separated from 
 those engaged in the work of cultivation. 
 
380 CHAPTER XIV. 6- 
 
 In all of them, consequently, there is a constantly increasing 
 necessity for transportation. In all of them, the utility of the 
 rude products of the earth steadily diminishes, and the power of 
 the earth to yield them steadily declines, as the soil becomes 
 exhausted. In all, there is an increase in the value of commodi 
 ties required for the use of man, and a decline in the value of man 
 himself. In all, the accumulations of the past acquire increased 
 control over the labors of the present. In all, commerce dimi 
 nishes as trade acquires increase of power. With all, the value of 
 English trade declines thus proving, to use the words of Colo 
 nel Sleeman, "the folly of conquerors and paramount powers, 
 from the days of the Greeks and Romans down to those of Lord 
 Hastings and Sir John Malcolm, who were all bad political eco 
 nomists, in supposing that conquered and ceded territories could 
 always be made to yield to a foreign state the same amount of 
 gross revenue they had paid to their domestic government, what 
 ever their situation with reference to markets for their produce 
 whatever the state of their arts and industry and whatever the 
 character and extent of the local establishments maintained out of 
 it." * With all the dependencies of England even where nomi 
 nally free her course is an exhaustive one ; and yet her people 
 become daily more and more themselves dependent on those dis 
 tant markets for the supplies required for the support of life. 
 How far it is to this increased dependence that we owe the exist 
 ence of the facts of English history upon which were founded the 
 theory of over-population, will be examined in another chapter. 
 Should they prove to have been due exclusively to the one great 
 error of English policy, then will that examination furnish evi 
 dence that it is not only right, but profitable, for communities to 
 carry into their relations with each other the strict observance 
 of that great law which requires of man that he shall do by others 
 as he desires that they shall do by him. 
 
 * See ante, p. 345. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 381 
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES IN THE FORM 
 OF MATTER. 
 
 1. To transport the sticks of wood by means of which our 
 colonist might, in some degree, shelter himself from the wind and 
 the rain, required the exertion of brute force alone ; but before 
 he could succeed in converting any of them into a bow, it was 
 requisite that he should make himself acquainted with those pro 
 perties of matter known as elasticity and tenacity. For the effec 
 tuation of changes of form there was needed, therefore, a know 
 ledge of the qualities of the things that were to be converted ; 
 whereas, for effecting changes of place, he needed only to know 
 their number, magnitude, or weight ; and, as a necessary conse 
 quence, the work of conversion, more concrete and special, fol 
 lowed, in the order of development, the more abstract one of 
 transportation. 
 
 Few things are yielded by the earth in the precise form in which 
 they are required for serving the purposes of man. He may eat 
 apples, oranges, dates, or figs, as they come from the tree ; but 
 the potato requires to be cooked, the grain to be crushed, and 
 the flour to be baked, before they can be made available for his 
 nourishment. He may wrap the skin around his shoulders ; but 
 before he can convert the wool into a garment fitted to preserve 
 him from the winter s cold, he must make himself familiar with 
 the properties by which it is distinguished. The foliage may at 
 times shield him from the sun, but to enable him to obtain proper 
 shelter from the weather, he must learn to fell the tree and con 
 vert it into logs, or planks. To do these things requires know 
 ledge, with every step in the acquisition of which, he obtains 
 increased control over the natural forces provided for his use 
 while with each, is more and more developed the utility of the 
 
382 CHAPTER XV. 1. 
 
 corn, the wool, and the timber, with constant decline in the value 
 of the food, the clothing, and the shelter he requires and as con 
 stant increase of wealth. 
 
 Of all the beautiful and wonderful provisions of nature, there is 
 probably none more beautiful than that which may be here ob 
 served. The necessity for changing the form of animal and vege 
 table products before they can become fitted for man s consump 
 tion, constitutes an obstacle requiring to be surmounted ; and one 
 that does not exist in relation to birds, beasts, or fishes, to all of 
 which food is furnished in the precise form in which it is required. 
 So, too, with clothing, all of which is supplied to other animals 
 by nature ; whereas, man is obliged to change the form of the 
 flax, the silk, and the wool, before they can be made to serve his 
 purposes ; and here it is that we find the great stimulus to activity 
 of mind leading to the development of individuality, and fitting 
 him for association with his fellow-men. Had food and clothing 
 been supplied to him in abundance, and in the form in which they 
 were required, his faculties would everywhere have remained as 
 inert and useless as are now those of the people of tropical coun 
 tries, whole families of whom are supplied with the former by a 
 single breadfruit-tree ; while the latter is superseded by a con 
 stant summer s sun. Nature giving these unasked, there exists 
 but little inducement for the exercise of those faculties by which 
 man is distinguished from the brute, which remain, therefore, 
 undeveloped ; and, as a necessary consequence, the power and 
 the habit of association are there found least developed. Man 
 was placed here to obtain command over nature ; and, to that 
 end, he was endowed with faculties capable of action, but re 
 quiring to be stimulate 1 into activity by the necessity for over 
 coming the forces by which he is surrounded forces, whose 
 powers of resistance are always in the direct ratio of their 
 capability of aiding him in his further efforts, whenever they have 
 been brought entirely under his control. The rich soils of the 
 earth are capable of yielding large returns to labor, but being 
 destructive of life and health he dare not attempt to occupy 
 them. Therefore it is, that he is seen commencing his labors 
 where the soil is poorest and there it is, that he is earliest seen 
 combining with his neighbors for the acquisition of further power ; 
 as in the rocky Attica ; the almost ice-bound Norway and Ice- 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 383 
 
 land ; the elevated Bohemia ; the mountainous Savoy ; and the 
 granitic New England ; in all of which we see the habit of asso 
 ciation to have existed to an extent elsewhere unknown. 
 
 2. Before, however, Crusoe could make a bow, he needed to 
 have some species of cutting instrument; and that, as we know, he 
 obtained in the form of a piece of flint, or other hard stone, whose 
 edge he had sharpened by means of friction. Look where we 
 may, among even the most savage tribes, we find them obtaining 
 command of certain natural forces and doing so by help of 
 instruments the fabrication of which requires some acquaintance 
 with the properties of matter. With knowledge comes power, 
 and with the growth of power over nature they obtain a con 
 stantly increasing supply of food and clothing, in return for con 
 stantly diminishing muscular effort. 
 
 It is here, as everywhere, that the first step, while the most 
 difficult, yields the smallest return. Beginning with the shell, 
 man passes to the flint ; thence to the knife of copper, bronze, 
 iron, and steel ; and finally to the circular saw with every step 
 acquiring power for making a next and greater one. The spindle 
 and the loom must, in their day, have been very wonderful inven 
 tions so much so, that they sufficed the world for ages. In time, 
 however, came the spinning-jenny ; and now the force of steam 
 was substituted for that of the human hand, with vast increase of 
 product. That, nevertheless, was but the first among the steps 
 in that direction steam having, since then, been made not only 
 to weave the cloth, but to give to it every variety of color, and 
 of figure. From year to year, we witness new improvements, any 
 one of which exceeds in importance the whole of those for which 
 we are indebted to the thousand years preceding the opening of 
 the eighteenth century. The cloth now returned to the labors of 
 half a dozen women is more in quantity than, a century since, 
 could have been obtained in return to those of a hundred men. 
 But fifty years since, every piece of bar-iron required, for its pro 
 duction, the constantly intermitted force of men working with 
 hammers in their hands, and obliged, at every blow, to raise the 
 instrument, with enormous waste of power. Arriving, however, 
 at the knowledge that iron could be rolled, and by aid of steam, 
 man acquired the command of a great natural force, by means of 
 
384 CHAPTER XV. 3. 
 
 which his labors were rendered more continuous and effective, 
 while greatly diminished in their demands upon his powers. 
 Iron, becoming more easily acquired, facilitated the acquisition 
 of increased supplies of coal and iron ore, and they in their turn 
 did the same by machinery of every kind, from the little instru 
 ments employed in making pins and needles, to the great steam- 
 engine that drains the mine, or drives the mill. 
 
 Power to direct the forces of nature constitutes wealth. The 
 greater the wealth, the smaller is the proportion of the labors of 
 man required for effecting chemical or mechanical changes in the 
 forms of matter, and the larger is the proportion thereof that may 
 be given to the accomplishment of those vital changes by means of 
 which there is obtained an increase in the quantity of things sus 
 ceptible of being converted. The mill, by help of which water, 
 wind, or steam is made to do the work that before required the 
 hand converting the grain into flour diminished the quantity 
 of human effort required for effecting changes in the form of food, 
 and greatly increased that which might be given to the work of 
 adding to the quantity of grain requiring to be ground. So, too, 
 the spinning-jenny, and the power-loom, by diminishing the labor 
 required for effecting changes in the form of wool, set free a large 
 amount of labor that might be given to augmenting the supply of 
 wool. So, too, must it be, in all and every case in which the 
 powers of nature are brought to aid the labors of man in the work 
 of converting the things yielded by our great mother earth the 
 proportion of his labor that may be given to augmenting the 
 quantity of raw materials, tending, with every such accession of 
 power, steadily to increase. 
 
 The smaller the quantity of labor required for the work of con 
 version, the larger is that which may be given to the preparation 
 of the great machine to which we are indebted for both food and 
 wool ; and the greater must be the ability to subject to cultivation 
 the richer soils thence obtaining the increased supplies of food 
 required for enabling men to live in close connection with each 
 other, combining their efforts for obtaining further triumphs. 
 The more they can combine, the more rapid is the development of 
 individuality, and the greater the power for further progress. 
 
 3. The facility of conversion growing with the growth of the 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 385 
 
 power of association, each step in the progress of society is attended 
 with increased facilities for the maintenance of commerce. Wool 
 and corn become converted into cloth ; and iron ore, coal, cloth, 
 and corn reappear in the form of bars of iron, which, in their turn, 
 are combined with additional food, to reappear in the shape of 
 knives ; and thus are the products of the earth condensed in form, 
 with constant diminution in the quantity of labor required for 
 effecting changes in the place of matter and here we have a fur 
 ther increase in the proportion of the labor of society that may be 
 given to the augmentation of the supply of commodities required 
 for the support and comfort of man. The steam-engines now in 
 use in Great Britain, are estimated as being capable of doing the 
 work of six hundred millions of men ; and, as these are chiefly 
 employed in the work of condensing corn and wool into cloth 
 corn, coal, and ore into iron and iron into machinery their effect 
 should be found in a constantly increasing ability to devote both 
 time and mind to the development of the powers of the great ma 
 chine to which we are indebted for the food, the wool, the coal, 
 and the ore. 
 
 The planing-machines of this country, driven by steam, have 
 been stated as being no less than thirty thousand in number 
 each doing the work of sixty men ; or, in the whole, that of 
 eighteen hundred thousand men. Here is great economy of 
 human effort, but to this must yet be added the economy of labor 
 resulting from the transportation of finished, as compared with 
 unfinished, products the two combining to set free a vast amount 
 of physical and mental effort, susceptible of being applied to in 
 creasing the quantity of lumber to be sawed or planed ; of coal 
 and ore to be converted into iron ; or of wheat requiring to be 
 ground ; each and every of which operations tends to the develop 
 ment of the powers of the earth, arid to fitting it for better serving 
 the purposes of man. 
 
 4. With every approach towards increased facility in the 
 work of conversion near at home, there is witnessed a wonderful 
 increase in the economy of human effort resulting from increased eco 
 nomy of the gifts of nature. The poor savage of the West spends 
 days and nights roaming over the prairies in search of food, and 
 is yet obliged to waste the larger portion of the products of the 
 
386 CHAPTER XV. 5. 
 
 chase ; while the early settler destroys the tree and sells its ashes 
 to distant men who gladly pay for them, with all the enormous 
 cost of transportation added to their original price. As wealth 
 and population grow, the stem is made to yield planks for houses 
 and mills ; the bark to help in fitting skins for being converted 
 into shoes ; and the branches to furnish the pegs with which those 
 shoes are made. The rags of a poor and scattered settlement are 
 wasted, but as numbers increase, mills appear, and these rags become 
 converted into paper. The little and lonely furnace of the West 
 wastes half the power afforded by its fuel ; but the great one of 
 the East applies its heat to drive the engine, and its gas to heat 
 the blast. In the hands of the chemist, clay becomes alumina, and 
 promises soon to furnish a cheap and perfect substitute for the 
 expensive silver. "The horse-shoe nails dropped in the streets 
 during the daily traffic, reappear," says a recent writer, " in the 
 shape of swords and guns. The clippings of the travelling tinker 
 are," as he continues, "mixed with the parings of the horses 
 hoofs from the smithy, or the cast-off woollen garments of the 
 poorest inhabitants of a sister isle, and soon afterward, in the 
 form of dyes of the brightest hue, grace the dress of courtly 
 dames. The main ingredient of the ink with which we write may 
 have been part of the hoop of an old beer-barrel. The bones of 
 dead animals yield the chief constituent of lucifer matches. The 
 dregs of wine, carefully rejected by the port-wine drinker in 
 decanting his favorite beverage, are taken by him in the form of 
 seidlitz powders, to remove the effects of his debauch. The offal 
 of the streets and the washing of coal-gas reappear carefully pre 
 served in the lady s smelling-bottle, or are used to flavor blanc 
 mange for her friends." 
 
 The pound of flax, having passed through the hands of tne 
 lacemaker, exchanges for more than its weight in gold. The 
 leaves of the fir and the pine, in Silesia, become blankets. The 
 scraps of leather become glue, and the hair that is cut from the 
 human head may be exchanged for gloves and ribbons and thus 
 it is that as men are more and more enabled to associate, and to 
 combine their efforts, each and every particle of matter is utilized, 
 with constant decline in the value of commodities required for 
 their use, and constant increase in the value of man himself. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 387 
 
 5. Widely different is the course of things in countries whose 
 scattered population is compelled to waste its labors on the poorer 
 soils. In Carolina, where men yet cultivate land an acre of which 
 yields but five bushels of wheat, whole forests of pines are frequently 
 destroyed in the process of obtaining a few crops of turpentine 
 and then the refuse of the turpentine itself is wasted, because of 
 its distance from any place at which it might be so changed in 
 form as to fit it for serving the purposes of man.* The stalks of 
 the cotton-plant, capable of producing flax of great strength and 
 beautiful fibre, are burnt upon the plantation, because of the 
 absence of that power which results from combination, and by help 
 of which they might be rendered available for human purposes. 
 The seeds of the same plant, capable of yielding oil, are, in like 
 manner, wasted. ( At home and abroad, "exceedingly few of 
 the fibre-yielding plants have been taken up by manufacturers, 
 and yet," says Mr. Ewbank,J "they abound everywhere in 
 reeds, sedges, and coarse grasses, and in the leaves of some of 
 the commonest shrubs and trees. The banana and its relatives" 
 would, as he says, yield, besides fruit, " from nine to twelve thou 
 sand pounds per acre of fibre of every fineness, from ropes to mus 
 lin." " Countless millions of tons of this, and kindred substances, 
 spontaneously shoot up every year, and sink away into the ground, 
 neglected by man ;" while, at the same time, countless millions of 
 tons of the most valuable dye-yielding woods are growing in their 
 vicinity, waiting his coming to yield themselves to his service. 
 
 Every article here referred to, wheresoever found, is as capable 
 of being useful to man as it would be were it in the neighborhood 
 of Paris, or of London ; but its utility is latent, and can be deve 
 loped only by means of association and combination among men. 
 Isolated, man finds himself unable to make the first and most dif 
 ficult step, preparatory to the new and greater ones that would 
 be sure to follow in its train. Population it is that makes the 
 food come from the rich soils of the earth, and gives utility to all 
 the matter of which that earth is composed ; with constant decline 
 
 * " I saw this day, as I shall hereafter describe, three thousand barrels of 
 an article worth a dollar and a half in New York, thrown away, a mere heap 
 of useless oifal, because it would cost more for transportation than it would 
 be worth." OLMSTEAD : Seaboard Slave States, p. 330. 
 
 -j- The present crop, of three and a half millions of bales, is capable; as we 
 are told, of yielding; ninety millions of gallons of oil. 
 
 J The World a Workshop, p. 89. 
 
388 CHAPTER XV. 5. 
 
 in the value of all the commodities required for the use of man, 
 and constant increase in his own value. Depopulation, on the 
 contrary compelling resort to the poor soils deprives of utility 
 the matter by which man is everywhere surrounded, with constant 
 decline in his own value, and in his power to obtain supplies of 
 food, clothing, or other necessaries of life. 
 
 So, too, is it with intellect. Increase of numbers bringing into 
 action all the various faculties of man, every individual finds his 
 appropriate place, with steady increase of commerce. Depopu 
 lation, on the contrary forcing all men back to the search for 
 food substitutes for intellect mere brute force, with constant 
 decline of commerce. That commerce may exist, there must be 
 difference ; and the greater the diversity of employment, the 
 more rapid must be the circulation, and the greater must be the 
 commerce. 
 
 The weight of any given community tends to accelerated in 
 crease every addition to its numbers being attended with corre 
 sponding increase in the development of the latent faculties of the 
 men of whom it is composed. The motion of society tends like 
 wise to increase at a constantly accelerated rate every increase 
 of individuality being attended with corresponding increase in the 
 power of association and in the continuity of action. Momentum 
 being the velocity multiplied by the weight, and both of these 
 latter tending to constant acceleration in the rate of increase, we 
 may now, without difficulty, understand why it is, that the force 
 exerted by a community tends to grow at a rate so much more 
 rapid than would be indicated by its increase in numbers. Taking 
 ten for the present weight, and the same number for the velocity, 
 the momentum would be a hundred. Doubling the numbers in a 
 period of five-and-twenty years and allowing the development of 
 intellectual faculty to be in the same ratio, the weight, at the close 
 of the term, would be quadrupled ; and, allowing for increased 
 facility of combination, resulting from increase of numbers and 
 correspondent economy of labor, and of the products of the earth, 
 we obtain the same quantity as representing the velocity ; and 
 the two, multiplied into each other, give now sixteen hundred, 
 instead of the two hundred that would be obtained were the pro 
 ductive power of the individual to remain unchanged. 
 
 The tendency to the development of the resources of the earth, 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 389 
 
 and of the powers of man, being in the direct ratio of the motion 
 of society, and being always attended with that increase of local 
 attraction which produces love of home ; it follows, necessarily, 
 that a community must grow in individuality, and in force, with 
 the growth of the power of, and the desire for, association among 
 the individuals of whom it is composed. 
 
 6. The motion of society, and the power of man, tend to in 
 crease in a geometrical ratio, whenever men are permitted to pro 
 ceed onward, and undisturbed, towards the establishment of power 
 over nature, to be acquired by means of combination with their 
 fellow-men. Look, however, where we may, we see his progress 
 in that direction to have been, at times, impeded, and sometimes 
 altogether arrested j while at others he has so far retrograded as 
 to have been compelled to abandon the most fertile soils, after 
 having incurred the great expenditure of physical and mental 
 force required for their subjugation as in hither Asia, Egypt, 
 Greece, and Italy, of olden time ; and in Ireland, India, Jamaica, 
 Virginia, and Carolina, of the modern one occurrences, into 
 the causes of which we may now inquire. 
 
 The history of the world, in its every chapter, presents the 
 strong man trampling on the weak one, and the latter seeking, by 
 means of combination with his fellow-men, to set limits to the 
 power of those by whom he was oppressed. The former, as we 
 see, has everywhere appropriated to himself large bodies of land 
 compelling the latter to cultivate it for him, and requiring him 
 to use not only his land, but his mills, and his machinery of every 
 description, whenever he sought to effect changes, whether in the 
 places, or in the forms, of matter. 
 
 At times, the former has compounded with his tax-payers for 
 certain portions of the produce, taking sometimes three-fourths, 
 two-thirds, or one-half; but even then has generally required that 
 when they needed to convert their grain into flour, they should 
 pay for the privilege of so doing ; that another tax should be 
 paid when they desired to convert it into bread ; and a still fur 
 ther one when they sought to exchange their bread, or their grain, 
 with their neighbors for other commodities required for their pur 
 poses. If they wished to change their wool into cloth, they were 
 obliged to pay for that privilege in the form of excise, or other 
 
390 CHAPTER XV. 6. 
 
 duties. If the people of the town and country sought to maintain 
 commerce, the permission so to do was to be paid for in the shape 
 of duties of octroi, as in France ; or if, as in Spain, they desired 
 to make any species of exchanges, those who performed the duties 
 of government claimed a tenth on every transfer of property, as 
 alcavala. The right to labor has been held to be a privilege, the 
 exercise of which required a patent, to be paid for at a heavy 
 price. In every form, the few who were strong and enabled to 
 live by virtue of the exercise of their power of appropriation, have 
 sought to prevent the many, who, individually, were weak, from 
 combining their efforts except on conditions dictated by them 
 selves. Slavery has existed in a variety of forms, sometimes 
 more, and at others less, oppressive ; but it has, in all cases, 
 resulted from the efforts of those who were strong of body, or of 
 mind, to deprive those who were weak, of the power to determine 
 for whom they would work, or what should be their reward and 
 thus to prevent the growth of commerce. 
 
 As, however, population has increased, men have been more 
 and more enabled to combine together for the acquisition of 
 power over their own actions, and over the natural forces by 
 which their efforts might be so much aided building towns, or 
 local centres, in which the artisan and the trader could associate 
 for self-defence. The more they could associate, the more indi 
 viduality became developed-; and therefore is it that we see free 
 dom to have grown so rapidly in the towns and cities of Greece 
 and Italy, in those of France and Germany, the Netherlands and 
 England. 
 
 Power thus resulted from association and combination, but its 
 acquisition has but too generally been accompanied by a selfish 
 desire for securing to the associates monopolies of its exercise, to 
 be enjoyed at the expense of their fellow-men. The Phoenicians 
 carefully guarded the secret of their dyes; and the Venetians were 
 so jealous of their secrets, that they reduced their artisans to a 
 condition approaching that of slavery, by prohibition of their emi 
 gration. The Flemings, in their turn having succeeded in esta 
 blishing among themselves the diversity of employments required 
 for the development of intellectual force, for economizing human 
 labor, and for utilizing the products of the earth exercised, 
 during a long period of time, the power of association to an 
 
OP MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 391 
 
 extent then unparalleled in any part of Northern or Central 
 Europe. Even here, however, the spirit of monopoly made its 
 appearance, bringing with it regulations tending to give the 
 trader advantages over the workman on the one hand, and over 
 the producer of raw materials on the other and thereby pro 
 ducing an emigration of the former, and a war of tariffs on the 
 part of the latter ; and in due season Flemish power followed in 
 the wake of that of Carthage and of Tyre. The Dutch, profiting 
 by the difficulties of their Flemish rivals, became the most exten 
 sive manufacturers of Europe ; but they, in their turn while 
 enlarging in all directions their dominion gave to various bodies 
 monopoly powers, having for their object the prevention of any 
 intercourse between important portions of the world, except by 
 means of their own ships, their own ports, their seamen, and their 
 merchants. The oppressive character of this system forced both 
 France and England to measures of resistance, exhibited in the 
 navigation act of Cromwell, and the tonnage duties, and tariff, of 
 Colbert ; and the power of Holland commenced from that period 
 to pass away, as that of Venice and of Genoa had already done. 
 In all these cases, the object in view had been that of prevent 
 ing circulation abroad, with a view to produce increase of motion 
 at home, and to foster centralization by compelling commerce to 
 pay extra taxes in the form of transportation, for their emolument j 
 and in all, the results, as we see, proved to be the same failure 
 and decline, even where not ending in absolute ruin. 
 
 7. Among individuals, selfishness generally defeats itself; 
 and as it is with them, so is it with nations. All the communities 
 above referred sought to obtain strength and power, not in com- 
 pany with other not by commerce with them, based upon the 
 extension of commerce among themselves but by carrying on 
 trade for them, with a view to enrich themselves at others ex 
 pense. The natural rights of all were equal ; and, had that prin 
 ciple been fully recognised, all might have grown rich, strong, and 
 free together ; but, as it was, they, each and all, first impoverished 
 their weaker neighbors, and then found themselves, in turn, impo 
 verished by means of the very measures to which they had looked 
 for increase of wealth and power. The perfect harmony of all 
 real interests, and the advantage of sound international morality, 
 
392 CHAPTER XV. 7. 
 
 are lessons taught in every page of history ; and yet, after so 
 many centuries of experience, the leading nations of the world 
 are, even now, acting as if the road to prosperity for themselves 
 was to be found only through the adoption of measures tending 
 to the injury of all around them. 
 
 That the power to control the forces of nature should be bene 
 ficial to mankind, it is indispensable that the knowledge by which 
 it is acquired should be extensively diffused. Give to a single 
 member of a community the secret of gunpowder, and enable him 
 to monopolize it and he will enslave his neighbors. In time, the 
 latter may, perhaps, obtain the knowledge how to make it ; but 
 this they will do, if ever, in despite of all the resistance that can 
 be opposed by the monopolist already become so powerful as 
 to be enabled to prohibit combination among his poor dependants. 
 So is it, too, with nations. Limit to a single one the command 
 of steam, or the power to convert wool into cloth, coal and ore 
 into iron, or grain into flour, and it would assuredly become the 
 tyrant of the world, to the injury of all, itself included. Centrali 
 zation, find it where we may, looks to poverty, slavery, and death 
 and so entirely is this the case in regard to scientific knowledge, 
 that it would be better that the power of steam had no existence, 
 than that the command of such a force should be limited to any 
 single community of the ivorld. For a time, that community 
 might be, itself, enriched ; but with slavery there, as everywhere, 
 the damage to the slave would recoil upon the master. Exhaust 
 ing all the surrounding communities, it would itself speedily find 
 arising the disease of over-population" tending to the pro 
 duction at home of the same slavery of which it had been the cause 
 abroad. 
 
 Trade had built up, among the Flemings, large fortunes, the 
 possession of which but stimulated the appetites of their owners 
 for further acquisition while increasing their power for control 
 ling the movements of other nations, with a view to the accom 
 plishment of their selfish objects. To that end, they sought 
 monopoly at home and abroad ; but the effect proved widely dif 
 ferent from their expectations their measures producing resist 
 ance both within and without. Workmen, flying to England, found 
 in Edward III. a monarch fully sensible of the advantages which 
 must result from enabling the farmer and the artisan to take their 
 
OP MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 
 
 393 
 
 places by each other s side and one, too, able and willing to grant 
 them all the protection they required. Not only were franchises 
 granted to them, but all restrictions upon domestic commerce, 
 so far as related to the making of cloth, were at once repealed ; 
 while by an act of Parliament, of 1337, the export of wool and 
 the import of cloth were both prohibited. The selfishness of the 
 Flemings, in their efforts to monopolize the knowledge they had 
 acquired, with a view to convert the gifts of nature into machi 
 nery of oppression, had thus produced resistance, whose effects 
 will be considered in another chapter. 
 
 VOL. I. 26 
 
394 CHAPTER XVI. 1. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 1. AT the opening of the fourteenth century, the commerce 
 of England was such as indicated a very rude condition of its peo 
 ple wool, hides, and tin, with the latter of which it had for ages 
 supplied the world, constituting the list of exports, and cloth the 
 chief article of import. The custom of foreign nations, for these 
 raw materials, was courted by means of grants of privileges to 
 their merchants, while oppressive export duties threw upon the 
 farmers of the country all the burden of the government. Sent 
 abroad in their rudest state, their products came back to them in 
 the form of cloth, and were then admitted on the payment of a 
 merely nominal duty, of less than one per cent.* Raw produce 
 Vas, consequently, very cheap, while manufactured commodities 
 were very dear. 
 
 Commerce at home was impeded by countless restrictions, while 
 all the domestic markets, in towns and fairs, were so freely opened 
 to the Flemish and other manufacturers, that in reading the his 
 tory of the Plantagenets it is- difficult to avoid being struck with 
 the identity of the English system of that day with the Turkish 
 one of our own that under which the Ottoman Empire has sunk 
 to its present state of inanition. While enjoying privileges within 
 the kingdom the exercise of which was denied to Englishmen, the 
 foreign merchants were unsparing in their efforts to monopolize 
 the purchase of the raw material on one side of the Channel, and 
 the conversion of it on the other and thus to maintain the largest 
 difference between the prices of the wool they needed to buy and 
 the cloth they desired to sell. To carry into effect these views 
 
 * The price of wool being fixed in the market of the world, was entirely 
 unaffected by the division that might be made between the government and 
 the people. Of that price the government claimed one-third and this was 
 purely and simply a direct tax. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 395 
 
 was the object of the regulations of the Flemish cities to which 
 reference has above been made. 
 
 The power of association or commerce then scarcely at all 
 existed in England diversity of employment being a thing but 
 little known. As a consequence, although wool was low in price, 
 all articles of food were yet, by comparison, greatly lower their 
 bulk being quite too great to admit of their exportation to distant 
 countries, and there being little market for them at home. The 
 former representing food that had undergone a single process 
 of manufacture commanded, ton for ton, twenty times as much 
 of the precious metals. The cost of transportation being, there 
 fore, comparatively small, it could, with some facility, travel to a 
 distance ; whereas, food was often being wasted in one part of the 
 kingdom when famine prevailed in others ; and therefore it was 
 that sheep and hogs constituted almost the entire capital of those 
 who professed to farm the land. 
 
 The facts thus presented for consideration, by England of that 
 day, are identical with those occurring in the purely agricultural 
 countries of *bur own. The cotton of India can be sent to a dis 
 tance, because it, like the English wool, is the representative of 
 food that has undergone a single process of manufacture. The 
 food of India cannot travel even from one part of the country to 
 another ; and therefore it is that famines prevail in one district, 
 while corn perishes for want of demand in others. The Russian 
 corn can, with difficulty, go abroad, but its wool can readily do 
 so. The corn of Illinois and Iowa is to so great an extent ab 
 sorbed on the road to market, that the farmer desires, wherever 
 possible, to subject it to the first rude process of manufacture, and 
 therefore passes it through the stomach of the hog carrying it 
 to market in the form of pork. That of Virginia is passed 
 through the stomachs of negro men and women, and taken to 
 market in the form of slaves. That of Carolina, after having 
 been digested by men and women, finds its way to England in 
 the shape of cotton. In the latter, the necessity for effecting 
 changes of place was as it now is felt to be the great obstacle 
 to improvement ; and, as that diminished with every diminution 
 in the bulk of the commodities requiring to be transported, it is 
 no matter of surprise that we find the common sense of the Eng 
 lish people leading them to take the first step in the career whose 
 
396 CHAPTER XVI. 2. 
 
 advantage was afterwards so clearly exhibited by Adain Smith, 
 when showing how great was the weight of corn and wool con 
 tained in a piece of cloth ; and how easily the two could be trans 
 ported when they had assumed that form. 
 
 Then, as now, distance from market was productive of great 
 unsteadiness in the demand for, and the supply of, the bulky pro 
 ducts of the earth the laborer perishing at one moment for want 
 of food ; and the farmer, at the next, being ruined for want of 
 people who required to eat, and were able to pay for the corn he 
 desired to sell. From 1302 to 131f, the price of wheat rose 
 steadily, until from 12s. in the first, it had attained 5 18s. in the 
 last; and then, but a few years later, we find it down to 6s., 
 10s., and 1 Is.* Cultivation was limited everywhere to the 
 superficial soils the richest lands of the kingdom being then, as 
 for centuries afterwards they continued to be, so covered with 
 wood, or so saturated with moisture, as to render them useless for 
 any of the purposes of man. On the opposite side of the Chan 
 nel, all was different. Combination of action, resulting from 
 diversity of employment, having brought into activity the richest 
 soils, agriculture had already attained a position higher, proba 
 bly, than that occupied by any part of England, even at the open 
 ing of the eighteenth century. With every day, the people of 
 Holland, and of Flanders, were then obtaining greater power 
 over nature, and greater facilities for the accumulation of further 
 wealth. 
 
 2. Such was tne state of things in England at the date of the 
 passage of the act prohibiting the export of wool and the import 
 of cloth. It was a measure of resistance, looking to the protec 
 tion of the English farmer against the monopolies of the Flemish 
 manufacturers ; and, as such, tended greatly to the promotion of 
 commerce, f In this proceeding, however, the usual error of refor- 
 
 * These prices are in money of the present time, as given by Adam Smith, 
 Wealth of Nations, book 1, chap. xi. 
 
 j- "Edward III., and others of our princes, incurred no little odium by the 
 judicious protection -which they afforded to the foreign manufacturers who 
 took refuge among us." McCuLLOCH: Discourse introductory to the Wealth 
 of Nations, p. xxv. 
 
 Mr. McCulloch is, nevertheless, an opponent of the system which looks to 
 extending the same protection in the present time, even where the circum 
 stances are precisely similar. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OP FORM. 39 1 
 
 mers that of going too far and fast is clearly obvious. When 
 nature works most beneficially for man, she works slowly ; and 
 what is true in the natural world, cannot be other than true in the 
 social one. Man as rarely profits by violent changes in the socie- 
 tary edifice, as he does by earthquakes, or by water-spouts. The 
 difficulty of the English corn and wool growers consisted in the 
 absence of competition for the purchase of their commodities, 
 consequent upon long-continued dependence upon a single and 
 distant market. Its remedy was to be found under a system of 
 alterative treatment looking to the creation of a domestic one 
 while leaving untouched the export of the raw material required 
 for the supply of distant countries. 
 
 What was required for giving the producer a choice of mar 
 kets, was the imposition of such a duty on foreign cloths as would 
 have made it the interest of the foreign weaver to come to him 
 and consume his bulky corn, while converting into cloth his more 
 compact wool. Such a measure might have been fully and 
 promptly carried into effect, and its adoption would have given 
 all the advantages that could have been expected from the other, 
 while unattended by any counterbalancing disadvantages. As it 
 was, however, the nation being poor, and the ability to purchase 
 foreign merchandise, consequently, very small, while the necessi 
 ties of the king were very great, the latter needed, as far as pos 
 sible, to retain all the accustomed sources of revenue ; among 
 which that afforded by the export of wool stood forth most con 
 spicuous. The prohibition of the trade throwing it chiefly into 
 his own hands, he continued largely to profit by it. The one 
 great measure, however, the establishment of direct commerce 
 between the producer of wool and corn and the consumer of 
 cloth, was, in some degree, accomplished ; and from that time 
 forth there was a daily increase in the power of voluntary associa 
 tion, manifested by the building of new towns and enlargement of 
 old ones ; by the enfranchisement of serfs ; and by the growing 
 power of the Commons to direct the movements of the ship of 
 state. Magna Charta provided for securing the privileges of the 
 aristocracy; but the statute of 1347 laid the foundation of the 
 liberties of the people, by providing for the diversity of their em 
 ployments and the development of their various individualities ; 
 as a consequence of which the change of system was followed by a 
 
398 CHAPTER XVI. 3. 
 
 rapid increase in the amount of force at the command of the com 
 munity itself. 
 
 3. For centuries, nevertheless, England continued to be an 
 importer of cloth, iron, and other manufactured commodities, and 
 an exporter of raw materials a course of things leading neces 
 sarily to the exhaustion of the soil, and to great waste of mental 
 and physical force. That force represented the capital consumed 
 in the form of food, the quantity of which required for the proper 
 nourishment of the population was just as great as it could have 
 been had all the time been profitably employed ; but that it could 
 not be, in default of the power to maintain commerce, the condition 
 of whose existence is found in the rapidity of circulation result 
 ing from diversity in the modes of employment. The mass of the 
 force produced being wasted, the people remained poor requir 
 ing laws providing for their compulsory support out of the pro 
 duce of the land ; and hence arose a necessity for establishing a 
 forced circulation by means of poor laws, the commencement of 
 which is found in the act of 43 Elizabeth. 
 
 The community continued poor and weak as compared with 
 others across the Channel, in which employments were more diver 
 sified ; and hence it is that we find the Dutch enjoying almost a 
 monopoly of the privilege of managing the commerce of England 
 with foreign countries. The period of the Protectorate brought 
 with it, however, a successful effort at establishing direct com 
 merce with distant nations, by means of navigation laws, that laid 
 the foundation of British power on the ocean at the present day. 
 For a still later one it was reserved to witness a similar effort for 
 the promotion of commerce at home, by establishing direct inter 
 course between the producers of food on one hand, and the con 
 sumers of shoes and stockings, hats, caps, and bonnets, on the 
 other between the men who had labor to sell, and those who had 
 corn or wool, cloth or iron, with which to buy it. The distinction 
 of having been the first to suggest the measures that since have 
 led to the manufacturing greatness of England, has recently been 
 claimed for Andrew Yarranton, some extracts from whose work* 
 
 * England s Improvement by Sea and Land. To Outdo the Dutch without 
 Fighting. To pay Debts without Moneys. To set at work the Poor of England 
 with the Growth of our own Lands, $c. $c. By ANDREW YARRANTON. London, 
 1677. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 399 
 
 will enable the reader to see what was the then position of the 
 English farmer ; and why it was that protection was deemed to 
 be required : * 
 
 From France were imported canvases, lockrums, and great 
 quantities of coarse cloths, so much so, in .fact, that it hath 
 almost laid aside the making of linen cloth in England. Twine 
 and yarn were also imported to make sail-cloth and cordage f 
 which hath taken off the labor of multitudes of people in Suffolk 
 and thereabouts, and hath so lessened the trade that it is almost 
 lost. Narrow coarse cloths were imported from north Germany, 
 the cheapness whereof hath beaten out the linen trade formerly 
 made in Lancashire, Cheshire, and thereabouts, about forty years 
 since, a very great trade. Bed-ticking was also imported, which 
 had almost destroyed that trade in Dorsetshire, and Somerset 
 shire, so the spinners are idle, and the lands fall in price. Yarns 
 were imported from Germany. Formerly, the clothiers made 
 use of linen yarn spun in that country, (the neighborhood of Kid 
 derminster,) to make their lynsey-woolseys, but now the cheapness 
 of the foreign threads hath put them upon making use of German 
 yarn. Great quantities of thread (yarn) also are used at Man 
 chester, Maidstone, and in other parts of England, to mix with 
 woollen ; with infinite other commodities ; and all the benefit of 
 the labor of these threads is applied to foreigners. r 
 
 The remedy for this state of things was, according to Yarran- 
 ton, to be found in importing the skill, to which end he gave the 
 following advice : 
 
 Send for one man from Friburgh, to put you in the true way 
 and method of making the tape, and to bring over two engines 
 one to weave narrow tape, and the other to weave broad tape, 
 with wheels to spin. (The German wheels were much superior to 
 the English.) 
 
 " * Send for one man from Dort, in Holland, to put you in the 
 true way of ordering the fine threads. 
 
 * The following passages are from a recent work Dove s Elements of Poli 
 tical Science in which are given copious extracts from Yarranton s remark 
 able book. They are here copied at some length, because the facts they 
 record correspond so precisely with those of all other countries of the pre 
 sent day engaged in exporting raw materials and importing manufactured 
 commodities. The difficulties now to be overcome by them are the same 
 that then existed in England, and the remedial measures now pursued in 
 the advancing countries of the world are the same that are here suggested. 
 
400 CHAPTER XVI. 3. 
 
 " Send for a spinning-mistress out of Germany, to order and 
 govern the little maids, and instruct them in the art of spinning. 
 
 " Send for a man from Harlem, in Holland, to whiten (bleach) 
 your tapes and threads. " 
 
 Regarding the iron manufacture as being, next to linen, of the 
 first importance, he says 
 
 " Consider how many iron-works are laid down (abandoned) 
 both in Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, and many more must follow. 
 The reason is, the iron from Sweadland, (Sweden,) Flanders, 
 and Spain comes in so cheap, that it cannot be made to profit 
 here. * * * 
 
 " Now I have showed you the two manufactures of linen and 
 iron, with the product thereof, and all the materials are with us 
 growing ; and these two manufactures will, if by law counte 
 nanced, set all the poor in England at work, and much enrich 
 the country, and thereby fetch people into the kingdom, whereas 
 now they depart; (yes, honest Andrew, and now also they de 
 part ;) and thereby deprive the Dutch of these two great manu 
 factures of iron and linen. I mean, iron wrought into all commo 
 dities, so vastly brought down the Rhine into Holland from Liege, 
 Gluke, Soley, and Cologne, and by them diffused and sent all the 
 world over. And these two trades being well fixed here, will help 
 to beat the Dutch without fighting. I pray, consider the charge 
 England is now at with the poor, and observe what they now cost 
 the public ; but, if employed in these two manufactures, what ad 
 vance by their labor might the public receive ! Admit there be 
 in England and Wales a hundred thousand poor people unem 
 ployed, and each one costs the public fourpence the day in food, 
 and, if these were employed, they would earn eightpence the day ; 
 and so the public, in what might be gained and saved, will advance 
 twelvepence the day by each poor person now unemployed. So a 
 hundred thousand persons will be to the benefit of the public, if 
 employed, one million and a half yearly in these two manufactures 
 of iron and linen. And as these two manufactures are now man 
 aged in Saxony, they set all their poor at work. I, travelling 
 aworter and across Saxony, did not see one beggar there ; and 
 these two manufactures being prudently and by good laws, there 
 supported and encouraged, they are become two parts in three 
 of the revenue and benefit of that duke ; and they are sent into 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 401 
 
 England at this time in great quantities, all paying customs in 
 ten several places before they come here. * 
 
 " But there is something that may be of worse consequence 
 than ordinary, if the iron manufacture be not encouraged. At 
 present, most of the works in Sussex and Surrey are laid down, 
 and many in the north of England, and many in other parts, must 
 follow, if not prevented by enclosing commons to supply them 
 with wood. And when the greatest part of the iron-works are 
 asleep, if there should be occasion for great quantities of guns 
 and bullets/ (always guns and bullets, 
 
 * As if the metals were intended 
 For nothing else but to kill men dead, ) 
 
 and other sorts of iron commodities, for a present unexpected 
 war, and the Sound happen to be locked up, and so prevent iron 
 coming to us, truly we should then be in a fine case I 
 
 " The next branch of industry to which Andrew directed the 
 attention of his countrymen was the woollen trade ; and this he 
 proposes to improve by the adoption of the processes which en 
 abled the foreigner to make a handsomer cloth than was made in 
 England. Here his advice was, import the machinery. Two 
 pieces of the same web of cloth may be so differently dressed, that 
 the one shall be coarse, hard, unpleasant to the wear, unattractive 
 to the eye, and comparatively unsuited to the market. The other 
 piece, although made of the same wool, and woven in the same 
 loom, may be so judiciously treated as to assume qualities of an 
 entirely different character. Dressing, in fact, is the education 
 of cloth the woollen fabric, like the man who wears it, may grow 
 up a boor or a gentleman. Andrew, then, tells his countrymen 
 how they may dress their cloths, and make them of a superior 
 quality ; and this he does in a dialogue which would do no dis 
 credit to Izaak Walton. Before considering his method, how 
 ever, we must notice one of his statements so contrary as it is 
 to the common supposition that manufacturers were flocking into 
 England. This they had done a century before ; but Andrew 
 assures us that, in his day, the manufacturers were actually emi 
 grating to Germany, Ireland, and Holland. His statements on 
 this head, although concise, are quite explicit. We shall cite 
 
402 CHAPTER XVI. 3. 
 
 only one, premising that he is speaking of those practices which 
 were calculated to injure the trade of England : 
 
 " Another trick there is of carrying fullers earth from Wo- 
 borne to Lynn in Norfolk, as they pretend ; and then ship it to 
 be carried to the clothiers in the west, and when at sea, a west 
 wind blows the ship into Flushing, in Zealand. And we will 
 have more fullers earth carried from Arundel in Sussex to Ports 
 mouth or to Chichester, and there shipped to secure the clothiers 
 in the north of England ; and when that ship is over against 
 Hull, a west wind shall blow her over to the Brill, or into the 
 Texel, into Holland. And these two ladings of earth, with a 
 little that shall be brought over for ballast for ships, will do mis 
 chief enough, for trade will go where it is most encouraged, and 
 where the merchant and. clothier can get most by it. 
 
 " Draper. True, old friend, these tricks there are, and there 
 are bad men enough that will be apt enough to leave the land 
 where they were born ; but let us see to help these matters, for if 
 you should be one of them, all the poor of this country will be 
 bound to curse you, and so will the rich too ; for ive have had 
 men bad enough of our own trade, (but it will not become me to 
 name persons,) who have provoked many clothiers to sell their 
 estates, and transport themselves into the Lower Palatinate, and 
 other parts of Germany, and there set up the clothing trade, 
 which hath already spoiled our coarse cloth trade eastward, and 
 tlw trade at Hamborough too ; for if their trade be spoiled in 
 England, they must try if they can make it out somewhere else, 
 as in Ireland, Holland, and Germany, &c? " 
 
 The folly of England in confining herself so almost exclusively 
 to agriculture, had in those days become proverbial on the conti 
 nent. " The stranger," as they said, "buys of the Englishman 
 the skin of the fox for a groat, and sells him the tail for a shil 
 ling."" iSeeing that the system then existing tended towards the 
 cheapening of all the raw materials of manufacture, labor included, 
 Yarranton had little difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that a 
 people wholly employed in tillage must remain poor, because of 
 the waste of labor consequent upon the absence of that combina 
 tion of effort Which constitutes commerce. He, therefore, urged 
 upon his countrymen the adoption of protective measures, by 
 means of which they should, at once, incur the expense of bring- 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 403 
 
 ing the machinery and the skill to the raw materials, and thus for 
 ever relieve themselves from the necessity for sending the bulky 
 corn and wool to the machinery and the skill. Were this done, it 
 would, as he confidently assured them, lead to such improvements 
 in the internal communications, and in commerce generally, that 
 food could be cheaply supplied to all parts of the country that 
 rents would rise that capital would so much increase, that inte 
 rest would greatly fall and that land would sell more readily at 
 thirty years purchase of the greater rent than it then could do 
 at sixteen years purchase of the lesser one. These were remark 
 able predictions, but they were made by a man who seems fully 
 to have appreciated the advantages resulting from that rapidity 
 of circulation which constitutes commerce ; and their entire accu 
 racy was verified by the great increase in the value of both land 
 and labor which subsequently followed their emancipation from 
 that heaviest of all taxes the one resulting from a necessity for 
 effecting changes of place, and constituting the great bar to 
 progress. 
 
 In the advice thus given in regard to a great question in social 
 science, this remarkable man only indicated measures similar to 
 those we now see to be everywhere else pursued. When the che 
 mist desires to diminish the centralizing force by means of which 
 particles of matter are held together and thus to produce indi 
 viduality, and the consequent power of association among those 
 particles he does it by means of the establishment of a stronger 
 counter-attraction in another direction ; as when he immerses zinc 
 and copper in acids, and thus develops electricity. So, too, with 
 the occupant of our Western prairies, who always fights fire with 
 fire establishing local centres of attraction by means of which 
 gravitation towards the great central fire is so much diminished, 
 that the latter quickly ceases to exist. Flanders, Holland, and 
 Germany had already attained to so great a perfection of manu 
 facture, that the attraction of centralization was drawing in that 
 direction not only all the raw materials of England, but many of 
 the most valuable among her people ; and Yarranton saw clearly, 
 that the latter could never prosper until she should have esta 
 blished a system of counter-attraction sufficient not only to enable 
 her to retain the skill she already had ; but, also, to attract that 
 which she required, and as yet had not. His advice was taken ; 
 
404 CHAPTER XVI. 4. 
 
 and from that time the statute-book of England became, from 
 year to year, more and more filled with laws having for their 
 object the bringing together of the farmer and the artisan, with a 
 view to the production of association and combination and there 
 by diminishing the necessity for exhausting the land by means of 
 the exportation of its products in their rudest state. 
 
 4. The insular position of England had given her security 
 of person, and of property, so far as regarded the devastations of 
 war, to an extent unknown in any part of Europe ; and, in the 
 days of Yarranton, she was waiting only the adoption of a system 
 that should enable her people to combine together for the develop 
 ment of their various individualities. To effect a change in the 
 movements of a nation requires, however, no inconsiderable time. 
 The knowledge existed on the continent, but it was not to be 
 found in England. In Holland, in the Netherlands, and in the 
 manufacturing states of Germany, wealth abounded, and the loan 
 of capital could be obtained at the rate of four or five per cent. ; 
 whereas, in the other it was with difficulty obtained for employ 
 ment either in manufactures, or in agriculture. For centuries, the 
 current of raw materials had been towards the continent, but now 
 the course of that current was to be changed ; and to accomplish 
 this was a work requiring serious effort. Commerce, too, in Eng 
 land herself, was impeded by- numerous restrictions, many of which 
 had been created by law, while others had resulted from the anx 
 iety of the existing manufacturers to discourage domestic compe 
 tition for the purchase of raw products, as well as for the sale of 
 finished commodities. Then, as now, they desired to buy cheaply 
 and sell dearly ; and the more they could prevent the extension of 
 manufactures at home, the cheaper would be wool and the dearer 
 woul$ be cloth. 
 
 Time, however, brought the change, but not until the English 
 farmer had experienced in its full effect the loss resulting from the 
 necessity for depending on distant markets for the sale of the raw 
 products of the earth. In the long and warlike period that closed 
 with the treaty of Utrecht, the power of wheat to command money 
 in exchange had been equal to 43s. 6^. per quarter, but with the 
 return of peace, (1713,) the price fell to 35s., and thereafter con 
 tinued gradually to decline until, in the ten years ending 1755, 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 405 
 
 the average was but 21s. 3d.; or less than half of what before had 
 been obtained for it. The product exceeding the consumption, 
 a small portion needed to go abroad ; and that the price obtained 
 for the surplus fixed that of the whole crop, will be obvious to all 
 who remark the course of trade. A deficiency to the extent of 
 even a hundred thousand bushels raises the price of all to the 
 level of that at which that small supply may be brought from the 
 distant market ; while an excess to that extent reduces the whole 
 to the level of the price at which this trivial quantity must be 
 sold. How very slight was the excess to which was due the 
 great reduction that had taken place, is shown by the following 
 figures : 
 
 Ten years ending Price. Export, average. 
 
 1725 115. 4a 124,000 quarters. 
 
 1735 1 155. Id 176,000 " 
 
 1745 1 12. Id. 276,000 
 
 1755 1 Is. 2d. 446,000 " 
 
 At the low price of 21s. 2d, the farmers of England obtained 
 a market abroad for less than four millions of bushels yielding 
 scarcely two millions of dollars a year. The total product of 
 wheat in Great Britain in this latter period must have been more 
 than forty millions of bushels ; and as that grain then entered 
 little into consumption as compared with what it since has done, 
 it would be, perhaps, fair to place the total production of food 
 as being the equivalent of a hundred millions of bushels. Of 
 this, about four per cent, constituted the surplus thrown upon 
 the then regulating markets of the world, depressing the prices 
 there, and in a corresponding degree depressing those obtained 
 for the whole quantity produced ; to the injury of the land and 
 labor of the kingdom to that of the artisan and to that of all 
 but those who were dependent upon fixed incomes for their 
 support. 
 
 The population of England was then but six millions, of whom 
 the land-owners then numbering nearly two hundred thousand 
 and their families, must have been nearly one-sixth, or a million 
 in number. Adding to them the laborers in husbandry, we have 
 a large proportion of the community directly dependent upon the 
 results of agriculture. The mechanic, however, was equally inte- 
 
406 CHAPTER XVI. 4. 
 
 rested in the prosperity of the farming class, because, if they could 
 sell at fair prices, they could buy the products of his skill and 
 labor. The more instant the demand for food and wool, the 
 greater was the ability of the agricultural laborer to purchase 
 cloth and that of the proprietor of land to effect improvement 
 upon his property, with a view to the larger production of both 
 food and wool. What England then needed, was the direct mo 
 tion between the producer and the consumer at home commerce 
 by help of which her farmers might be emancipated from the 
 dominion of trade. In default of this motion, the latter were 
 obliged to accept 21s. Zd. per quarter for the whole wheat crop, 
 and corresponding prices for all other descriptions of food while 
 exporting but four millions of quarters, and importing, in the 
 forms of cloth and iron, probably thrice that quantity. 
 
 Progress was, however, being made. With the middle of the 
 century it came to be discovered that iron could be smelted by 
 help of mineral coal ; and thenceforward improvements tending 
 to the diversification of the pursuits of men became numerous and 
 rapid. The mighty power of steam was brought to supersede the 
 labors of the human hand the spinning-jenny was invented and 
 the processes required for the manufacture of iron continued to be 
 improved with rapid increase in the circulation of labor and its 
 products in the economy of human effort in the accumulation of 
 wealth and in the power of further progress. The farmer being 
 now freed from his dependence on the distant market, the price 
 .of grain rapidly rose as a necessary consequence of the approxi 
 mation of the consumer and the producer, and the extension of 
 commerce. The power of wheat to command money in exchange 
 increased in the ten years ending in 1765 to 1 19s. 3d.; and in 
 those ending in 1775, to 2 11s. 3d., at or near which price 
 it remained in the twenty following years. Taking the average 
 quantity, of food of all descriptions, consumed, as being the equi 
 valent of twenty bushels of wheat, the total advance in the return 
 to agricultural labor, consequent upon the increase in the rapidity 
 of circulation resulting from the creation of a domestic demand, 
 could thus be little short of twenty millions of pounds sterling, or 
 a hundred millions of dollars. Agriculture, therefore, advanced 
 rapidly creating new demands for labor, and enabling the laborer 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 407 
 
 to claim a constantly increasing proportion of the augmented 
 quantity of things produced.* 
 
 5. So far as protection had been resorted to with a view to 
 enable the farmers to call to their aid the skill and the machinery 
 already in use abroad, and to obtain command of the various 
 natural forces required for finishing their products and fitting them 
 for consumption, it was right. It relieved them from the heavy 
 tax of transportation ; it promoted the diversification of employ 
 ments and the development of intellect ; and it tended to give to 
 society that natural form in which strength and beauty are most 
 combined ; and therefore is it that we see in the movements of 
 the years immediately preceding the breaking out of the wars of 
 the French Revolution, so strong a tendency towards a reform 
 in the constitution of Parliament looking towards a fairer 
 representation of the various portions of which the society was 
 composed. 
 
 Had that been the limit of the movement had the British 
 policy looked solely to the creation of a domestic market for the 
 British farmers had it been limited to their own emancipation 
 from dependence on the casualties of distant markets had Bri 
 tish statesmen been governed by that great fundamental law of 
 Christianity, which requires that we should respect the rights of 
 others as carefully as we desire that they should respect our own 
 all would have been well ; and the doctrines of over-population 
 of the necessity of a cheap and abundant supply of labor of the 
 expediency of expelling a kindred nation, with a view to supply 
 its place by "one more mixed, more docile, and more service 
 able," and one "which can submit to a master" f the doctrines, 
 in short, of modern political economy, would have remained 
 unheard of. 
 
 Such, however, was not to be the course of events. Here, as 
 
 * How immense was the effect of the creation of a home market in 
 making a demand for land and labor, is shown in the fact, that in the 
 reigns of Anne and George I. 1702 to 1751 the whole number of enclo 
 sure acts obtained was 18, and the quantity of land embraced therein but 
 19,339 acres. From 1751 to 1760, the number was 226, and the quantity 
 of land, 318,778 acres; but from 1760 to 1797, the former rose to 1532, 
 and the latter to 2,804,197 and nearly all of this in the period from 1771 
 to 1791. 
 
 f London Times, on the Exodus of Ireland. 
 
408 CHAPTER XVI. 5. 
 
 everywhere else had been the case, there arose a disposition to 
 monopolize within themselves the knowledge by means of which 
 progress had been obtained ; and the more free the people by 
 whom the monopoly was desired, the more unscrupulous were 
 certain to be the measures by aid of which it would be sought to 
 be secured. Had it been otherwise, it would have been in oppo 
 sition to all the lessons taught by the history of the world ; and 
 should, at any future time, the people of the American Union be 
 so unfortunate as to have colonies, and they should then fail to 
 prove themselves the most tyrannical and unscrupulous of masters, 
 the fact would constitute the most remarkable one in history. It 
 is, therefore, no matter of surprise that to the freest people of 
 Europe we owe the invention of the system described in former 
 chapters of all that have ever existed, the most oppressive and 
 exhausting. 
 
 Nothing comparable with it in its capacity for evil had ever 
 been devised. Invasions by bodies of armed men are attended 
 with waste of property, destruction of life, and temporary suspen 
 sion of commerce ; but with the return of peace men are enabled 
 again to combine their efforts, and at the close of a few short 
 years all is again as it before had been. Such, however, is not 
 the case with invasions looking to the permanent substitution of 
 trade for commerce ; for under them, the power of association dies 
 away, the intellect declines in its development, and man gradually 
 loses all the power over nature that he before had gained. He, 
 himself, then diminishes in value, while that of the commodities re 
 quired for his support as regularly increases and with every step 
 in that direction he becomes more and more enslaved. The one 
 is a sudden shock from which, with care, the patient may recover ; 
 whereas, the other consists in opening the veins and permitting 
 the life s blood slowly to ebb away rendering recovery from day 
 to day more difficult, and closing at length in death. Of all the 
 countries of Europe, none has so frequently been overrun none 
 has so much suffered from the evils of war as Belgium; and 
 yet it has at all times ranked among those most prosperous. Of 
 all, the only ones that have for centuries been almost unprofaned 
 by a hostile foot, are the British islands ; yet, there was invented 
 the Malthusian theory, and in one of them is found the great trea 
 sury of facts by means of which it is attempted to be supported. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OP FORM. 409 
 
 France has suffered heavily from war ; but she maintains a policy 
 tending to promote the growth of commerce, and therefore does 
 she advance in wealth and power. Portugal, except during the 
 period from 180T to 1812, has been in a great degree exempt 
 from war ; yet she declines in wealth and strength, because wholly 
 subject to the exhaustive influences of trade. 
 
 6. The more rapid the circulation in a community, the greater 
 is the power at command, and the greater the tendency towards 
 increase in its amount. Whether or not mankind shall profit by 
 its acquisition of wealth and strength, is dependent wholly upon 
 the spirit in which it is directed. Wrongly guided, its power for 
 evil is as great as is its capacity for good ; and therefore is it 
 that we everywhere see the grievousness of the tyranny to be in 
 the direct ratio of the freedom of those by whom the power is 
 exercised. A people tyrant is an hydra-headed monster, com 
 pared with which an autocratic one is harmless. The knowledge 
 of the Athenians gave them power, and when they became mas 
 ters of the lives and fortunes of a thousand subject cities, they 
 proved themselves the most oppressive of taskmasters every man 
 among them being a sovereign, whose revenue was to be increased 
 by measures tending to the exhaustion of his subjects. The aris 
 tocracies of Carthage, and of Venice, and of Genoa, were less op 
 pressive the number of masters being not so great. The despot 
 ism of Charlemagne was light by comparison with that of the 
 aristocracy which succeeded to it ; as was that of Louis XI. , 
 when compared with the anarchy of Charles VI. and VII., 
 when there existed no law but that of force when kings and 
 dukes had recourse to assassination with a view to free themselves 
 from troublesome competitors and when robbery and murder, in 
 the persons of men like La Hire, Dammartin, and Saintrailles, 
 claimed and received the high honors of the state. So was it 
 with the despotism of Louis XIII. , as compared with the anar 
 chy of the League ; and so with that of Frederick III., as com 
 pared with that of the many little despots who, until then, had 
 disposed of the lives and fortunes of the Danish people. So is it 
 now with the Russian government, as compared with that worst 
 of all tyrannies maintained in Poland down to the day of its 
 partition. 
 
 VOL. I. 27 
 
410 CHAPTER XVI. 7. 
 
 The more numerous the masters, the worse for both master and 
 servant ; in proof of which may be cited the fact that it is within 
 the limits of the American Union, in which it was once proclaimed 
 that "all men were born equal," that the assertion has first been 
 made that "free society has proved an utter failure ;" and that 
 the natural condition of a large portion of the human race is that 
 of slavery involving the separation of husbands from wives, 
 parents from children, and brothers and sisters from each other. 
 Such being the case even here, it is no matter of surprise that to 
 the freest people of Europe we owe the invention of the most op 
 pressive despotism of that system which, more than any that 
 had preceded it, looked to the enslavement of man that one, the 
 supporters of which now publicly proclaim that for its mainte 
 nance there is required that the further increase of population 
 should be "in the most serviceable the most laborious part," 
 as otherwise it will not be sufficiently at the control of capital 
 and skill " being precisely the doctrine taught in Carolina by 
 men who hold that " slavery is the corner-stone of our insti 
 tutions." 
 
 7. The first and heaviest tax to be paid by man and land, 
 and the great obstacle to the indulgence of the desire for associa 
 tion, is, as has been shown, that resulting from a necessity for 
 effecting changes of place. The various portions of the earth are 
 differently fitted for the production of commodities suited to 
 satisfy the wants, or gratify the tastes, of man the tropics yield 
 ing rice, cotton, sugar, and various fruits ; while it is to the tem 
 perate zones we must look for corn, and to the arctic ones for 
 furs and ice. International commerce is, therefore, provided for 
 by natural laws ; but, to its extension there is opposed the great 
 amount of effort required for transporting commodities in the form 
 in which they are yielded by the earth the cotton in the seed 
 the raw wheat or the cane from which the sugar has yet to be 
 obtained. Looking, next, to the various divisions of the earth s 
 surface, we find, in every little state, provisions almost precisely 
 similar one part of England being best fitted for yielding cop 
 per, and another iron ; one yielding hay, and another hops ; one 
 producing coal, and another tin. Here, however, as in the case 
 of international commerce, we are met by the difficulty attendant 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 411 
 
 upon the necessity for transportation, for the removal of which we 
 find every man intent upon reducing, as far as possible, the bulk 
 of his commodity smelting his ore, and thus converting coal and 
 ore into copper or iron grinding his wheat, and exporting the 
 finer portions in the form of flour or sawing his trees into 
 planks, that he may save the expense of transporting those por 
 tions that are of little use. Elsewhere, other men are seen com 
 bining quantities of corn and wool into cloth ; or converting 
 masses of coal and iron into steel ; and again reducing the bulk 
 by converting large quantities of coal and of steel into knives, 
 forks, and other instruments. The more perfectly they succeed 
 in this the more they can relieve themselves from the tax of 
 transportation the more rapid must be the circulation among 
 themselves, the greater their power to improve the modes of trans 
 portation, so far as it is yet required ; and the greater must be 
 their ability to maintain commerce with distant people. 
 
 The English system looked to the diminution of the bulk of 
 their own products ; but it looked, also, to the prevention of any 
 such diminution in the products of other countries. Directed to 
 the extension of commerce at home, it was directed, also, to the 
 annihilation of commerce among the people of other communities ; 
 and here it was, as has been already said, that it went far beyond 
 any other that had ever been devised. Irish cloths had been cele 
 brated in the days when England exported all her wool and im 
 ported all her cloth ; and yet we find the latter availing herself of 
 all the power at her command for the suppression of the Irish 
 woollen manufacture, and for compelling all the wool of the coun 
 try to pass through the mills of England, before the Irish people, 
 themselves, could use it. Had she simply prohibited the manufac 
 ture leaving the wool-growers to seek a market where they would 
 she would thus greatly have augmented the cost of transporta 
 tion, while diminishing the power of association and promoting the 
 exhaustion of the land ; but to this was added, Pelion upon Ossa, 
 a prohibition of intercourse with the world except through the 
 markets of England and such was the policy afterwards adopted 
 in reference to all the colonies. 
 
 Having acquired wealth and power, it was deemed desirable to 
 carry out this policy in reference to independent nations ; and 
 hence the passage, in the period from 1765 to 1799, of the vari- 
 
412 CHAPTER XVI. 8. 
 
 ous laws prohibiting the export of machinery and artisans ; and the 
 maintenance of those prohibitions until 1825. Their object was, 
 so far as might be possible, that of compelling the rude produce 
 of the earth to be sent to England, there to be subjected to those 
 mechanical or chemical processes required for bringing it to the 
 form in which it was fitted for consumption. Thence it might go 
 abroad to be exchanged for sugar, tea, or coifee ; but even these 
 articles were, as far as possible, to be required to pass through 
 English ports, and by means of English ships. So oppressive a 
 system as this had never before even been imagined. It looked 
 to making every country outside of England a purely agricultural 
 one ; but, were all the communities of the world reduced to that 
 condition, each and every of them, and each and every of its parts, 
 would be compelled to produce all the commodities required for 
 consumption, as commerce there could be little or none, abroad 
 or at home. To enable distant commerce to exist, the bulk of 
 commodities must be reduced, and in the effort to accomplish that 
 object, diversity of employment is necessarily produced. That 
 diversity had arisen in England, and all her efforts were now 
 given to preventing its appearance in any other part of the world 
 and thus to establish the entire supremacy of the trader and 
 transporter over the producer. 
 
 8. Commerce grows with the diminution in the necessity for 
 transportation. The more the latter can be dispensed with, the more 
 continuous and rapid becomes the societary movement ; the more 
 is muscular and mental effort economized ; the more rapidly does 
 the reappearance of capital follow its consumption ; the greater is 
 the power of accumulation ; the greater the utility of all the mate 
 rials of which the earth is composed ; the less the value of the com 
 modities required for the use of man ; the greater the value of man ; 
 and the more rapid is the development of individuality and the 
 growth of freedom. 
 
 That such is the case is everywhere felt, and therefore it is that 
 the men who cultivate the earth so much rejoice in having the 
 workers in iron and cloth consumers of food and wool come 
 to occupy places in their neighborhood. To prevent this, and to 
 produce a constantly intermitted motion one that should cause 
 a long interval between production and consumption was the 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 413 
 
 object of the British system. It sought everywhere to cause the 
 wool and the cotton to travel thousands of miles in quest of the 
 little spindle and the loom ; and that, too, under the most disad 
 vantageous circumstances the bulk of all the commodities being 
 preserved at its largest, and the aperture through which they were 
 to pass contracted to the smallest size, as here is represented : 
 
 Cotton, corn, sugar, wool, 
 and other raw mate 
 rials of the world. 
 
 and mills. 
 
 The quantity seeking to pass being great, and the aperture 
 being narrow, it followed, necessarily, that the friction was 
 immense, and that the greater part of the raw produce disap 
 peared under the process to which it thus was subjected. The 
 larger the crop, the greater was the mass to be transported, 
 the higher became the freights, and the larger the charges for 
 storage and insurance ; but the smaller became the prices. It 
 hence resulted as a natural consequence of this most unnatural 
 process that the farmer and planter were forced to deprecate 
 the extension of production, for to them it was fraught with ruin. 
 Small crops giving low freights, small charges for storage, and 
 high prices in the distant market were profitable ; whereas 
 large ones were injurious to all engaged in the development of 
 the resources of the earth. 
 
 Until now, increase of population had been regarded as an ele 
 ment of strength, but as the British system came fairly into opera 
 tion the modes of thought were changed, and growth of numbers 
 came to be regarded as an evidence of weakness, and not of 
 strength. How far an unsound and unjust system of policy 
 tended to produce this change of doctrine, will be examined in 
 another chapter. 
 
414 CHATTER XVH. 1, 
 
 CHAPTER XYII. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 1. THE Wealth of Nations was first published in 1176 ; and 
 its chief object was the enforcement upon its author s countrymen 
 of the consideration of the great truth that trade and manufactures 
 were useful so far and so far only as they contributed to the 
 advancement of agriculture, to the development of the treasures 
 of the earth, and to the promotion of commerce. The tendency 
 of the colonial system was, as he thought, decidedly adverse to 
 the production of any of these effects, as by preventing the colo 
 nists from working in the "more refined manufactures," and 
 limiting them to those "coarse and household" ones usually car 
 ried on by a private family " for its own use" it tended, certainly, 
 to augment the quantity of raw materials sent to Britain thereby 
 discouraging British agriculture. That effect was, however, pre 
 cisely the one sought by the trader and the manufacturer to be 
 accomplished the cheaper the raw material abroad, the higher 
 being the freights of the one, and the profits of the other. 
 
 So far as the system tended to create a market for food, the 
 British farmer profited ; but, as regarded all other raw products, 
 he was a heavy sufferer under what Dr. Smith denominated "the 
 mean rapacity, the monopolizing spirit of merchants and manu 
 facturers" the class of men who thought that "England s trea 
 sure" was to be found "in foreign trade" alone. That that 
 trade might prosper, they desired cheap raw material ; and, that 
 it might be cheapened, they sought to promote competition for 
 the sale on the soil of England of all the rude products of other 
 lands, as well as of the half-converted ones required for any of 
 the processes of manufacture. "By encouraging the importation 
 of cotton yarn," says Dr. Smith, "and thereby bringing it into 
 competition with that which is made by our own people, they en 
 deavor to buy the work of the poor spinners as cheap as possible. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 415 
 
 They are," he continues, "as intent to keep down the wages of 
 their own weavers, as the earnings of the poor spinners; and it is 
 by no means for the benefit of the workman that they endeavor to 
 raise the price of the complete work, or to lower that of the rude 
 materials. It is the industry of the rich and powerful that is 
 principally encouraged by our mercantile system. That which is 
 carried on for the benefit of the poor and indigent is too often 
 either neglected or oppressed."* 
 
 Looking, thus, almost exclusively to trade, the system tended, 
 as he saw, unnaturally to increase the proportion of the British 
 population employed in the work of exchange and transportation 
 thereby raising up a nation of mere shopkeepers, and breaking 
 "that natural balance which would otherwise have taken place 
 among the different branches of British industry." " Instead of 
 running in a number of small channels, it had been taught to run 
 principally in one channel" thereby rendering "industry and 
 commerce less secure," and "the body politic less healthful than 
 it otherwise would have been." " In her present condition," as 
 he thought, " Great Britain resembled one of those unwholesome 
 bodies in which some of the vital parts are overgrown, and which, 
 upon that account, are liable to many dangerous disorders, scarce 
 incident to those in which all the parts are more properly propor 
 tioned." The dangers attendant upon this exclusive devotion to 
 the supposed interests of trade, being clearly obvious to him, he 
 cautioned his countrymen that " a small stop in that great blood 
 vessel, which has been artificially swelled beyond its natural 
 dimensions, and through which an unnatural proportion of the 
 industry and commerce of the country has been forced to circu 
 late, is very likely to bring on the most dangerous disorders upon 
 the whole body politic." * * * " The blood, of 
 which the circulation is stopped in some of the smaller vessels, 
 easily disgorges itself into the greater, without occasioning any 
 dangerous disorder ; but, when it is stopped in any of the greater 
 vessels, convulsions, apoplexy, or death, are the immediate and 
 unavoidable consequences. If but one of those overgrown manu 
 factures which, by means either of bounties or of the monopoly of 
 the home and colony markets, have been artificially raised up 
 to any unnatural height, finds some small stop or interruption in 
 * Wealth of Nations, book 4, chap. viii. 
 
416 CHAPTER XVII. 2. 
 
 its employment, it frequently occasions a mutiny and disorder 
 alarming to government, and embarrassing even to the delibera 
 tions of the legislature. How great, therefore, would," as he 
 thought, "be the disorder and confusion which must necessarily 
 be occasioned by a sudden and entire stop in the employment of 
 so great a proportion of our principal manufacturers 1"* 
 
 Great as were the dangers even then so evident as resulting 
 from an unnatural increase in the proportion of the population 
 engaged in the works of trade and transportation, the people of 
 England had at that time but entered upon the effort to reduce 
 the world at large under the system which so long previously had 
 existed in the colonies. The interdiction of the emigration of 
 artisans was then but ten years old ; and the British power was 
 then but beginning to be established in Hindostan. The fifth year 
 following the publication of the work of Dr. Smith witnessed the 
 prohibition of the export of silk and woollen machinery ; and be 
 fore the close of the century the policy had been perfected by the 
 extension of the prohibition to all other descriptions of machinery, 
 as well as to artisans by whom it might be made, and to colliers. 
 
 2. From 1750, when corn had been 21s. 3d. per quarter, to 
 1790, the population had increased about forty per cent., or from 
 six, to eight and a half millions ; but the supply of food had 
 grown at a rate still more rapid the production of the later 
 years of the period having been at least one-half greater than that 
 of the previous ones. The price, nevertheless, had more than 
 doubled, as has been already shown ; and thus had the farmer 
 profited by his emancipation from the necessity for seeking a mar 
 ket in distant countries. Corn was then higher at home than 
 abroad, as a consequence of which there had arisen a commerce 
 of importation, for the prevention of which, and for thus securing 
 themselves against the cheapening of the raw materials of life, 
 the agricultural interest procured, in 1791, the passage of a law 
 limiting the price at which it might be imported. 
 
 During all this period the tendency had been towards an in 
 crease in the proportion of the population engaged in consuming 
 food, whether as artisans, soldiers, traders, or transporters. The 
 system denounced by Dr. Smith was being, as the reader has seen, 
 * Wealth of Nations, book 4, chap. vii. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 417 
 
 from year to year, more fully carried out. For almost half a cen 
 tury, India had been devastated by contending French and Eng 
 lish armies, engaged in extending the dominion of trade at the 
 expense of commerce. Trade had stirred up dissensions between 
 the mother country and her American colonies, and had thus 
 produced the war of 1776. The class living by appropriation, 
 trade, and transportation, had increased in numbers and in power, 
 but it was reserved for the war of 1793 a war largely due to the 
 thirst for "ships, colonies, and commerce" to see it attain to 
 full dimensions. The demand for men and money for warlike 
 purposes then limited the power to apply labor, or capital, to the 
 improvement of the land, and greatly^ diminished the demand for 
 the services of the laborer. Consumers increasing in number, 
 while producers remained stationary, the price of food advanced, 
 while that of labor fell the effects of which were speedily seen in 
 the rapid growth of the almshouse population. 
 
 Pauperism prevailed to an extent that before had been un 
 known ; and then it was that Mr. Malthus furnished the world 
 with the "Principles of Population, 1 by help of which, as he told 
 his readers, they might understand the causes of that poverty 
 and misery observable among the lower classes of people in every 
 nation;" and of "the repeated failures in the efforts of the higher 
 classes to relieve them." Dr. Smith had seen that the policy 
 based upon cheap labor and cheap raw materials was itself the 
 work of those "higher classes;" and upon them he had urged the 
 abandonment of a system that, as he saw, looked to the enslave 
 ment of the people, and the weakening of the community. Mr. 
 Malthus, on the contrary, found the cause of slavery in a great 
 law of God, by means of which he relieved those " classes" from 
 all responsibility for "that poverty and misery" which they had 
 so unsuccessfully labored to "relieve" ; and thus enabled them to 
 close their purses, and even their hearts, against the commonest 
 dictates of charity, by the reflection that if they should in any 
 manner "stand between the error and its consequences" if they 
 should in any manner "intercept the penalty" affixed to the pro 
 creation of their species by those who had not already accumu 
 lated the means of support and education for their children 
 which penalty is poverty, wretchedness, and death they would 
 
418 CHAPTER XVII. 3. 
 
 "perpetuate the sin,"* and become themselves participants in 
 crime ! In these two sentences may be found the real differences 
 between the political economy of Adam Smith and that modern 
 one since so generally received. The former looks to the exten 
 sion of commerce to the development of mind and to the aug 
 mentation of the powers, and of the freedom of man ; the latter to 
 the extension of the dominion of trade to the limitation of the 
 mass of mankind to the works of cultivation and transportation 
 and to the ultimate enslavement of man by nature, and by his fel 
 low-man. 
 
 3. The mercantile system, so much reprobated by Dr. Smith, 
 had for its object the cheapening of all the raw material of manu 
 facture wool, cotton, food, and labor. Thus far it had, as he 
 saw, been productive of most injurious effects having increased 
 the dependence on machinery of trade and transportation hav 
 ing produced a belief that the more widely men were separated 
 from each other, and the greater the distance to be travelled over, 
 the greater was the benefit to be derived from commerce having 
 fostered the warlike tendencies of the people having caused an 
 improper division of the population and having tended greatly 
 to promote the creation of large fortunes at the expense of those 
 who had labor alone to sell. Such, as he told his countrymen, 
 were the necessary consequences of the system ; but it needed a 
 further experience of twenty years for proving that such was cer 
 tainly the case, and for giving occasion to the extraordinary dis 
 covery that although the demand for labor had become more 
 steady as population had increased, and as men had more and 
 more, from the days of the Plantagenets to those of George III., 
 acquired wealth, and with its acquisition had obtained increased 
 facility of combination ; now, having in the last half century ac 
 quired an extraordinary increase of power having began to util 
 ize the great deposits of coal, and of iron and copper ores having 
 learned to command the wonderful force of steam having learned 
 to apply it to the conversion of wool into cloth having obtained 
 a great increase of wealth having greatly facilitated the develop 
 ment of the latent faculties of man, and the latent powers of the 
 earth and having thus produced a vast increase in the move- 
 
 * Edinburgh Review, October, 1849: article, Unsound Social Philosophy. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FOKM. 419 
 
 ment of society the demand for labor must become more un 
 steady, and pauperism must increase, in virtue of a great natural 
 law, by which it had been provided that the more efficient the 
 machinery of cultivation, the less must be the return to the labor 
 employed in developing the resources of the earth. 
 
 This was a remarkable discovery, certainly ; but, happily, it 
 was a discovery of a fact that never had existed, and never can 
 exist. The treasures of nature are boundless in extent ; and they 
 wait only for man to claim them. Unfortunately, however, the 
 theory was precisely the one that was needed for the prevention 
 of the adoption of any of the remedial measures proposed by 
 Adam Smith. Proving, as it professed to do, that pauperism 
 existed in obedience to the laws of God that the natural rate of 
 wages " was just so much as," and no more than, "was necessary 
 to enable the laborers, one with another, to subsist and perpetuate 
 their race, without increase or diminution" that inequality of 
 condition existed in obedience to divine laws that the rich and 
 powerful had therefore only rights to exercise, and not duties to 
 perform it proved, too, that they could safely and conscien 
 tiously "eat, drink, and make merry," though surrounded by 
 poverty, wretchedness, disease, and death solacing themselves 
 with the reflection that the poor had their fate in their own hands, 
 and that if they failed to exercise the "moral restraint" which 
 should lead to abstinence from that regular association of the 
 sexes which causes reproduction of the species, the fault was 
 their own, and upon them must justly fall the penalty of trans 
 gression. 
 
 4. The system which looked exclusively to foreign trade was, 
 therefore, not only maintained in full, but with each successive 
 year was more extensively carried out. From the days of Mr. 
 Malthus to our own, the temple of Janus has rarely, even if ever, 
 been closed, in testimony of the existence of peace throughout the 
 British empire. The war in which Britain was then engaged was 
 followed by one with this country, since the close of which there 
 have been wars for the annexation of Scinde and Affghanistan for 
 the conquest of Ava and the Punjab for the maintenance of the 
 opium trade for the extension of power in South Africa for 
 the development of new avenues for trade throughout the Turkish 
 
420 CHAPTER XVII. 4. 
 
 Empire and others all looking to the one great object of 
 cheapening the raw products of the earth, and thereby cheapening 
 the labors of the men by whom the earth was being tilled. 
 
 For the accomplishment of that object, as the reader has seen, 
 the union with Ireland was perfected, and her manufactures were 
 annihilated. For its accomplishment, the people of India were re 
 quired to receive the cotton goods of England free of duty, while 
 deprived of the power to purchase more efficient machinery from 
 abroad, and taxed to an unheard-of extent for the use of that 
 which they already possessed. For its accomplishment, Gibraltar 
 has been maintained as a smuggling depot for Spain ; while Heli 
 goland, the Ionian Islands, and numerous other colonies, have 
 been used for smuggling goods into Germany, the United States, 
 and other countries the smuggler being now regarded as "the 
 great reformer of the age." For its accomplishment, it has been 
 required that there should be combinations among masters for 
 keeping down the price of labor for limiting the hours in which 
 machinery should be run, with a view to preventing the rise of 
 raw materials and for discouraging the growth of manufactures 
 in other countries. That all of these are acts of war, and that 
 they are properly so to be regarded, will be seen on a perusal of 
 the following extract from an official document recently published 
 by order of the House of Commons : * 
 
 " The laboring classes generally, in the manufacturing districts 
 of this country, and especially in the iron and coal districts, are 
 very little aware of the extent to which they are often indebted 
 for their being employed at all to the immense losses which their 
 employers voluntarily incur in bad times, in order to destroy 
 foreign competition, and to gain and keep possession of foreign 
 markets. Authentic instances are well known of employers hav 
 ing in such times carried on their works at a loss amounting in 
 the aggregate to three or four hundred thousand pounds in the 
 course of three or four years. If the efforts of those who encou 
 rage the combinations to restrict the amount of labor and to pro 
 duce strikes were to be successful for any length of time, the great 
 accumulations of capital could no longer be made which enable a 
 few of the most wealthy capitalists to overwhelm all foreign 
 
 * Report of the Commissioner appointed to Examine into the Slate of the 
 Population of the Mining Districts. 1854. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 421 
 
 competition in times of great depression, and thus to clear the 
 way for the whole trade to step in when prices revive, and to 
 carry on a great business before foreign capital can again accu 
 mulate to such an extent as to be able to establish a competition 
 in prices with any chance of success. The large capitals of this 
 country are the great instrumeiits of warfare (if the expression 
 may be allowed) against the competing capital of foreign coun 
 tries, and are the most essential instruments now remaining by 
 which our manufacturing supremacy can be maintained j the other 
 elements cheap labor, abundance of raw materials, means of 
 communication, and skilled labor being rapidly in process of 
 being equalized." 
 
 The system here described is vefy properly characterized as 
 " warfare ;" and we may properly inquire for what purposes, and 
 against whom, it is waged. It is a war, as the reader sees, for 
 cheapening labor and raw materials being precisely the objects 
 sought to be accomplished by the "Mercantile System,", whose 
 error was so well exposed in the Wealth of Nations. It is a war 
 for compelling the people of other lands to confine themselves to 
 agriculture for preventing the diversification of employments in 
 other countries for retarding the development of intellect for 
 palsying every movement elsewhere looking to the utilization of 
 the metallic treasures of the earth for increasing the difficulty 
 of obtaining iron for diminishing the demand for labor for 
 producing pauperism for doing all these things at home and 
 abroad and for thus bringing about the state of things whose 
 approach was predicted by Adam Smith. 
 
 To measures such as here described was due the closing of all 
 the manufactories of India, followed by the exportation of cotton 
 to England, there to compete with the products of Carolina and 
 Alabama. The more perfectly the system can be carried out the 
 more the manufacture can be restricted to England the cheaper 
 will be the raw materials ; but the greater will be the export of 
 cheap labor to Texas and to the Mauritius, there to raise more 
 cotton, sugar, and other raw materials ; and thence to compete 
 with each other for the reduction of prices, and for the more com 
 plete enslavement of the laborers of all those countries. 
 
 5. It is claimed that the warfare above described is beneficial 
 
422 CHAPTER XVII. 5. 
 
 to the people of England. Were that so, it would establish the 
 lamentable fact that war could be profitable that nations and 
 individuals could permanently thrive by the commission of acts 
 of injustice and that, such being the divine law, communities were 
 warranted in so exercising their power as to prevent the growth 
 of civilization where it did not as yet exist, and to annihilate it 
 where it did. Happily, there exists no such law. Nations can 
 permanently prosper only as they obey the golden rule of Chris 
 tianity ; and when they fail to do so, Nemesis never fails to claim 
 her rights. That she has done so on this occasion, and that the 
 pauperism of England is due to failure in this respect, the reader 
 may, perhaps, be satisfied after a brief examination of the effect 
 of the system upon her own fitborers, whether engaged in the work 
 of the factory, or of the field. 
 
 The manufactures of Ireland gradually declined from the date 
 of the Union in 1801. As they ceased to demand the services of 
 men, women, and children, the latter were forced to seek employ 
 ment in the field ; and thus was the production of food increased, 
 while the home consumption diminished. The exports, conse 
 quently, rose from 300,000 quarters in the early years of the cen 
 tury, to 2,500,000 thirty years later causing the price in England 
 to fall from an average of 4 per quarter in the years from 1816 
 to 1820, to one of 2 12s in those from 1821 to 1835. At first 
 sight, this reduction in the price of food might seem to be an 
 advantage, but, unfortunately and necessarily, it was accompanied 
 by still greater cheapness of labor it being one of the character 
 istics of the system which looks to the cheapening of raw materials 
 that it lessens the demand for human service. At the moment when 
 corn was so cheap, millions of Irish people were totally idle, and 
 seeking anxiously, yet vainly, for employment at sixpence a day, 
 without clothing, or even food. As a consequence of this, Great 
 Britain was, says one of the British journals,* "flooded with 
 crowds of half-clad, half-civilized Celts, reducing the standard of 
 living" among English laborers, and furnishing that "abundant 
 supply of cheap labor" to which, says the Times, Britain is in 
 debted for all her "great works." Man had, to quote again the 
 words of that journal, "become a drug, and population a nui 
 sance;" and had so become, because of the annihilation of com- 
 * North British Review, November, 1852. 
 
OP MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 423 
 
 merce among the Irish people. Labor, another of the raw mate 
 rials of manufacture, having, therefore, fallen faster than food, the 
 pauperism of England had so rapidly increased that no less than 
 one-ninth of the population had become recipients of aid from the 
 public purse ; and the poor-tax had risen in thirty years from five 
 to nearly nine millions of pounds, while the price of wheat had 
 fallen nearly forty per cent. Food was low, but wages were so 
 very low that the laborer could not purchase. Labor was low, 
 but food was so cheap that the farmer was unable to pay rent and 
 wages. Thus did both the land-owner and the laborer of England 
 suffer from the want of that circulation of men and things through 
 out Ireland which would have resulted from the establishment in 
 the latter of a system under which every man would have been 
 enabled to sell his own labor, and to become a purchaser of that 
 of his neighbors, their wives and children a system under which 
 Irish commerce could have grown. 
 
 . The manufacturing population, however, it might be supposed, 
 had gained by the cheaper food. On the contrary, they suffered, 
 because the decline of wages in other pursuits was accompanied 
 by a diminution in the power to purchase cloth and with the 
 decline in the price of food, the farmer had become unable to pur 
 chase machinery of cultivation. All thus suffered alike. The 
 destruction of the home market for food and labor in Ireland, 
 consequent upon the annihilation of her commerce, had produced 
 the same effect in England. The great manufacturer may, per 
 haps, have profited. On the contrary, his market in England 
 had been lessened, while that of Ireland had almost totally failed 
 and thus had a nation been almost annihilated with no profit to 
 those who had done the work ; but, with the most serious loss to 
 all, resulting from the fact that the standard of living and of mo 
 rals had been greatly reduced ; that the disease of over-popula 
 tion had far more widely spread ; and that the gulf dividing the 
 higher and lower classes of English society had greatly widened. 
 Nowhere in the world is there to be found stronger evidence of 
 the advantage to be gained in carrying out, in the management 
 of public affairs, the strictest observance of the great fundamental 
 law of Christianity, than is to be found in the history of the con 
 nection between England and Ireland in the present century. 
 
424 CHAPTER XVII. 6. 
 
 6. The power to purchase the labor of others is dependent 
 altogether upon the existence of the power to sell our own labor. 
 The power to purchase things is dependent upon the power to 
 produce things with which to purchase. The man who cannot 
 sell his own labor cannot buy that of others ; nor can the man 
 who is deprived of the power to produce things purchase the 
 things produced by others. In annihilating the power of associa 
 tion among the Irish people, the manufacturers of England anni 
 hilated the power to purchase the products of English looms 
 the land-holders annihilated the power to consume the products 
 of the earth the laborers annihilated the power to consume Irish 
 labor and the society of Britain annihilated the motion of society 
 or commerce of Ireland ; the consequences of all of which 
 were seen in the fact that the land and labor of England herself 
 declined in value and in power, for the benefit of the classes 
 dependent upon their powers of appropriation. 
 
 It might, however, be supposed that the other markets whioh 
 had been acquired were of a character to make some amends for 
 the losses by English land and labor resulting from the steady 
 pursuit of a policy so entirely opposed to the enlightened views 
 of Dr. Smith ; and we will, therefore, turn to the trade with the 
 hundred millions of the people of India. The export of cotton 
 yarn and cloth to that country did not then amount to 70,000,000 
 of pounds, nor did the import of raw cotton amount to 200,000 
 bales, of 400 pounds each ; and yet this constituted the only item 
 of the trade with that country that was of any essential import 
 ance ; or that was materially dependent upon the maintenance of 
 the system above described. The quantity of cotton now con 
 verted into cloth in the little town of Lowell, with its thirteen 
 thousand operatives, being 40,000,000 of pounds, it follows, that 
 two such little places would perform all the labor required for the 
 whole trade for which England is indebted to the destruction of 
 the cotton manufacture and commerce of India a measure 
 attended with the production of an amount of misery and destitu 
 tion " unparalleled in the annals of commerce." 
 
 For its accomplishment, it was needed that English children of 
 the most tender age should be kept employed twelve or fourteen 
 hours per day that they should apply the Sunday morning hours 
 to the cleaning of the machinery and that men, women, and chil- 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 425 
 
 dren should be brutified to an extent that can be imagined only by 
 those who have studied the reports of the commissions that have 
 at various times been instituted with a view to the correction of 
 some of the many evils resulting from the system.* Need we 
 wonder at the fact that the theory of over-population which is 
 the theory of centralization, slavery, and death had its origin 
 in the country which originated such a policy ? 
 
 The student of Indian history is shocked when he reads the 
 account of the invasion of Nadir Shah, closing, as it did, with 
 the plunder of Delhi, the destruction of its buildings, and the 
 massacre of a hundred thousand of its inhabitants and yet, how 
 utterly insignificant was the loss thus caused, compared with that 
 which has resulted from the annihilation of a manufacture that, 
 but half a century since, gave employment to the people of 
 " whole provinces" one, the account of whose progress included 
 "no less than a description of the lives of half the inhabitants of 
 Hindostan" ! Utterly insignificant was it when compared with the 
 
 * "The crowd of low pot-houses in our manufacturing districts is a sad 
 and singular spectacle. They are to be found in every street and alley of 
 the towns, and in almost every lane and turning of the more rural villages 
 of those districts, if any of those villages can be called rural. 
 
 " The habit of drunkenness pervades the masses of the operatives to an 
 extent never before known in our country. 
 
 " In a great number of these taverns and pot-houses of the manufacturing 
 districts, prostitutes are kept for the express purpose of enticing the opera 
 tives to frequent them, thus rendering them doubly immoral and pernicious. 
 I have been assured in Lancashire, on the best authority, that in one of the 
 manufacturing towns, and that, too, about third-rate in point of size and 
 population, there are sixty taverns where prostitutes are kept by the tavern 
 landlords, in order to entice customers into them. Their demoralizing influ 
 ence upon the population cannot be exaggerated; and yet these are almost the 
 only resorts which the operatives have, when seeking amusement or relaxa 
 tion. 
 
 " In those taverns where prostitutes are not actually kept for the purpose 
 of enticing customers, they are always to be found in the evenings, at the 
 time the workmen go there to drink. In London and in Lancashire the gin- 
 palaces are the regular rendezvous for the abandoned of both sexes, and the 
 places where the lowest grade of women-of-the-town resort to find customers. 
 It is quite clear that young men, who once begin to meet their friends at 
 these places, cannot long escape the moral degradation of these hot-houses 
 of vice. 
 
 "The singular and remarkable difference between the respective condition 
 of the peasants and operatives of Germany and Switzerland, and those of 
 England and Ireland, in this respect, is alone sufficient to prove the singular 
 difference between their respective social condition. 
 
 " The village inn in Germany is quite a different kind of place to the vil 
 lage inn in England. It is intended and used less for mere drinking than as 
 a place for meeting and conversation: it is, so to speak, the villagers club." 
 KAY : Social Condition of the People of England and of Europe, vol. i. p. 232, 
 
 TOL. I. 28 
 
426 CHAPTER XVII. 6. 
 
 daily and hourly waste of capital now resulting from a total ab 
 sence of demand for the exertion of physical or mental capacity 
 with the decline and death of commerce the ruin of Dacca and 
 other famous and flourishing cities the abandonment of rich 
 lands the unceasing exhaustion of the soil the resolution of 
 society into a body of grasping money-lenders on the one hand, 
 and wretched cultivators on the other and the inauguration of 
 famine and pestilence as the chronic diseases of a people inferior 
 to none in moral and intellectual qualities, and embracing a tenth 
 of the population of the world. The booty obtained by Nadir 
 was estimated at five hundred millions of dollars ; and yet, large 
 as was its amount, very far greater is that annual tax imposed 
 upon the people of Hindostan by a system that by forbidding 
 association by forbidding combination of effort by forbidding 
 the development of the human faculties and by forbidding the 
 existence of that commerce by help of which alone capital is accu 
 mulated converts the whole body of the people of that great 
 country into candidates for admission into the public service, as 
 the only possible means of advancement. Greatly superior as is 
 the loss inflicted, as greatly inferior is the gain to those by whom 
 the loss is caused. Nadir did obtain an enormous amount of 
 plunder, but the English people have gained nothing but the pri 
 vilege of employing themselves as transporters, spinners, and wea 
 vers of a trivial quantity of cotton ; a privilege obtained at the 
 cost of the sacrifice of the rights of a hundred millions of people 
 abroad, and the establishment at home of the doctrine proclaimed 
 by Mr. Huskisson, in 1825, that "to enable capital to obtain a 
 fair remuneration, the price of labor must be kept down ;" or, in 
 other words, that to enable trade to thrive, men must be enslaved. 
 The destruction of the temple of Ephesus by the torch of the in 
 cendiary Erostratus, animated thereto, as he was, by a desire to 
 perpetuate the recollection of his existence, will probably appear 
 to future ages to have been an act of the highest wisdom, when 
 compared with the annihilation of commerce throughout immense 
 communities under the mistaken idea that prosperity to any single 
 one was to be obtained under a system like that denounced by Dr. 
 Smith looking solely and exclusively to the purchase of all the 
 raw material of manufacture, labor included, at low prices, and the 
 sale of cloth at high ones. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 427 
 
 Turning to the West Indies, to Portugal, and to Turkey, we 
 meet everywhere, as the reader has already seen, the same result 
 
 the power to purchase the products of English labor having 
 perished with the loss of the power to sell their own. All of 
 those countries are paralyzed. In all, circulation has so far 
 ceased, that they more resemble dead than living bodies ; and 
 England now presents the extraordinary spectacle of a nation 
 possessing, more than any other, the power to render service to 
 mankind, yet surrounded by colonies and allies, all of whom are 
 slowly, but certainly, passing towards entire inanition while 
 she, herself, is exhausting her energies in the ceaseless effort to 
 extend throughout the world the system by means of which they 
 have been so much reduced. 
 
 7. In the natural order of things, the prices of all the rude 
 products of the earth tend to rise, and for the reason, that as 
 population increases, as the power of association becomes more 
 complete, as individuality is more and more developed, and as 
 circulation becomes more rapid, the men engaged in developing 
 the resources of the earth are enabled more readily to maintain 
 commerce with each other. In one country, silver or gold is 
 mined ; in another, corn, or cotton, is raised ; and in a third, 
 coal, iron, and other ores, are extracted from the earth ; but, in 
 their rude state, none of these can readily be transported. The 
 gold-miner needs clothing, paper, books, and iron instruments 
 but he has no use for wool, rags, or iron ore ; and until the pro 
 ducers of these latter obtain the means of diminishing the bulk of 
 their commodities compressing the rags and the food into paper 
 
 the wool and the food into cloth or the food and the ore into 
 instruments useful for the miner there can be no direct inter 
 course between them. 
 
 That such intercourse may exist, it is, then, indispensable that 
 employments become diversified the producer and the consumer 
 of corn taking their places by each other s side, in accordance 
 with the idea so well expressed by Dr. Smith. As that idea is 
 more and more fully carried out, commerce bet ween the producers 
 of corn and wool on the one hand, and of gold on the other, be 
 comes more and more direct the necessary result of constant 
 diminution in the quantity of labor required for changing the 
 
428 CHAPTER xvn. 7. 
 
 places, or the forms, of the rude products of the earth. With 
 every diminution in the obstacles to direct commerce, thus pro 
 duced, the prices of raw materials and of finished commodities 
 approximate more nearly to each other those of the former tend 
 ing steadily to rise, while the others tend as steadily to fall ; and 
 thus, while one obtains more cloth for his gold, another obtains 
 more gold for his food and his wool all, therefore, profiting by 
 that increase in the power to command the services of nature 
 which constitutes wealth. 
 
 That the facts are so, will readily be seen by those who study the 
 gradual increase in the prices of wheat, corn, and oats throughout 
 our Western States ; or, the yet greater changes resulting from 
 the creation of local centres of exchange, at which hay, potatoes, 
 turnips, or other of the most bulky articles, are converted into 
 cloth, or iron the former rising in price as regularly as the 
 latter decline ; as is shown in the fact before referred to, that, 
 whereas, thirty years since, fifteen tons of wheat were required, in 
 Ohio, to pay for a ton of iron, a similar quantity may now be had 
 in exchange for two, or, at most, three, tons. In England, in the 
 ten years ending in 1150, the power of a quarter of wheat to com 
 mand gold in exchange was only, as has been seen, 21s. Sd. ; 
 whereas, twenty years later, that power had become twice as 
 great, because of the growing facility of intercourse with the 
 gold-producing countries, consequent upon an increased control 
 of the powerful forces of nature in the various processes required 
 for changing the places, or the forms, of matter. The value of 
 man steadily increased, for he could command more gold, more 
 food, and more cloth in return for a given quantity of effort. The 
 value of gold, in England, declined, because it would command 
 less of the raw materials of manufacture food, wool, and labor. 
 To the gold-producer the utility of his commodity increased, 
 because it would command in exchange a larger quantity of cloth 
 ing and other commodities required for his consumption. 
 
 Approximation in the prices of raw materials and finished 
 commodities is the one essential characteristic of civilization 
 it being the manifestation of a diminution of the obstacles stand 
 ing in the way of association, and impeding the growth of com 
 merce. As the mill comes nearer to the farm, there is a constant 
 increase in the proportion borne by the price of a bushel of wheat 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 429 
 
 to that of a barrel of flour ; and that proportion still further in 
 creases as improvements are effected in the machinery of the mill 
 itself. As the processes of converting hides are improved, the 
 prices of leather, and of all commodities in the making of which 
 it is required, tend steadily downward ; but that of hides so stead 
 ily advances, that whereas, when certain kinds of leather sold for 
 twenty cents, hides were worth but five cents a pound, now, when 
 the same leather sells for fourteen cents, the price of the raw mate 
 rial is seven. In the last quarter of a century, rags have increased 
 in price not less than fifty per cent,, while paper has fallen thirty 
 or forty per cent. ; and whereas, it then required six pounds of 
 the one to pay for a pound of the other, the same may now be 
 obtained for less than three pounds. Five-and-twenty years since, 
 raw silk was low in price, and silk goods were high ; but since 
 then, the first has advanced fifty per cent., while the last has so 
 greatly declined, that silks have largely taken the place formerly 
 occupied by cotton. The saw-mill lowers the price of planks ; 
 and the plariing-machine does the same by that of doors and win 
 dow-frames ; but they increase the price of timber, and the farmer 
 of the West is thus enabled to sell the trees that before he would 
 gladly have seen destroyed. Look where he may, the reader will 
 see that, in the natural course of things, the price of raw material 
 of every kind land, labor, cotton, wool, or corn tends to rise 
 with every increase in the facility of intercourse with the men em 
 ployed in producing gold and silver. Everywhere around, he will 
 find evidence of the truth of the proposition, that as population 
 grows, as the power of association increases, as the faculties of 
 man are more and more developed, and as wealth augments, the 
 rude products of the earth tend to increase in their power to com 
 mand the precious metals in exchange, while finished commodities 
 tend as steadily to decline thus enabling all, whether producers 
 of corn or gold, wool or silver, to profit by, and to rejoice in, the 
 constantly increasing power of their fellow-men to command the 
 services of nature. Among communities, as among individuals, 
 the harmony of all real and permanent interests is perfect. 
 
 The British system looks, however, in a direction exactly oppo 
 site to this being based upon the idea of cheapening all the raw 
 materials of manufacture, labor included. Examine it where we 
 may, we find it promoting extension of the cultivation of cotton, 
 
430 CHAPTER xvn. 7. 
 
 wool, sugar, and corn, while limiting the commerce between the 
 producers of those commodities and the consumers of cloth and 
 iron, by requiring the whole to pass through the narrow strait 
 afforded by ships and distant mills and thus augmenting the 
 obstacles that intervene between the growers of corn and cotton 
 and the miners of silver and of gold. So long as the people of 
 India converted their cotton, rice, and sugar into cloth, they could 
 maintain direct commerce with the producers of the precious 
 metals ; as a consequence of which the exchanges were in their 
 favor with every part of the earth, with constant tendency to rise 
 in the price of raw materials of every kind. Since the prostration 
 of the cotton manufacture, the difficulty of maintaining commerce 
 has increased the flow of the precious metals has been outward 
 instead of inward and cotton has fallen to three halfpence a 
 pound ; while the difficulty of obtaining cotton cloth has so largely 
 increased, that its consumption does not probably exceed a single 
 pound per head. So has it been in Ireland, Jamaica, Portugal, 
 and Turkey in all of which the obstacles to commerce have 
 increased, with corresponding decline in the price of labor and of 
 raw materials of every kind; and that decline has been in the 
 direct ratio of the increase in the facilities for reaching the 
 great central market. A quarter of a century since, the brown 
 sugar of India would command in the market of England from 
 20s. to 30s. per hundredweight, whereas it will now commonly 
 exchange for only 15s. or 20s. Forty years since, the cotton of 
 Carolina commanded money in England at the rate of twenty 
 pence a pound ; whereas it now fluctuates between four and seven 
 pence and for the reason that the obstacles to direct intercourse 
 with the world at large increase, when they should as regularly 
 diminish. Forty years since, flour was exported from this coun 
 try at eight dollars a barrel ; whereas, in the years which imme 
 diately preceded the breaking out of the Crimean war, it had 
 fallen to little more than half that price and that, too, notwith 
 standing the wonderful increase in the supply of gold that had 
 resulted from the discovery of the Californian mines. 
 
 8. The reader may perhaps understand the working of the 
 system above described after an examination of the following com 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OP FORM. 431 
 
 parative prices of commodities that the people of England have to 
 sell, and those that they need to buy : 
 
 1815. 1852. 
 
 Those they sell are 
 
 Bar iron, per ton 13 5s. (M. 9 Os. Off. 
 
 Tin, per cwt 700 520 
 
 Copper, " 650 5 10 
 
 Lead, " 166 140 
 
 Those they buy are 
 
 Cotton, per Ib 016 006 
 
 Sugar, per cwt 300 100 
 
 While the principal articles of foreign produce have fallen to 
 one-third of the prices of 1815, iron, copper, tin, and lead, the 
 commodities that they supply to the world, have declined but 
 about twenty-five per cent. It is more difficult to exhibit the 
 changes of woven goods ; but that the planters are constantly 
 giving more cotton for less cloth, will be seen on an examination 
 of the following facts in relation to recent years, in which the 
 crop was large, as compared with the course of things a few years 
 previously : From 1830 to 1835, the price of cotton here was about 
 eleven cents, which we may suppose to be about what it would 
 yield in England, free of freight and charges. In those years 
 our average export was 320,000,000 of pounds, yielding about 
 $35,000,000 ; and the average price of cotton cloth, per piece of 
 24 yards, weighing 5 pounds 12 ounces, was Ys. 10d., ($1.88,) and 
 that of iron, 6 10s., ($31.20.) Our exports would therefore 
 have produced, delivered in Liverpool, 18,500,000 pieces of cloth, 
 or about 1,100,000 tons of iron. In 1845 and 1846, the average 
 price here was six and a half cents, making the product of a simi 
 lar quantity, $20,000,000. The price of cloth having been 6s. 6f d., 
 ($1.57^,) and that of iron, 10, ($48,) the result was, that the 
 planters could have, for nearly the same quantity of cotton, about 
 12,500,000 pieces of cloth, or about 420,000 tons of iron, also 
 delivered in Liverpool. Dividing the return between the two 
 commodities, it stands thus : 
 
 Average from 1830 to 1835. 1845-6. Loss. 
 
 Cloth, pieces 9,250,000 6,250,000 3,000,000 
 
 And iron, tons 550,000 210,000 340,000 
 
 The labor required for converting cotton into cloth had been 
 
432 CHAPTER XVII. 8. 
 
 greatly diminished, and yet the proportion retained by the manu 
 facturers had greatly increased, as will now be shown : 
 
 Weight of Cotton used. 
 1830tol835 ..... 320,000,000 ......... 110,000,000 ......... 210,000,000 
 
 1845 and 1846.. 320,000,000 ......... 76,000,000 ......... 244,000,000 
 
 In the first period, the planter had thirty-four per cent, of his 
 cotton returned to him in the form of cloth, but in the second, 
 only twenty-four per cent. The grist-miller gives the farmer 
 from year to year a larger proportion of the product of his grain, 
 and thus the latter participates in the advantage of every improve 
 ment. The cotton-miller gives the planter from year to year a 
 smaller proportion of the cloth produced. The one miller comes 
 daily nearer to the producer. The other goes daily farther from 
 him, because he is himself compelled to exhaust his land, and re 
 move from year to year further from his market. 
 
 How this operates on a large scale will now be seen on an ex 
 amination of the following facts : 
 
 The declared or actual value of exports of British produce and 
 
 manufactures in 1815, was ............................................ 51,632,971 
 
 And the quantity* of foreign merchandise retained for con 
 
 sumption in that year was ............................................ 17,238,841 
 
 This shows, of course, that the prices of the raw products of 
 the earth were then high by comparison with those of the articles 
 that Great Britain had to sell. 
 
 In 1849, the value of British exports was ............................ 63,596,025 
 
 And the quantity of foreign merchandise retained for con 
 
 sumption was no less than ............................................ 80,312,717 
 
 We see thus that while the value of exports had increased only 
 one-third, the produce received in exchange was almost five 
 times greater ; and here it is that we find the effect of that un 
 limited competition for the sale in England of the raw products 
 of the world, and limited competition for the purchase of the 
 manufactured ones, which it is the object of the system to 
 establish. 
 
 * The returns of imports into Great Britain are given according to an 
 official value established more than a century since, and thus the sum of the 
 values is an exact measure of the quantities imported. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 433 
 
 Look where we may, we see that while, under a natural sys 
 tem, the prices of the raw products of the earth, and those of 
 finished commodities, tend constantly to approximation leaving 
 a diminished proportion for the parties engaged in the work of 
 transportation and conversion directly the reverse is the case in 
 all the countries subject to the British policy, the proportions of 
 those parties tending constantly to increase, and the power of the 
 producer to command the services of money tending as constantly 
 to decrease. The lower the price of cloth, and the higher the 
 price of food and cotton, the greater will be the tendency towards 
 freedom. The higher that of cloth, and the lower those of food 
 and cotton, the greater will be the tendency towards slavery. 
 The British system tends to cheapen the raw materials of cloth, 
 and to enhance the difficulty of obtaining cloth itself; arid thus 
 does it look in a direction precisely opposite to that of advancing 
 civilization. Retrograde always, and everywhere, the facts oc 
 curring under it could be explained only by means of a theory of 
 over-population, by help of which the ultimate slavery of man 
 could be made a part of the divine law. 
 
 9. The higher the price of raw materials, and the lower the 
 price of finished commodities, the less will be the proportion of 
 the total product of labor absorbed by the persons engaged in the 
 work of transportation and conversion ; and the less, necessarily, 
 will be the proportion borne by those classes to the mass of which 
 society is composed. The nearer the mill to the farmer, and the 
 more perfect its machinery, the more nearly will the price of wheat 
 and flour approximate to each other and the smaller will be the 
 proportion borne by the labor required for carrying the raw pro 
 duct to the mill, for converting it into flour, and for carrying the 
 flour back again to his home, to that which had been given to the 
 improvement of the land required for the production of the wheat 
 itself. In the natural course of things, therefore, the proportion 
 of the labor of man given to augmenting the quantity of raw pro 
 ducts should be a constantly increasing one, and that given to 
 changing them in place, or in form, a constantly decreasing one. 
 
 Directly the reverse of this, however, is the effect produced by 
 the system which looks to the building up of trade upon the ruins 
 of commerce. The men of India who raised cotton and rice could 
 
434 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 9. 
 
 formerly exchange directly with their neighbors who converted 
 it into cloth ; and all could give the whole of their time to the 
 work of producing wool and food on the one hand, and cloth on 
 the other. Now, all are obliged to send, or carry, their rice and 
 their wool to a place fifteen thousand miles distant, and to do this 
 by aid of oxen, horses, ships, canal boats, and other machinery ; 
 as a consequence of which the proportion of the labor given to 
 transportation and conversion has largely increased, while that 
 given to production has as constantly decreased. The result of 
 this is seen in the fact, that after having annihilated the Indian 
 manufactures, the total quantity of cotton now supplied to Eng 
 land is not more than could be converted in a little town con 
 taining twenty thousand operatives. So has it been in Ireland, 
 where so large a proportion of the labor was required to be 
 given to effecting changes in the place of things and people, that 
 little remained to be given to production, and the market for 
 British manufactures proved to be more and more worthless the 
 more perfectly it had been secured.* So has it proved in Ja 
 maica, Portugal, and Turkey, in which, as the proportion of 
 labor required to be given to those purposes has increased, the 
 consumption of British manufactures has decreased. The pro 
 cess is exhaustive ; and hence the constantly increasing necessity 
 for seeking new and more distant markets, with daily augmenting 
 tendency to increase in the proportion of the British population 
 given to the carriage, the conversion, and the exchange of the 
 products of distant lands. 
 
 That this effect is steadily being produced is shown by the fol 
 lowing facts, furnished by the several recent censuses of the peo 
 ple of Great Britain : 
 
 * The power of Ireland to pay for British manufactures is dependent upon 
 her ability to furnish commodities with which to pay for them. How en 
 tirely insignificant the latter has become, will be seen by the following table 
 of exports for the year ending January 5, 1854: 
 
 Oats, quarters 1,552,917 
 
 Bacon and hams, cwts 530 
 
 Beef and pork, barrels 472 
 
 Butter, cwts 17,944 
 
 Oxen, number 180,785 
 
 Calves " 5,281 
 
 Sheep, " 224,550 
 
 Swine, " 101,396 
 
 Wheat, quarters 76,495 
 
 From the value of this trivial export was to be deducted the amount re 
 quired to be paid to the absentee owners of land, and to the government, 
 and it seems difficult to imagine how therts should remain any thing to be 
 applied to the payment for articles required for consumption. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 435 
 
 Year. 
 1811 
 
 Engaged in In 
 agriculture. ma 
 35-2 
 
 trade anrl . , 
 nufucture. 
 
 44-4 
 
 Hhers* . 
 20-4 
 
 rotal. 
 
 100 
 
 1821 
 
 33-2 
 
 45-9 
 
 20-9 
 
 100 
 
 1831 
 1841 
 
 28-2 , 
 .. 25-17... 
 
 42-0 
 44-64... 
 
 20-8 
 
 30-19.... 
 
 100 
 100 
 
 We have here a gradual decline in the proportion of persons 
 employed in augmenting the quantity of things requiring to be 
 converted or exchanged, until* from $ it has fallen to 2 5 , and 
 that in the short space of thirty years ; and the change thus indi 
 cated is hailed by British economists as evidence of growing 
 civilization ! Directly the opposite of this, however, is what we 
 had a right to look for the power of steam having been substi 
 tuted for that of man, to the extent of hundreds of millions of 
 hands ; and all the force thus gained having been given to the work 
 of changing the places, and the forms, of the raw products of the 
 earth. The effect should have been that of setting free the labors 
 of millions of men, to be applied to the augmentation of the 
 quantity of things susceptible of being converted or exchanged ; 
 whereas, so far the reverse has it been, that the proportion of 
 people engaged in the works of transportation, conversion, and 
 exchange has increased from i-g to ^jj and that in only thirty 
 years. The more that nature is made to supersede the labor of 
 men in these departments of employment, the larger is the pro 
 portion of their labor absorbed by them. The movement here, as 
 everywhere, is a retrograde one ; and, being so, may, perhaps, 
 enable us to account for the invention of the Ricardo-Malthusian 
 theories. 
 
 The flour-mill is useless unless there is corn to be ground and 
 the cotton-mill is idle where there is no wool to be spun and 
 woven. The less the labor required for grinding the one, or 
 spinning the other, the less is the necessity for increasing the 
 number of mills, unless the time and mind thus set free be ap 
 plied to the work of developing the powers of the earth, and thus 
 augmenting the quantity of raw material requiring to be con 
 verted. If the labor that is economized be thus applied, 
 
 * Embracing I. Capitalists, bankers, and professional and other educated 
 men ; II. Laborers employed in labor not agricultural ; TIL Male servants, 
 20 years of age and upwards : IV. Navy, army, and seamen in merchant 
 service ; V. Persons of independent income ; VI. Alms-people. 
 
436 CHAPTER XVII. 9. 
 
 then more mills will be needed ; and then the quantity of labor 
 applied to the work of conversion, or transportation, may advan 
 tageously be increased ; but not otherwise. In the case before 
 us, the proportion of the labor given to conversion increases in 
 the direct ratio of the diminution of the necessity for it ; and the 
 proportion given to production diminishes in the ratio of the in 
 crease in the machinery used for the conversion of the things pro 
 duced. There is, therefore, a constant increase in the number of 
 people requiring to be fed and clothed, accompanied by as con 
 stant a decrease in the number of persons employed in furnishing 
 the raw material to be used by those who need supplies of food 
 and clothing. 
 
 One-fourth only of the people of England being engaged in 
 increasing the quantities of things, while three-fourths are either 
 entirely unoccupied, or are occupied in effecting changes in their 
 places, in their forms, or in their ownership, it follows necessarily 
 that the major part of the things produced is absorbed in its pas 
 sage from the place of production to that of consumption. That 
 such is really the case, we learn from a leading British journal,* 
 which tells its readers that "the number of retail traders and 
 shopkeepers is out of all proportion to the requirements of 
 society, or the numbers of the producing classes. There are 
 in many places," as it continues, "ten shopkeepers to do the 
 work which one would suffice for such at least is Mr. Mill s 
 estimate. Now these men, industrious and energetic as they are, 
 do not add to the production, and therefore not to the wealth, of 
 the community ; they merely distribute what others produce. 
 Nay more, in proportion as they are too numerous, do they dimi 
 nish the wealth of the community. They live, it is true, many 
 of them, by snatching the bread out of each other s mouths; 
 but still they do live, and often make great profits. These profits 
 are made, it is obvious, by charging a per-centage on the article 
 they sell. If, therefore, there are two of these retailers to be sup 
 ported by a community when one would suffice to do the work, 
 the articles they sell must cost that community more than needs to 
 be the case, and so far the country is impoverished by supporting 
 an unproductive laborer too many. Any one who examines 
 into the subject is surprised to find how small a portion of the 
 * North British Review, November, 1852. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 437 
 
 price paid by the consumer for any article goes to the producer or 
 importer, and how large a portion is absorbed by the distributor.* " 
 
 We have here the real difficulty of British society, and the source 
 to which we are indebted for the suggestion of the extraordinary 
 theory of Mr. Malthus. The system tends unnaturally to increase 
 the proportion of consumers, and to cause the absorption of so 
 large a portion of the product of labor on its passage from the 
 field in which it is produced, to the mouth that needs to eat it, or 
 the back that needs to wear it, that its producer finds it difficult 
 to obtain the means of supporting life. The man who labors in 
 the field upon land yielding thirty or forty bushels to the acre, 
 receives but six shillings, or the price of a single bushel, for his 
 week s work ; and yet, the product of his year s labor is probably 
 but little short of a thousand bushels. His share is, therefore, 
 six, eight, or ten, per cent., while ninety, or more, per cent, is 
 absorbed by those who own the machinery with which he works 
 by those who control its management by those who direct the 
 government, those who carry arms, those who live in almshouses 
 and those who, in a thousand other ways, stand between the 
 production of the food and its consumption. 
 
 The poor man of the west of Ireland is glad to get five pence 
 for a pair of chickens that wall sell in London for as many shil 
 lings ; and thus does he receive eight per cent, as the price of his 
 labor the remaining ninety-two per cent, being absorbed by the 
 class of middlemen, f When, however, he desires to invest the 
 
 * "I think any one who has had occasion to inquire, in particular cases, 
 what portion of the price paid at a shop for an article really goes to the per 
 son who made it, must have been astonished to find how small it is. It is of 
 great importance to consider the cause of this." * "It 
 
 does not arise from the extravagant remuneration of capital. I think it pro 
 ceeds from two causes : one of them is, the very great, I may say the extra 
 vagant, portion of the whole produce of the community which now goes to the men 
 distributors ; the immense amount that is taken up by the different classes 
 of dealers, and especially by retailers. Competition has, no doubt, some 
 tendency to reduce this rate of remuneration; still, I am afraid that, in most 
 cases, and looking at it as a whole, the effect of competition is, as in the case 
 of the fees of professional people, rather to divide the amount among a larger 
 number, and so diminish the share of each, than to lower the scale of what 
 is obtained by the class generally." * * * " If the business 
 of distribution, which now employs, taking the different classes of dealers 
 and their families, perhaps more than a million of the inhabitants of this 
 country, could be done by a hundred thousand people, I think the other 
 nine hundred thousand could be dispensed with." J. S. MILL: Evidence 
 before a Committee of the House of Commons, June 6, 1850. 
 f See page 332, ante. 
 
438 CHAPTER XVII. 9. 
 
 proceeds in sugar, he pays five pence for that which had not 
 yielded to its original producer as much cloth as could be pur 
 chased with a farthing and thus is more than nine-tenths of the 
 product of labor absorbed by intermediate men, who live by 
 means of the exercise of their powers of appropriation. The 
 poor Hindoo sells his cotton for three halfpence a pound, of 
 which the government takes one-half, and the money-lender half 
 of the remainder ; and when, after the lapse of years, it comes 
 back to him in the form of cloth, he pays for it twelve, fifteen, or 
 twenty pence being forty or fifty times more than it had yielded 
 him What goes with all the difference ? It is absorbed on the 
 road from the land on which it has been produced to the house, 
 perhaps on that same land, in which reside the people by whom 
 it is to be worn. The farmer of Iowa sells his corn at ten cents a 
 bushel, but by the time it reaches the consumer in Manchester, it 
 has so much increased in value that it pays for several days of 
 labor. That labor yields hundreds of yards of cotton cloth, but 
 by the time the latter reaches Iowa, it has, in its turn, so much in 
 creased in value that a bushel of corn is given in exchange for a 
 single yard not less than eighty per cent, of the whole having 
 been absorbed in the process of making the exchanges. 
 
 The system tends to increase the disproportion between the 
 price of the rude product of the earth and the finished one to 
 produce cheap raw materials and dear manufactures ; and that is 
 the road towards barbarism. It seeks to augment the difficulties 
 lying between the consumer and the producer, while building up 
 the fortunes of those who stand between them ; and hence it is 
 that it gave birth to the idea of over-population an idea inse 
 parably connected with that of the ultimate enslavement of man.* 
 
 * " When Mr. McCulloch tells us to look at the success of our large pro 
 perties and larger farms, let us look at the whole population let us look at 
 the fact that, at the very moment of his writing, about every tenth person in 
 England was a pauper let us look at our prisons, our poor-laws, our union 
 workhouses, our poisonings for the sake of burial-fees, our emigration, as if 
 our people were flying like rats, helter-skelter, from a drowning ship. Let 
 us sum up the whole, and then perhaps we should find that our boasted sys 
 tem of social distribution was no more successful than the muster of one 
 regiment, when we should find, on the one hand, order and competence ; on 
 the other, rags and tatters, wives abandoned, parents neglected, children 
 left to the hazard of casual charity, and too often a dark shadow of vice and 
 wretchedness, following in the train of our vaunted institutions." Hugh 
 Miller. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 489 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 1. IN the natural order of events, the necessity for the ser 
 vices of the trader and transporter tends towards diminution ; and 
 with every increase in the power of man to maintain direct com 
 merce with his fellow-man, the circulation of society tends to 
 acceleration enabling each and every one to find a purchaser, 
 on the instant, for his time and talents, and thus to become a 
 competitor for the purchase of those of others. Capital then 
 accumulates rapidly, with constant tendency to further develop 
 ment of the various faculties, and constant increase in the facility 
 of combination, and in the tendency to further progress. When 
 ever, and wherever, the reverse is seen wherever the necessity 
 for the services of the trader and transporter is an increasing one 
 the opposite effects are seen the circulation becoming more 
 and more languid the waste of power increasing and commerce 
 gradually declining, until at length it ceases to exist. 
 
 Stoppage of circulation as fatal to the social as it is to the 
 physical body is the natural tendency of the British system. 
 Hence it is that we have been called upon to remark the total 
 disappearance of so large a proportion of the negroes imported 
 into the West India islands ; and the almost total waste of power 
 among those who still exist. Hence, too, it is that the marks of 
 approaching dissolution are now so clearly obvious in Ireland and 
 in India. To the same cause was due the growth of pauperism 
 in the days of Mr. Malthus ; as well as in those later days when 
 England was inundated with crowds of Irishmen, eager to sell 
 their labor at any price causing her poorhouses to become so 
 filled as to threaten to swamp the land and its owners by the tax 
 ation required for their support. 
 
 Such being the facts, the question arose, as to what was the 
 cause to which they were to be attributed ; and, most naturally, 
 
440 CHAPTER xvur. 1. 
 
 the advocates of the system which looked to the cheapening of 
 raw materials, ascribed them all to the scarcity, and consequent 
 high price, of food. The land-owners believing, with Adam 
 Smith, that "if the whole produce of America in grain of all 
 sorts, salt provisions, and fish," were "forced into the market of 
 England," it would be "a great discouragement to agriculture" 
 had endeavored, as the reader has seen, to shield themselves 
 against the operation of the mercantile system, by the passage of 
 laws preventive of the importation of food except under certain 
 circumstances ; and to the existence of those laws was now 
 ascribed a state of things that was only the natural product of 
 the policy whose error had been so fully exposed in the Wealth 
 of Nations. 
 
 The people were, however, assured that if they wished to find 
 the cause why two laborers had so long been seeking employment 
 when only one could find it, they must look for it in the laws 
 above referred to ; and this assurance came from the selfsame 
 persons to whose opinions expression had been given by Mr. 
 Huskisson, twenty years before, when declaring that "to give 
 capital a fair remuneration, the price of labor must be kept 
 down." Now, however, they professed to move in an opposite 
 direction seeking to raise wages at the expense of capital ; not, 
 however, their own capital. Repeal the corn laws, said they, and 
 there will be two employers seeking one laborer, and the price of 
 labor will rise ; and then money will be abundant, while corn 
 will be cheap. The laws were repealed, but the effect has been 
 directly the reverse of what was promised the circulation of 
 society having diminished when it should have increased. Instead 
 of men having been enabled to come nearer to each other, and 
 more and more to dispense with the services of the trader and 
 transporter, they have been constantly receding from each other 
 emigration from the British islands having far exceeded any thing 
 that had before been known. Instead of tending to restore society 
 to its natural proportions, the repeal has increased the dispropor 
 tion that before existed the rural population having fled from 
 the land, and thus created demand for ships and sailors.* Instead 
 
 * "The wheel of improvement is now seizing another class, the most 
 Stationary class in England. A startling emigration movement has sprung 
 up among the smaller English farmers, especially those holding heavy clay 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 441 
 
 of diminishing centralization, and thus establishing a motion in the 
 direction of freedom, it has rendered centralization more complete, 
 with daily diminution in the power of the laborer to determine for 
 whom he will work, and what shall be his reward ; and this it has 
 done, too, despite the counteracting tendencies of the gold disco 
 veries of California and Australia. 
 
 2. The recent census shows that of the total increase in the 
 population of the United Kingdom less than a single million 
 more than half has been absorbed by London ; while Manchester, 
 Birmingham, Liverpool, Glasgow, and other towns and cities, 
 have taken much more than all the balance. The rural popula 
 tion of the country has, therefore, largely diminished, while the 
 town and city one has largely increased the whole mass being 
 thus from year to year more and more converted into mere traders 
 in, and transporters of, the produce of the lands and labor of 
 other countries. Commerce, therefore, declines, with steady tend 
 ency to deterioration in the condition of the yet remaining agricul 
 tural population, as is shown by Mr. Cobden, who advises his 
 readers to "take a rural walk on the downs, or the weald, or the 
 fens" doing which "they will find the wages of agricultural 
 laborers averaging, at this moment, under twelve shillings a 
 week." "Let them," he continues, "ask how a family of five 
 persons, which is below their average, can live with bread at 2^d. 
 a pound. Nobody can tell ; but follow the laborer, as he lays 
 down his spade or mattock, and settles to his dinner in the near 
 est barn or shed, and peep into his wallet, or drop in at his cot 
 tage at twelve o clock, and inquire what the family dinner consists 
 of ; bread, rarely any thing better, and not always enough of 
 that, with nothing left out of his earnings for tea, or sugar, or 
 soap, or candles, or clothes, or the schooling of his children, and 
 with his next year s harvest-money already mortgaged for shoes ; 
 and this is the fate of millions, living at our very doors, who con- 
 soils, who, with bad prospects for the coming harvest, and in want of suffi 
 cient capital to make the great improvements on their farms which would 
 enable them to pay their old rents, have no other alternative but to cross 
 the sea in search of a new country and of new lands. I am not speaking 
 now of the emigration caused by the gold mania, but only of the compulsory 
 emigration produced by landlordism, concentration of farms, application of 
 machinery to the soil, and introduction of the modern system of agriculture 
 on a great scale." Correspondence of the New York Tribune. 
 
 YOL. L 29 
 
442 CHAPTER XVIII. 2. 
 
 stitute the vast majority of the agriculturists of whose great 
 prosperity we now hear so much. Never within the recollection 
 of living man was the farm laborers condition so bad as at 
 present. * 
 
 This is the condition of millions of Englishmen,")* and it is so, 
 because the system looks to the annihilation of commerce, and the 
 substitution of trade and to the cheapening of raw material of 
 every description, land, labor, food, cotton, and wool ; while 
 maintaining the value of cloth and iron. Instead of looking to 
 the approximation of the prices of the raw material and the fin 
 ished commodity always an evidence of advancing civilization 
 it seeks to widen the difference between the two always an evi 
 dence of the approach to barbarism. 
 
 * COBDEN : What Next ? and Next ? p. 45. 
 
 } "Our village peasantry are jostled about from cottage to cottage, or 
 from cottage to no cottage at all, as freely, and with as little regard to their 
 personal tastes and conveniences as if we were removing our pigs, cows, and 
 horses from one sty or shed to another. If they cannot get a house over 
 their heads, they go to the union, and are distributed the man in one part, 
 the wife in another, and the children again somewhere else. That is a set 
 tled thing. Our peasantry bear it, or, if they can t bear it, they die, and 
 there is an end of it on this side of the grave ; though how it will stand at 
 the great audit, we leave an English Catholic to imagine. We only mean 
 to say that in England the work has been done; cotters have been extermi 
 nated; small holdings abolished; the process of eviction rendered super 
 fluous; the landlord s word made law; the refuge of the discontented 
 reduced to a workhouse ; and all without a shot, or a bludgeon, or a missile 
 being heard of." London Times. 
 
 " The miserable character of the houses of our peasantry is, of itself, and 
 independently of the causes which have made the houses so wretched, 
 degrading and demoralizing the poor of our rural districts in a fearful man 
 ner. It stimulates the unhealthy and unnatural increase of population. The 
 young peasants from their earliest years are accustomed to sleep in the same 
 bed-rooms with people of both sexes, and with both married and unmarried 
 persons. They therefore lose all sense of the indelicacy of such a life. They 
 know, too, that they can gain nothing by deferring their marriages and by 
 saving ; that it is impossible for them to obtain better houses by so doing ; 
 and that in many cases they must wait many years before they could obtain 
 a separate house of any sort. They feel that if they defer their marriage 
 for ten or fifteen years, they will be at the end of that period in just the 
 same position as before, and no better off for their waiting. Having, then, 
 lost all hope of any improvement of their social situation, and all sense of 
 the indelicacy of taking a wife home to the bedroom already occupied by 
 parents, brothers, and sisters, they marry early in life often, if not gene 
 rally, before the age of twenty and very often occupy, for the first part of 
 their married life, another bed in the already crowded sleeping-room of their 
 parents ! In this way the morality of the peasants is destroyed ; the num 
 bers of this degraded population are unnaturally increased, and their means 
 of subsistence are diminished by the increasing competition of their increas 
 ing numbers." KAY: Social Condition of Europe, vol. i. p. 472. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 443 
 
 The repeal of the corn laws having diminished the rapidity of 
 circulation, the consequences have been seen in the fact that the 
 waste of labor has increased ; in proof of which may be adduced 
 the fact that a recent writer Mr. Mayhew informs his readers 
 that, in thirteen weeks, "no less than eleven thousand vagabonds 
 were ascertained to have passed through a little town" of less than 
 double that amount of population. The same fact, however, is 
 obvious in all the English books ; and particularly in those of 
 Mr. Dickens. Two laborers are everywhere seeking the single 
 employer ; and a dozen shopkeepers are always on the watch for 
 the single purchaser. That measure was but another step in the 
 path of centralization the terminus of which is always found in 
 slavery, depopulation, and death. The real remedy was to be 
 sought in the direction of a system looking to the restoration of 
 society to its natural proportions, and to the reproduction of the 
 circulation that had so long been stopped. Had the people of 
 Ireland, in 1846, been reinvested with the right of managing 
 their own affairs in their own way, a market would have been 
 made among themselves for all their labor-power ; and then the 
 laborers of England would have found themselves no longer over 
 whelmed by a torrent of "half-fed and half-civilized Celts, reduc 
 ing the standard of living and of comfort " everywhere forcing 
 them to accept diminished wages, and aiding in giving support 
 to the doctrine that "the natural rate of wages is that which will 
 enable men, one ivith another, to subsist and perpetuate their 
 species, without increase or diminution." Had they been per 
 mitted so to do, the competition for the hire of land, in both Eng 
 land and Ireland, would have been less, and the landlords would 
 have been unable to demand so large a, proportion of the pro 
 duct; and yet the quantity of their rents would have been 
 greater, because prosperous tenants would have been enabled 
 more rapidly to improve the land, and the crops would largely 
 have increased. Had they been permitted so to do, agriculture 
 would have absorbed a larger proportion of English labor, while 
 Irish mining and manufactures would have taken up that of the 
 sister isle; and. the competition among English artisans would 
 have been less enabling the workman to claim larger wages, and 
 to become himself an employer. Directly the reverse of this, 
 however, was the policy commenced by Mr. Huskisson, and per- 
 
444 CHARTER XVIII. 3. 
 
 fected by Sir Robert Peel, who urged the necessity for cheap 
 food, as a means of enabling the manufacturer to lower the wages 
 of labor ; and thus still further to carry out the system under 
 which there had been produced an almost total cessation in the 
 motion of society throughout all the countries subject to it.* 
 
 What is needed in all those countries, and in England herself, 
 is a restoration of the circulation a restoration of commerce ; 
 and until that shall have been effected, the disease of over-popu 
 lation must be an ever growing one. 
 
 3. With the growth of commerce, the labor of the present 
 acquires a constantly increased control over the accumulations of 
 the past : with its decline, and consequent increase in the supre 
 macy of trade, the past acquires increased power over the present. 
 With the one, the circulation increases and becomes more steady ; 
 whereas, with the other, it decreases and becomes more fitful. 
 Based on the single idea of extending the dominion of trade, the 
 tendency of the English system is towards the arrest of motion 
 everywhere; and the more it is arrested, the greater becomes the 
 power of the trader to carry into effect the doctrine which teaches 
 that to cheap raw materials of every kind cotton, food, and 
 labor England is to be indebted for the maintenance of her 
 supremacy in the trading world. The less rapid the circulation 
 of cotton the more it accumulates in warehouses the more is 
 the dealer in cotton goods enabled to dictate the prices at which 
 he will buy, and those at which he will sell. The more unsteadi 
 ness in the price of cotton goods, or iron, the less is the danger 
 of domestic competition for the purchase of labor, for the employ 
 ment of capital, or for the rent of mines ; but the higher is the 
 price of cottons, and of iron, and the greater the power of the 
 already wealthy to carry on that " warfare" recommended by 
 Messrs. Hume and Brougham, and now regarded as so essential 
 for destroying " foreign competition ;" and for gaining and keep 
 ing " possession of foreign markets." 
 
 The more perfectly this system is carried out, the greater, 
 
 necessarily, becomes the centralization at home. The number of 
 
 persons who can afford, " voluntarily, "to make large sacrifices for 
 
 obtaining possession of foreign markets, is small, and those who 
 
 * See extract from North British Review, p. 240, ante note. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 445 
 
 cannot make them are forced to keep aloof from the trades in 
 which they are likely to be required as is the case with all the 
 important branches of English manufacture. The opportunity 
 for employing small capitals is, therefore, constantly diminishing 
 land becoming daily more and more consolidated, and trade as 
 steadily becoming monopolized. In former times, small proper 
 ties were numerous, and the little capitalists found in them little 
 savings banks to be managed by themselves, in which they could 
 deposit all their spare hours and half hours thus accumulating 
 little fortunes. From day to day there is a diminishing power of 
 direct .intercourse, attended by an increasing necessity for the ser 
 vices of middlemen ; and hence the enormous mass of capital 
 invested in life insurance offices, savings funds, &c. &c. yielding 
 little to the owners, but enabling the few who control their move 
 ments to accumulate fortunes for themselves. Under other cir 
 cumstances, the real capitalists would manage their own affairs, 
 and would thus diminish the competition for the loan of capital, 
 while increasing the competition for the purchase of labor ; and 
 through the laborer, increasing the demand for the food and other 
 raw materials yielded by the earth. The tendency of the English 
 policy, injurious abroad, is not less so at home, for it looks to the 
 conversion of the nation into a mass of traders, surrounded every 
 where by a population regarded as mere instruments to be used 
 by trade. 
 
 4. With the growth of the power of association, or com 
 merce, the proportion of the product going to the middleman 
 to the class which stands between the producer and the consumer 
 tends to decline, and that of the laborer to rise; with constant 
 tendency towards equality in the conditions of men. With the 
 decline of commerce, and increasing power of the trader, the op 
 posite phenomena are everywhere observed the inequality of 
 conditions increasing steadily, and the laborer losing power over 
 himself, while the trader as regularly acquires power over him. 
 
 The latter phenomena are those presented to view on an exami 
 nation of English society. In the days of Adam Smith, the land 
 holders of that country numbered two hundred thousand, whereas 
 they are now but thirty-four thousand. The remainder have dis 
 appeared, and in their place we have everywhere the hired laborer. 
 
446 CHAPTER XVIH. 4. 
 
 Looking to the manufacturing districts, they are seen throughout, 
 says a recent writer, to present the peculiar spectacle of a small 
 and very wealthy class standing apart on a great height, far above 
 the level which is occupied by the rest of the population. The 
 connection between the two consists wholly of those harsh and 
 pecuniary ties which have never yet had time to become clothed 
 with the soft and warm interlacement of affectionate moral asso 
 ciation. The work carried on by the two parties is," as he con 
 tinues, " essentially one of co-operation ; but their moral attitude 
 towards each other is much more one of hostility than of friend 
 ship."* 
 
 The gulf dividing the higher and lower classes of society is an 
 ever widening one the immensity of fortune acquired by success 
 ful bankers and traders being in the direct ratio of the poverty of 
 the agricultural class so well described by Mr. Cobden. The 
 accumulations of the past acquire daily more and more control 
 over the labor of the present ; and such must continue ever to be 
 the case, so long as it shall be held that the welfare of the country 
 requires " a cheap and abundant supply of labor, "f This is the 
 doctrine of the slavery of man as required by the exigencies of 
 trade ; and hence it is that it more and more obtains as land 
 becomes more and more consolidated and as the great capitals 
 engaged in the several branches of trade are more and more en- 
 
 * LALOR : Money and Morals, p. 12. 
 
 I " A great miners strike has just ended in Scotland the men giving in, 
 dead beat, after horrible sufferings, and going back to their work with rage 
 in their hearts. A pretty human relation this, between man and man! 
 Mutual defiance that is the common attitude of employer and employed in 
 these walks, especially in Scotland, where the feeling of personal independ 
 ence is stronger and keener than it is here. The rise of the great Scottish 
 manufacturers is one of the most marked features of our times. The iron 
 masters are buying lands everywhere, from the Tweed to the Orkneys 
 clearing away those old gentle houses which have produced so many able 
 men ay, and sent them to America, too as your James Buchanan is there 
 to testify, and as Judge Haliburton in Canada testifies likewise ! One iron 
 family, the Bairds, has bought the Closeburn of the Kirkpatricks, the Stitch- 
 ell of the Pringles, and other famous spots. It is the age of iron, with a 
 vengeance. But how comes the working man, who produces all this great 
 ness, to fare so ill? It may be all very fine that a McBuggins has bought 
 out a Graham or a Lindsay, is toadying Buccleuch, and swears a little in 
 broad Scotch in the presence of ladies in a drawing-room. But how about 
 the poor McB., grimy, sweaty, and sad, with a little, half-fed family growing 
 up heathens in the land of Knox ? I want to see something done for him 
 before he tries to do something irregular for himself." Correspondence of 
 the New York Tribune, June, 1856. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 447 
 
 abled to carry on that " warfare" which looks to securing them in 
 a monopoly of the privilege of purchasing raw materials abroad, 
 and labor at home. 
 
 " The peasant knows," says a recent English writer,* "that he 
 must die in the same position in which he was born." Elsewhere 
 he says, " the want of small farms deprives the peasant of all hope 
 of improving his condition in life." The London Times assures 
 its readers that "once a peasant in England, the man must re 
 main a peasant for ever ;" and Mr. Kay, after careful examination 
 of the condition of the people of Continental Europe, assures his 
 readers that, as one of the consequences of this state of things, the 
 peasantry of England " are more ignorant, more demoralized, less 
 capable of helping themselves, and more pauperized, than those 
 of any other country in Europe, if we except Russia, Turkey, 
 South Italy, and some parts of the Austrian Empire. f 
 
 Under such circumstances, the middle class tends gradually to 
 pass away, and its condition is well expressed by the term now so 
 frequently used, "the uneasy class." The small capitalist, who 
 would elsewhere purchase a piece of land, a horse and cart, or a 
 machine of some kind that would double the productiveness of 
 his labor and increase its reward, is, as has above been shown, 
 forced to make his investments in savings banks or life insurance 
 offices, to be by them lent out on mortgage at three per cent. ; 
 whereas, he could earn fifty per cent, could he be permitted to 
 use his capital himself. There is, therefore, a perpetual strife 
 for life, and each man is, as has been said, "endeavoring to 
 snatch the piece of bread from his neighbor s mouth." The atmo 
 sphere of England is one of gloom. Every one is anxious for the 
 future, for himself or his children and this is a necessary conse 
 quence of the system that looks to increasing the difficulties stand 
 ing in the way of commerce. 
 
 5. The more perfect the power of association, the greater is 
 the tendency towards equality of condition, resulting from the 
 development of the mental faculties and towards having the 
 chain of society perfect in all its links. The less that power, the 
 greater is the tendency towards inequality, resulting from the 
 development of mind in a single portion of society, and the sub- 
 * KAY : Social Condition of England and of Europe, vol. i. 70. f Ibid. 359. 
 
448 CHAPTER XVIII. 6. 
 
 stitution, in the other, of brute force for mind ; and towards hav 
 ing the laborer become a tool in the hands of those who desire 
 to profit by his efforts. Mere animal power is, as we are told, 
 what is required in the English system ; and hence it is, that there 
 so little progress has been made in the development of the artis 
 tic faculty, while everywhere throughout the continent of Europe 
 it is seen to be so rapid.* Centralization is destructive of the 
 mental power, for it looks to cheapening labor abroad and at 
 home, and to diminishing the ability to purchase things requiring 
 taste and skill in their preparation. The market for such commo 
 dities afforded by Ireland, by Portugal, by Jamaica, or by India, 
 is not now one-tenth as great as it was half a century since ; and, 
 small as it is, it declines from year to year thus affording proof 
 conclusive of the disadvantage of the system, leaving moral con 
 siderations altogether out of view. The difficulty now complained 
 of in the English journals is but the necessary result of a policy which 
 requires low-priced labor that being always the labor of a slave. 
 
 6. The more rapid the circulation of the blood throughout the 
 human body, the greater is the tendency to have each and every 
 part thereof attain its full development, and the more harmonious 
 is the action of the whole. The more languid the circulation, the 
 greater is the liability to disease and death. So is it with socie- 
 tary bodies. The rapid circulation of Greece was shown in the 
 creation of numerous local centres, and in the existence of a spirit 
 of association for all useful purposes that had never before been 
 known ; but when, in later times, Athens had made herself the 
 sole centre of a system of subject towns and cities, the rapidity of 
 the circulation declined, and though the great city itself became 
 from day to day more splendid, its splendor was but the evidence 
 of growing slavery producing disease that was to end in death. 
 
 In earlier times, the British isles presented to view numerous 
 local centres London, Edinburgh, and Dublin being the seats 
 of the English, Scottish, and Irish parliaments ; while local 
 
 * "We are perpetually trying to separate the workman and the work. 
 We like one man to think, and another to do; but the two will never really 
 flourish apart: thought must govern action, and action must stimulate 
 thought, or the mass of society will always be as it is now, composed of 
 morbid thinkers and miserable workers. It is only by labor that thought 
 can be made healthy, and only b3* thought that labor can be made happy." 
 North British Review, May, 1854. See note to page 239, ante. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 449 
 
 authorities throughout the several kingdoms controlled the man 
 agement of the affairs of the various counties into which they were 
 divided, and towns and cities which so much abounded. One by 
 one, however, they have disappeared Edinburgh and Dublin 
 having long since ceased to be more than mere provincial towns, 
 and smaller towns and cities having found the direction of their 
 affairs gradually passing into the hands of government commis 
 sioners, directing all the local operations from the immediate 
 neighborhood of the sole Parliament of a consolidated kingdom. 
 Charged, as is this central legislature, at one moment with the 
 decision of questions vitally affecting the interests of the hundred 
 millions of the people of India at a second, with others of high 
 importance to the people of Canada, Australia, or the Ionian 
 Islands and at a third, with the regulation of the lodging- 
 houses, or the hackney fares, of London, or the sewerage of 
 towns and villages throughout the kingdom it is scarcely matter 
 of surprise that legislation now, as we are told, "involves an 
 amount of drudgery which many men, best qualified in other 
 respects for the duties of Parliament, cannot, and will not, under 
 take. * Under such circumstances it is, that Parliament is 
 besieged by applicants for railroad and other privileges, the 
 grants of which are to be obtained only by aid of consummate 
 skill and management, by the possession of which qualities agents 
 now accumulate enormous fortunes ; so that the middleman sys 
 tem, which always attends the decline of local centres, is thus 
 extended to the affairs of legislation. Thus far, the expenditures 
 preliminary to the making of roads have amounted, as it is said, 
 to more than a hundred millions of dollars ; and the result of the 
 system is seen in the establishment of powerful combinations, 
 " versed in all the dodges of the committee-rooms, and possessed 
 of funds and agencies sufficient for any contest " giving them 
 "full command of the lands and property of only quiet respect 
 ability and limited means." "For nineteen men out of twenty 
 
 * "Our legislators are bound to spend half their time in unriddling the 
 mysteries of the Puddle Dock Company against Jenkins about the upper cor 
 ner of a two-acre field, in detecting the glosses which would mislead them in 
 respect of a turn in a road, the height of a bridge, or the outfall of a drain 
 age ; and then we expect them to go straightway to just determinations on 
 our colonial administration, the government of India, the conservation of our 
 own constitutional principles, or the general policy of Europe. 1 Westminster 
 Review, January, 1854: article, Constitutional Reform. 
 
450 CHAPTER XVIII. T. 
 
 to oppose such a body in the costly litigation of Parliament, is, 
 as we are told, " entirely out of the question, the even balance of 
 right being," as the writer adds, "as effectually clogged as if 
 Dame Justice herself were unhoodwinked, and held it according 
 to the greatest fee."* 
 
 While India or Ireland, Canada or Australia, with difficult) 
 obtains a hearing, strictly local affairs are almost entirely neg 
 lected. Therefore it is, that the management of the affairs of the 
 country passes gradually under the control of commissions which 
 are being created from year to year superseding the local autho 
 rities by whom they before had been administered. f Centraliza 
 tion grows, thus, on every hand. But recently it was proposed 
 to make of the government a great life insurance office taking 
 into its hands all the property now administered by the numerous 
 private companies. This, however, would be only another step 
 in the same direction in which England so long has walked. The 
 existence of those companies, on their present extended scale, is 
 due entirely to an erroneous policy, based on the idea of cheap 
 raw materials and cheap labor that policy which consolidates 
 the land, fills the poor-houses, and enables a few people of great 
 wealth so to control the movements of trade as to drive from it 
 all the people whose means are moderate, and who cannot afford 
 to waste hundreds of thousands of pounds in the effort to annihi 
 late competition at home and abroad. 
 
 T. Man is ever a creature of progress, either upward or down 
 ward. He is never stationary. Every step towards centralization 
 is but the preparation for a new and greater one ; and therefore 
 
 * Westminster Review, January, 1854. 
 
 f "The land of twenty neighbors wants common drainage or a common 
 road. Nothing but an act of Parliament, to be obtained at vast cost, and 
 three hundred miles from the spot, can effect the improvement. The im 
 provement is therefore never made, and even the dream of it is repressed as 
 a dream ; and then come centralizers and doctrinaires, with all kinds of vitu 
 peration of local authorities and local owners for their want of knowledge 
 and interest in such matters : straightway, a great metropolitan department 
 is set up to supply to pump artificially to the provinces the energy which 
 the system of Parliament itself has repressed at its natural fountain. On 
 this follow differences between provincial feeling and metropolitan dictation, 
 and on that a new contraction of whatever interest was felt in the subject 
 before. Thus, as alternate cause and effect, compact bureaucracy tends 
 constantly to firmer establishment ; and, but for causes yet too strong for it, 
 we should verge rapidly to the chilling and dangerous system of Austria and 
 France, any merely electoral reform notwithstanding." Ibid. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 451 
 
 is it that there has been more progress in that direction in the last 
 twenty years than had been made in the preceding century.* 
 
 Much was hoped for from the passage of the Reform Act, but 
 it has failed to accomplish the good that was to be expected ; and 
 for the reason, that the whole policy of the country looks towards 
 the aggrandizement of trade at the expense of commerce. Instead 
 of putting "the actual franchise in the hands of the most inde 
 pendent and the most intelligent class of the community the 
 artisan class" it has, says Mr. Toulmin Smith, put it into those 
 "of a class which, though most mistakenly and unwisely, is actu 
 ally and increasingly, owing to the growing influence of centrali 
 zation, the leas* independent of any namely, that of small traders 
 and retail shopkeepers." f 
 
 The remedy having failed, we are now told, and by a distin 
 guished writer, that the constitution of Parliament must be so 
 radically changed as to enable the ministry for the time being to 
 " command a majority" and thus avoid the necessity for making 
 troublesome explanations in the House of Commons. "A strong 
 government," as we are assured, is the one thing needful; and 
 that it may exist, a number of new seats should be created, to be 
 filled, not by the people, but by those who are, or should be, the 
 people s servants. Nothing has yet occurred that so clearly 
 marks the growing centralization of England as the publication 
 of the pamphlet here referred to. J 
 
 8. " The more imperfect a being," says Goethe, "the more 
 do its individual parts resemble each other, and the more do 
 those parts resemble the whole. The more perfect a body, the 
 more dissimilar become the parts. In the former case, the parts 
 
 * "Here we see the greatest danger to English society: the evil is far 
 from being so great as it is with the continental nations ; but England has 
 already arrived upon the fatal slope. It is time for her statesmen to be well 
 aware that the universal and immoderate desire of public employment is the 
 worst of social maladies. It spreads through the whole body of the nation 
 a venal and servile temper, which does not, however, exclude, even in the 
 case of those best provided for, the spirit of faction and of anarchy. It 
 creates a posse of starvelings capable of any extravagance in the desire to 
 satisfy their appetite, and fit for any meanness as soon as its cravings are 
 appeased. A people of solicitors is the lowest of people there is no humi 
 liation that it may not be brought to submit to." MONTALEMBERT: De 
 I A venir Politique de UAnghterre quoted in Blackicood s Magazine, May, 1856. 
 
 } Local Self- Government, p. 242. 
 
 J W. R. GREG: The Way Out, London, 1855. 
 
452 CHAPTER XVIII. 8. 
 
 are more or less a repetition of the whole ; in the latter, they are 
 totally unlike the whole." Tried by this standard, English society 
 is becoming more and more imperfect, as it becomes from year to 
 year more and more a mere body of traders, surrounded every 
 where by men who work for wages. The little landed proprietor 
 has disappeared. The little capitalist becomes an annuitant. The 
 little daily journal yields place to the gigantic Times. Centrali 
 zation increases steadily, and with every stage of its increase the 
 parts more and more resemble each other, and the more does the 
 whole resemble its parts trade and transportation becoming, from 
 year to year, more and more the objects of all the aspirations of a 
 government whose policy is " determined by considering what is 
 for the moment Expedient, without admitting the previous inquiry 
 whether there was a claim of Right."* 
 
 The higher the organization the more perfect the development 
 of the various faculties of the man the more complete is the power 
 of self-government. This is as true of societies as we see it to be 
 of individuals. The more perfect the power of association, and 
 the more complete the development of the various faculties of its 
 various members, the more entire is its power to control its own 
 action ; and the less is it liable to outside influence. 
 
 In England, as we see, the power of association declines, and 
 local self-government tends to disappear centralization certainly 
 
 * " The English government is encroaching and tyrannical where it is 
 strong, as in Asia and in the colonies, but is cringing and complaisant to 
 tyrants in Europe, where it is weak. Those who have defended the opening 
 of Mazzini s letters by Sir James Graham, will never convince us that the 
 English cabinet was providing for English interests. The belief that this 
 was done to gratify the hateful governments of Naples and of Austria, and 
 that it occasioned the death of the brothers Bandiera, has never been refuted. 
 When Austria, in 1846, invaded and overthrew the Republic of Cracow a 
 republic established and guaranteed by the treaty of Vienna Lord Palmer- 
 ston refused even to protest against it, and has since continued to prate of 
 the sacredness of that treaty as often as it is convenient to the despotic 
 powers against the liberties of the nations. What is meant by protection, 
 was once more manifested. But what was this, compared to our destruction 
 of the liberties of Portugal in 1847, while Lord John Russell, too, was prime 
 minister ? Of Right, he made no more account towards Portugal, then ten 
 years previously towards Canada. The sole question was, Is it convenient 
 to us to allow a just revolution to succeed in Portugal? and the reply was, 
 No ; for the kingdom of Sardinia is in process of reformation ; Switzerland 
 is excited by internal movements; Prussia, having at length got a parliament, 
 is pushing its advantage against the king ; moreover, there is a reforming 
 pope at Rome ; and if revolution succeeds in Portugal, the example will be fol 
 lowed in many other places : therefore, right or wrong, it must be suppress 
 ed. " Westminster Review, July, 1855 ; article, International Immorality. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 453 
 
 and rapidly taking its place. Hence it is that we are called to 
 remark a constantly growing weakness, indicated by an increased 
 necessity for modifying her policy, in obedience to the dictation 
 of other nations. The change in the navigation laws was forced 
 upon her first, by the resistance of the United States, and then, 
 by that of Prussia and other powers. 
 
 So, too, was it with regard to the question of protection. For 
 seventy years, and even down to 1819, the duties on foreign manu 
 factures had steadily been increased. In that and the five follow 
 ing years, several of the communities of Europe adopted measures 
 looking to resistance, while in the last of them was passed the 
 first American tariff based upon the idea of bringing the farmer 
 and the artisan nearer together and thus approximating the 
 prices of raw materials and manufactured commodities. To this 
 was due the change of measures commenced by Mr. Huskisson in 
 1825 a change, however, looking steadfastly towards the accom 
 plishment of the one great object, that of cheapening all the raw 
 materials of manufacture, whether corn, cotton, or labor. The 
 successful resistance of Russia the formation of the German Zoll- 
 Verein and the American tariff of 1842, were the causes of the 
 total change of policy that occurred in 1846. So, likewise, was 
 it with the sugar duties. The emancipated negroes of Jamaica 
 had been assured of protection against slave-grown sugar, yet 
 Brazil compelled a violation of the well-understood agreement. 
 The Crimean war is scarcely to be regarded as having been a vo 
 luntary act on the part of the government any more than is the 
 peace that has recently been made. Turning to India, we find the 
 government making the most unjust of wars, because it " cannot 
 afford " to let it appear, even for a moment to let it be doubted, 
 that its hold on India rests " upon the might of the conqueror."* 
 
 * "From Lord Dalhousie s Minute of February 12, 1852: 
 " The British power in India cannot safely afford to exhibit even a tempo 
 rary appearance of inferiority. Whilst I should be reluctant to believe that 
 our empire in India has no stay but the sword alone, it is vain to doubt that 
 our hold must mainly rest upon the might of the conqueror, and must be 
 maintained by that power. The government of India cannot, consistently 
 with its own safety, appear for one day in an attitude of inferiority; or hope 
 to maintain peace and submission among the numberless princes and people 
 embraced within the vast circuit of the empire, if, for one day, it give coun 
 tenance to a doubt of the absolute superiority of its arms, and of its continued 
 resolution to assert it." Blue Book, presented to Parliament June 4, 1852, p. 
 66: quoted in Westminster Review, for July, 1855, p. 35. 
 
454 CHAPTER XVIII. 8. 
 
 The removal of restrictions upon trade, and the repeal of the 
 navigation laws, are said, however, to have been a consequence 
 of improved modes of thought, and to have been made in defer 
 ence to the advancing spirit of the age. Were this really so, a 
 similar spirit might be manifested in other directions ; but such, 
 unhappily, is not the case. Nothing could be more unjust than 
 the taxation imposed upon all the correspondence between Ame 
 rica and the continent of Europe ; yet is it persisted in, in spite 
 of all remonstrances. The people of the West India islands have, 
 for years, and in vain, petitioned for such an alteration of the 
 duties as would enable them to refine their own sugar. The 
 British colonies of the continent and the West Indies but 
 recently determined to establish between themselves a perfect 
 reciprocity abolishing all duties upon their respective produc 
 tions ; and in so doing only desired to carry into full effect the 
 views so strenuously urged upon the government of the United 
 States in reference to the so-called Reciprocity Treaty, then 
 just made with Canada, Upon submitting the question, however, 
 to the consideration of the home government, the answer was, that 
 her Majesty s government trusted that they would not be asked 
 to submit for her Majesty s approval acts or ordinances giving 
 effect to measures of that character," as "it would be inconsist 
 ent with the imperial policy of free trade " ! * 
 
 The Spanish people find themselves greatly aggrieved by the 
 use of Gibraltar as a smuggling depot, yet is there manifested no 
 disposition to make a change in that respect; although, when the 
 place was ceded, it was made a part of the treaty stipulations 
 that it should never be used for such a purpose. Spanish com 
 merce is thus sacrificed to the promotion of British trade. 
 
 The people of China being forced, despite of all opposition on 
 the part of their government, to receive from fifteen to twenty 
 millions of dollars worth of opium annually, the result is seen in 
 growing intemperance in an enormous waste of life and in a 
 tendency towards the resolution of Chinese society into its original 
 elements, to be followed by universal anarchy ; yet is Hong Kong 
 retained as a necessary appendage to the Indian Empire, because 
 "expediency" requires the carrying out of measures utterly un 
 justifiable on the ground of "right." Such being the course of 
 * Despatch of Sir William Molesworth to the Governor of Barbadoes. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 4f)5 
 
 proceeding towards the weaker communities of the earth, the 
 adoption of any other towards the stronger ones can be attri 
 buted only to a diminution of power to pursue that which had so 
 long been practised. 
 
 9. Action and reaction are equal and opposite the ball that 
 stops another in its course finding itself retarded, if not entirely 
 arrested, in its own motion towards the point to which it had 
 been directed. So is it with communities. Whatever movement 
 of France tends to stop the circulation of Germany or Italy, tends 
 equally to produce the same effect at home ; and Frenchmen suf 
 fer when the armies of France destroy the commerce of her neigh 
 bors. So is it, too, with England, in reference to Ireland, India, 
 the West Indies, Spain, and all other countries. The real inte 
 rests of each and every community are to be promoted by the 
 adoption of measures tending to produce increase of commerce in 
 the bosom of each and every other thereby increasing the value 
 of man diminishing the value of all the commodities required for 
 his use facilitating the development of intellect and thus en 
 abling men more and more to combine their efforts with those of 
 their neighbor-men for obtaining that power over nature which con 
 stitutes wealth ; and therefore is it that an enlightened self-inte 
 rest would prompt each and all to carry into the management of 
 public affairs the same spirit that should animate every Christian 
 man in his dealings with his fellow-men. 
 
 Such, however and most unhappily has not been the spirit 
 in which the English policy has been directed. Purely selfish, it 
 has sought to annihilate commerce everywhere, and everywhere to 
 substitute trade thereby lessening the value of man increasing 
 the value of all the commodities he needed for his purposes 
 arresting the development of his intellect preventing him from 
 obtaining command over the forces of nature and thus keeping 
 him in that state of poverty which makes him a mere instrument 
 in the hands of the soldier and the trader. For the accomplish 
 ment of these objects, the world has been belted round with colo 
 nies alliances have been made and broken thousands of millions 
 of pounds have been spent on ruinous wars * millions upon 
 
 * "Every rock in the ocean where a cormorant can perch is occupied by 
 British troops has a governor, deputy-governor, storekeeper, and deputy- 
 
45 G CHAPTER XVIII. 9. 
 
 millions of lives have been sacrificed ; and the result is seen in the 
 fact that she now stands emphatically alone among the ruins she 
 has made. 
 
 Having stopped the motion of society in Portugal, her old 
 and faithful ally now hangs upon her hands, useless even for the 
 purposes of trade. So is it with Turkey, and so, too, with the 
 Indies of the West and of the East, both of which are causes of 
 anxiety, and not sources of profit. Coming nearer home, Ireland 
 a country abounding in all the elements of wealth presents to 
 view, and for the first time in the history of the world, a nation 
 gradually disappearing from the earth in the midst of the pro- 
 foundest peace. Looking into Scotland, we see the land becom 
 ing consolidated, and its occupants being everywhere expelled to 
 make room for shep while almost hundreds of thousands of 
 people around are in constant danger of starvation.* Turning 
 
 storekeeper, and will soon have an archdeacon and a bishop ; military col 
 leges with thirty-four professors, educating seventeen ensigns per annum 
 being half an ensign for each professor with every species of nonsense, 
 athletic, sartorial, and plumigerous. A just and necessary war costs this 
 country about one hundred pounds a minute ; whip-cord, fifteen thousand 
 pounds ; and tape, seven thousand pounds ; lace for drummers and fifers, 
 nineteen thousand pounds ; a pension for one man who has broken his head 
 at the Pole to another who has shattered his leg at the Equator ; subsidies 
 to Persia ; secret-service money to Thibet ; an annuity to Lady Henry Some 
 body and her seven daughters, the husband being shot at some place where 
 we never ought to have had any soldiers at all, and the elder brother return 
 ing four brothers to Parliament such a scene of extravagance, corruption, 
 and expense as must paralyze the industry and mar the fortunes of the most 
 industrious, spirited people that ever existed." Sidney Smith. 
 
 * "Recent inquiry has discovered that even there, in districts once 
 famous for fine men and gallant soldiers, the inhabitants have degenerated 
 into a meagre and stunted race. In the healthiest situations, on hillsides 
 fronting the sea, the faces of their famished children are as thin and pale as 
 they could be in the foul atmosphere of a London alley. Still more deplora 
 ble are the scenes exhibited in the Western Highlands, especially on the 
 coasts and in the adjoining islands. A large population has there been as 
 sembled, so ill provided with any means of support, that during part of 
 almost every year from 45,000 to 80,000 of them are in a state of destitu 
 tion, and entirely dependent upon charity. Many of the heads of families 
 hold crofts from four to seven acres in extent, but these, notwithstanding 
 their small size, and the extreme barrenness of the soil, have often two, 
 three, and sometimes even four, families upon them." * * * * 
 
 " Of course, they live most wretchedly. Potatoes are the usual food, for 
 oatmeal is considered a luxury, to be reserved for highdays and holidays, 
 but even potatoes are not raised in sufficient abundance. The year s stock 
 is generally exhausted before the succeeding crop is ripe, and the poor are 
 then often in a most desperate condition, for the poor-law is a dead letter in 
 the north of Scotland, and the want of a legal provision for the necessitous 
 is but ill supplied by the spontaneous contributions of the land-owners." 
 THORNTON : Over- Population and its Remedy, pp. 74, 76. 
 
OP MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 457 
 
 from the land to the great trading city, Glasgow, we meet there 
 with the people who have been expelled living in a state of 
 destitution not exceeded even in Ireland.* Arriving in England 
 herself, we find an overgrown metropolis and a great trading city, 
 between which points is to be found nearly all the circulation of 
 the empire. Such are the unhappy consequences of mistaking 
 trade, ever warlike and exhausting, for the always peaceful and 
 invigorating commerce. 
 
 10. Adopting as her motto, " ships, colonies, and commerce," 
 England has glorified the former, and has, therefore, sought every 
 where to magnify the obstacles standing in the way of her own im 
 provement and that of the world. To increase the number of her 
 ships, she required colonies, and to obtain colonies she has 
 involved herself in almost endless wars.f To find employment 
 for ships, she made herself the contractor for supplying negro 
 slaves to the Spaniards ; and to enable herself to obtain supplies 
 of slaves, she stirred up wars in every part of Africa. As 
 Portugal, Turkey, and Ireland became more and more impo 
 verished and exhausted, she became more and more dependent 
 upon India ; and as India became more and more exhausted, it 
 became more and more necessary to deplete China by help of 
 opium and hence the opium war. As her earlier India posses 
 sions became more and more impoverished, troops were more 
 
 * "The wynds in Glasgow comprise a fluctuating population of from 
 15,000 to 30,000 persons. This quarter consists of a labyrinth of lanes, out 
 of which numberless entrances lead into small square courts, each with a 
 dunghill reeking in the centre. Revolting as was the outward appearance 
 of these places, I was little prepared for the filth and destitution within. In 
 some of these lodging-rooms (visited at night) we found a whole lair of hu 
 man beings littered along the floor, sometimes fifteen and twenty, some 
 clothed and some naked ; men, women, and children huddled promiscuously 
 together. Their bed consisted of a layer of musty straw intermixed with 
 rags. There was generally little or no furniture in these places the sole 
 article of comfort was a fire. Thieving and prostitution constitute the main 
 sources of the revenue of this population. No pains seem to be taken to 
 purge this Augean pandemonium this nucleus of crime, filth, and pesti 
 lence existing in the centre of the second city in the empire." SYMONDS: 
 Report on the Hand-loom Weavers. 
 
 | " The history of the colonies for many years is that of a series of loss, 
 and of the destruction of capital ; and if to the many millions of private 
 capital which have been thus wasted, were added some hundred millions 
 that have been raised by British taxes, and spent on account of the colonies, 
 the total loss of wealth to the British public which the colonies have occa 
 sioned, would appear to be quite enormous." Parnell. 
 
 YOL. I. 30 
 
458 CHAPTER XVIII. 10. 
 
 readily obtained for carrying war into Scinde, Afghanistan, the 
 Punjab, and Burmah. As Jamaica declined, the cooley trade 
 was established. Trade and war thus travel always in company 
 with each other always exhausting the earlier fields of action, 
 and always compelled to seek for new ones, with constant increase 
 in the necessity for effecting changes of place, and constant de 
 cline in the condition of man ; whereas, commerce tends always 
 towards diminution of that necessity, with constantly accelerated 
 improvement in his condition. 
 
 Centralization in both the material and social world is destruc 
 tive of the power of motion. Annihilate the local attraction of 
 the planets, and the splendor of the sun would for the moment be 
 increased, but that splendor would be but the precursor of ruin, 
 and of the total destruction of the individuality of the sun him 
 self; and so precisely must it be in the affairs of nations. 
 That centralization grows with the extension of empire, is a fact 
 proved by all the chapters in the world s history; and therefore 
 was it most justly said by one of England s greatest writers, that 
 " extended empire, like extended gold, exchanges solid strength 
 for feeble splendor" centralization bringing in its train depopu 
 lation, slavery, and death ; and producing a necessity for inventing 
 a theory of over-population, whereby the rich and powerful may 
 be enabled to comfort themselves with the belief that the poverty 
 and wretchedness with which they find themselves surrounded, are 
 to be traced to the blunder of an all-wise, all-merciful, and all- 
 powerful Creator. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OP FORM. 459 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 1. BY help of association and combination with his fellows, 
 man obtains power over nature substituting steam, electricity, 
 and other forces, for the human hand, and passing from the culti 
 vation of the poor soils of the hills to that of the rich ones of the 
 river bottoms ; with constant increase in the facility of obtaining 
 the food, clothing, and shelter required for his nourishment and 
 support. 
 
 To enable them to associate and combine, there must be diver 
 sity in the modes of employment developing the various faculties 
 of individual men, fitting them for association, and producing that 
 wealth of intellect by means of which they are enabled to direct those 
 forces to their service. Commerce grows with the development of 
 intellect and the growth of wealth. The more rapid its growth, 
 the greater is the tendency towards having matter take upon itself 
 the forms in which it is best fitted for the purposes of man the 
 more regular and abundant is the supply of food and clothing 
 the longer is the duration of life, and the more continuous and 
 regular is the motion of society ; and the greater is the tendency 
 towards diminution in the power of those who live by trade and 
 transportation, and towards increase in the freedom of man. 
 
 Such are the facts observed in every country of advancing 
 civilization. 
 
 Looking, next, to those of advancing barbarism, we find that 
 all the facts are directly the reverse the power of association 
 declining with the diminishing diversity of employments men 
 becoming more and more limited to the single pursuit of scratch 
 ing the earth in quest of food the rich soils being more and 
 more abandoned food becoming more scarce, and famines and 
 pestilences more frequent commerce declining trade becoming 
 
460 CHAPTER XIX. 2. 
 
 more and more the master of the fortunes of the poor cultivators 
 
 population diminishing the chain of society becoming more 
 and more deficient in its connecting links and society itself tend 
 ing more and more to take upon itself a form similar to that now 
 seen existing among savage tribes, by whom the disease of over 
 population is most experienced. 
 
 2. In the first of the cases above described, the tax of trans 
 portation steadily declines, with constant increase in the utility of 
 the rude products of the earth, and as constant diminution in the 
 value of commodities required for the uses of man. In the last, 
 that tax as regularly increases, with constant decline in the utility 
 of the raw material, and increase in the value of food, clothing, 
 and other necessaries of life. 
 
 In the first, land becomes more and more divided, with growing 
 tendency to its cultivation by the man who owns it, and to the 
 creation of local centres facilitating the combination of men with 
 their fellow-men, and increasing the demand for their various 
 faculties. In the last, the land becomes more and more consoli 
 dated, with constantly increasing tendency to having the work of 
 cultivation performed by hired laborers towards the creation of 
 a body of absentee proprietors and towards the disappearance 
 of local centres, and the establishment of a single centre of action 
 
 thus lessening the facilities of association, and diminishing the 
 demand for the exercise of mental power. 
 
 In the first, the prices, or money values, of the rude products 
 of the earth, and those of finished commodities, tend steadily 
 towards closer approximation with constant increase in the 
 productiveness of labor, and in the laborer s proportion of the 
 augmented product ; and constant decrease in that remaining for 
 the persons who stand between the men who produce and those 
 who need to consume. In the last, those prices tend to recede 
 from each other, with decline in the productive power, and dimi 
 nution in the laborer s share of the diminished product. 
 
 In the first, the labor of the present is obtaining a constant in 
 crease of power over the accumulations of the past. In the last, 
 the accumulations of the past are obtaining greater power over 
 the labor of the present. 
 
 In the first, the forces of nature become centred in THE MAN, 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 461 
 
 whose value increases from year to year, and who becomes from 
 day to day more free. In the last, nature acquires power over 
 man, whose value diminishes from day to day, as he becomes more 
 and more enslaved. 
 
 In the first, the circulation is rapid, with constant tendency to 
 have society assume that form in which strength and beauty are 
 most combined that of a cone, or pyramid. In the last, the 
 circulation becomes from day to day more languid, and society 
 tends to assume that form which is least consistent with either 
 strength or beauty that of an inverted pyramid. 
 
 3. Looking to Greece, in the days of Solon, we observe the 
 first of the sets of phenomena above described a rapid circula 
 tion of society, accompanied by division of the land by the crea 
 tion of local centres by a constant growth in the power of 
 association and combination by a wonderful development of 
 intellectual power and by the enfranchisement of man. Looking 
 to it, next, in the days of Pericles and his successors, we find the 
 circulation becoming more languid the land becoming consoli 
 dated the local centres diminishing in importance, while a great 
 central city rises on their ruins the demand for intellectual 
 faculty declining pauperism increasing from year to year, and 
 producing a necessity for colonization and free citizens being 
 re-enslaved. 
 
 Turning next to Italy in the days when the Campagna afforded 
 food to the inhabitants of its numerous cities, we see a reproduc 
 tion of the facts of early Greece. Studying it in the days of 
 Pompey and Caesar, we find property in land to have become 
 everywhere consolidated, and its owners to have become absentee 
 proprietors, residents of a great city filled with paupers and 
 owned by traders in men and money ; the local centres to have 
 so far diminished in importance that they almost cease to be 
 known to history ; the circulation of society almost to have dis 
 appeared ; the demand for intellectual faculty to have been super 
 seded by that for mere brute force, to be employed in extending 
 the field of operation and thus replacing the already exhausted 
 Italy and Sicily by the yet unexhausted fields for plunder pre 
 sented by Asia and by Africa. 
 
 Looking next to the British islands, we see, during a long course 
 
462 CHAPTER XIX. 3. 
 
 of centuries, facts similar to those observed in early Greece and 
 Italy the circulation of society increasing with the gradual in 
 crease in the variety of employments the local centres growing 
 in number and in importance the land becoming more and more 
 divided the power of association and combination steadily aug 
 menting and man becoming everywhere more free. 
 
 Turning thence to the British empire of the present day, we 
 see landed property becoming more and more consolidated 
 its owners more and more becoming absentees and its cities 
 becoming more and more crowded with paupers, and more 
 and more becoming the property of traders in men and money ; 
 while everywhere the local centres are declining in importance 
 everywhere the circulation of society becomes more languid 
 everywhere the demand is made for those additions to population 
 which consist in the mere brute force required to serve the pur 
 poses of those who live by the exercise of their powers of appro 
 priation and every day exhibits an increased necessity for new 
 fields of action to take the place of the ruined Portugal, the 
 almost extinct Turkey, the exhausted Ireland, and the now 
 rapidly perishing Indies of the East and of the West. 
 
 In all the cases of advancing civilization above presented for 
 the reader s consideration, the facts were one and the same. In 
 all those of declining civilization, the evidences of such decline 
 are precisely similar. In all, absenteeism and over-population 
 are seen growing in due proportion to each other. In all, the 
 accumulations of the past acquire an increased control over the 
 labors of the present.* In all, the proportion of society engaged 
 in the work of simple appropriation is a constantly augmenting 
 one. In all, the form of society is seen passing from the beauti 
 ful and stable one of the true pyramid to that of the inverted one. 
 Will the end in all prove to have been the same ? In answer, we 
 can only say that the prosperity of a community based upon trade 
 has always proved to be a very fleeting one ; that its foundations 
 
 * See ante, p. 420, for the assertion, that the workman is "indebted for 
 being employed at all" to the losses incurred by his employer. The effect 
 of an unsound system in corrupting the modes of thought was never more 
 clearly exhibited than in the document from which that extract was made. 
 The reasoning, throughout, in reference to the relation of employer and 
 employed, is precisely the same with that we find in the journals of Carolina ; 
 and yet that document was published by order of the British House of Com 
 mons! 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 463 
 
 have always thus far proved to have been laid "in gold-dust and 
 sand " and that there exists no reason for believing that which 
 has always been true in the past can be otherwise than true in the 
 present, or will prove false in the future. 
 
 4. The theory of over-population having originated in Eng 
 land, and thence, too, having been derived the supporting one of 
 Mr. Ricardo, in relation to the occupation of the earth, it ha? 
 been deemed just and proper to study carefully the English sys 
 tem, with a view to ascertaining to what extent the peculiar policy 
 there attempted to be established has tended to production of such 
 serious error on the part of her economists. If the doctrines 
 taught in the English school are right, then has the Creator made 
 a serious blunder having established slavery as the ultimate con 
 dition of a vast majority of the human race. If, on the contrary, 
 they are wrong, then is freedom the ultimate lot of man, and then 
 are there found throughout the natural laws regulating the social 
 system, the same order, beauty, and harmony of arrangement we 
 see prevailing everywhere else throughout the organic and inor 
 ganic world. One of these things is absolutely and universally 
 true, and the other as absolutely arid universally false. Either an 
 all- wise Deity has made a mistake, or man has made one, and 
 has invented a theory by help of which to gloss it over. 
 
 That slavery is the ultimate tendency of the Malthusian system, 
 will be obvious to the reader after a moment s reflection upon the 
 proposition, that in the natural course of things population tends 
 to outrun subsistence men tending to increase in geometrical pro 
 portion, while food can be made to increase only in an arithme 
 tical one. This being so, then the man who owns the food-pro 
 ducing machine must become the master of those whose necessities 
 require that they should use it. The one holds the key of the 
 great granary of nature, and the other must pay for the privilege 
 of entering therein, be the price of admission what it may. The 
 doctrine of over-population is, therefore, one of centralization, 
 slavery, and death. 
 
 That this, in fact, was Mr. Malthus s own view of the case, is 
 proved by the passage in which he tells his readers, that as, by 
 the law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of 
 man, population can never actually increase beyond the lowest 
 
464 CHAPTER XIX. 4. 
 
 nourishment capable of supporting it, a strong check on popula 
 tion, from the difficulty of obtaining food, must be constantly in 
 operation. This difficulty must fall somewhere, and must neces 
 sarily fall in some or other of the various forms of misery, or the 
 fear of misery, by a larger portion of mankind. " * Mankind are 
 thus subjected to a constant pressure, forcing their numbers up to 
 that point at which it is impossible to obtain "the lowest nourish 
 ment ;" and at which misery is required to step in, and by thin 
 ning them off keep them within the limits of the supply of food. 
 Under such circumstances, there can be no law but that of force 
 the man who is strong of arm, or of intellect, enslaving his neigh 
 bor who is weak in these respects ; and doing so in virtue of the 
 laws of God ! 
 
 The over-population theory originated in England, in the midst 
 of an appalling state of pauperism, and it finds its chief support 
 in the facts furnished by the British empire. Why should this be 
 so ? Because the English policy has so long looked steadily to 
 the augmentation of that great obstacle to the progress of man 
 which results from the necessity for effecting changes in the place 
 of matter. Wherever that obstacle most exists the supply of food 
 is least, and population is most superabundant. As it diminishes, 
 the supply of food increases, man acquires a higher value, and it 
 comes more and more to be recognised that the treasures of nature 
 are infinite in extent waiting only the demand for their pro 
 duction. 
 
 It is precisely as that obstacle is removed that the prices of raw 
 materials and of finished commodities tend more and more to ap 
 proximate thus furnishing the most perfect evidence of advancing 
 civilization. As they come more and more together, the power 
 of the laborer over nature, and over himself, increases, but the 
 power of other men over him as steadily declines ; and thus does 
 he pass from the condition of slave to that of freeman. The Eng 
 lish system having for its base the idea of cheap land, cheap labor, 
 cheap cotton, cheap corn, and dear cloth and dear iron, the more 
 it is carried out, the greater is the tendency towards a decline in 
 the power of man over nature towards his subjection to the will 
 of his fellow-man and towards the verification of the Maltha- 
 
 * Essay on the Principle of Population, book 1, chap. i. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 465 
 
 sian theory, in virtue of which man becomes necessarily the hewer 
 of wood and the drawer of water for his fellow-man. 
 
 5. The one great characteristic of the laws of nature is, that 
 they act always in one direction. Having ascertained that the 
 law of gravitation is true in regard to the apple now falling from 
 the tree, it becomes safe to assume that it is equally so in reference 
 to all the planets of which our system is composed, and that it has 
 governed the movements of all the apples that have ever fallen, 
 and will govern all that ever will fall, however long may be the 
 duration of the earth. Admitting the case to be the same with 
 the laws controlling the movements of man, and seeing that in the 
 earliest periods of society he is very poor and miserable, while in 
 later ones he becomes stronger and more able to command sup 
 plies of food, it follows, necessarily, that his power to command 
 the services of nature must steadily increase, as he becomes more 
 enabled to combine his efforts with those of his neighbor man. 
 
 That such is the tendency in the early ages of society, is admitted 
 by all food then becoming more abundant as men increase in 
 numbers, and are more and more enabled to work in combination 
 with each other. Having, however, reached some certain point, 
 the law, according to Mr. Malthus, turns round, and, with every 
 step in the further progress of population and of wealth, food be 
 comes more scarce requiring that a portion of the occupants of 
 the land should " regularly die of want ; "* as the savages of the 
 early period had done.f 
 
 This, as the reader will now observe, exactly represents what 
 has been the course of events in Ireland, in Jamaica, in India, in 
 Portugal, and in Turkey; and also, that which was the course in 
 England at the date of Mr. Malthus s work, when property in the 
 land was just beginning to be consolidated ; and when the pro- 
 
 * MILL : Elements of Political Economy, p. 16. 
 
 f- "After a certain, and not very advanced, stage in the progress of agri 
 culture; as soon, in fact, as men have applied themselves to cultivation with 
 any energy, and have brought to it any tolerable tools; from that time, it is 
 the law of production from the Innd, that in any given state of agricultural 
 knowledge, by increasing the labor, the produce is not increased in an equal 
 degree ; doubling the latter does not double the former ; or, to express the 
 same idea in other words, every increase of produce is obtained by a. more than 
 proportional increase in the application of labor to the land. J. S. MILL, Prin 
 ciples, vol. i., p. 212. 
 
4G6 CHAPTER XIX. 6. 
 
 perism that has since become so frightful had begun to show its 
 head. Seeing these things, it would seem to be obvious that his 
 theory is merely to be regarded as descriptive of what had been, 
 and what were bound to be, the effects of an unsound course of 
 human action, but erroneously regarded as the necessary conse 
 quence of divine laws. 
 
 6. So, too, is it with the Ricardo-Malthusian law of the 
 occupation of the earth, in virtue of which man commences with 
 the rich lands, and then obtains food in abundance, but in course 
 of time finds himself compelled to resort to soils yielding less and 
 less in return to labor and enabling the land-owner to claim a 
 constantly increasing proportion, under the name of rent. Such 
 being the law, the laborer becomes of necessity the bond slave 
 the hewer of wood and drawer of water to the man who claims 
 to own the land. That such is the inevitable result, cannot for a 
 moment be doubted by any one who believes, with Mr. McCul- 
 loch, that, from the operation of fixed and permanent causes, 
 the increasing sterility of the soil is sure, in the long run, to over 
 match the improvements that occur in machinery and agriculture" 
 man thus becoming more and more the slave of nature, whose 
 representative the land-owner holds the key by help of which 
 alone her gifts can be obtained. 
 
 Man becomes more free as the labor of the present acquires 
 power over the accumulations of the past and less free as they 
 acquire power over him. If the Ricardo theory is true, then is 
 slavery provided for by the laws of God, and then must every 
 effort at the enfranchisement of man prove to have been made in 
 vain. 
 
 That theory involves, necessarily, the separation of men from 
 their fellow-men, in search of distant and fertile lands ; and yet, 
 separate as they may, the original curse still follows them " the 
 increasing sterility of the soil being sure to overmatch" any im 
 provements they may make. The utility of the materials of which 
 the earth is composed must diminish the value of the commodi 
 ties required by man must increase and the value of man him 
 self must decline ; while the necessity for the service of the trader 
 and transporter must be a constantly augmenting one. The more 
 their services are required, the greater must be the differences 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 467 
 
 between the prices of raw products and finished commodities ; 
 and the greater must be the tendency towards that state of things 
 in which might makes right that one in which barbarism takes 
 the place of civilization. Look to the doctrine from what point 
 we may, it carries man so certainly towards slavery, that, were it 
 true, it would be folly to undertake resistance. 
 
 7. Happily for man, history tells a story widely different from 
 that of Mr. Malthus. All that is by him depicted as a conse 
 quence of increase of numbers, is precisely what we see to have 
 existed in the past, when population was small, and when men 
 could occupy at will either the lands of the hills, or those of the 
 valleys when no man had property in either and when none 
 could demand rent ; but when all-powerful nature forbade the oc 
 cupation of the lower and richer lands, and limited the labors of 
 man to those of the poor ones of the hills. Such having been the 
 case, and man having steadily acquired power as the result of that 
 combination which could come only with increase of numbers, 
 it would seem very clear that these theories could be entitled to 
 no consideration whatsoever ; unless, indeed, it were possible for 
 us to conclude that the Creator had instituted laws that were to 
 work at one time forward, and at another backward at one time 
 up, and at another down while instituting, in relation to all 
 other matter, laws which work so invariably in one direction, that 
 having once determined what it is, man feels himself entirely safe 
 in assuming that such it has been in all the times that are past, 
 and that such it will be in all that are to come. That the Crea 
 tor could have instituted such a system that he could so have 
 acted towards the being he had placed at the head of creation 
 is an idea so absurd as almost to warrant us in hesitating to cre 
 dit that those by whom it was first suggested could really them 
 selves have believed therein ; and yet not a doubt that they really 
 and honestly did so can now be entertained. What, however, 
 could have been the cause of the error into which, men of high 
 intelligence as they undoubtedly were, they fell ? To obtain a 
 reply to this question we must here briefly review the tendencies 
 of the system as exhibited in the several countries to which refer 
 ence has above been made. 
 
 What, in the first place, were the objects sought by it to be 
 
468 CHAPTER XIX. 7. 
 
 accomplished ? Did it look to the promotion of association and 
 combination ? Did it look towards the development of the 
 powers of man ? Did it look to the development, or even to the 
 maintenance, of the powers of the earth ? Did it seek to lessen 
 that greatest of all the obstacles standing in the way of commerce, 
 the tax of transportation ? Did it, in any manner, tend to in 
 crease the utility of the matter of which the earth is composed 
 to diminish the value of the commodities required for the uses of 
 man or, to increase the value of man himself ? If such were its 
 objects, then did it tend towards civilization. 
 
 That it did none of these things we know. It sought to pre 
 vent association. It prohibited diversity of employments, and 
 thus forbade the development of mind, and the growth of the 
 power of combination. It reduced the people subject to it to the 
 condition of mere tillers of the soil while enforcing the exhaus 
 tion of the land. All of these phenomena are those which attend 
 the early ages of society those ages that we denominate barba 
 ric those in which food is obtained with greatest difficulty 
 those in which famines and pestilences abound and those in 
 which the disease of over-population most exists. The system 
 tended towards the reduction of the supply of the necessaries of 
 life ; and therefore is it that we find in Ireland, India, and Ja 
 maica the most conclusive evidences of the truth of the doctrines 
 of the English school. It was -a retrograde policy, tending to 
 cause a return of society to that state of barbarism from which 
 it had emerged ; and therefore was a retrograde theory required 
 to enable those who sought to profit by it, to account for the 
 diseases of which it was itself the cause. That theory was 
 supplied by Messrs. Malthus and Ricardo, who gave us laws 
 of God by help of which to account for famines, pestilences, 
 and slavery, that were but the necessary result of the miscon 
 duct of man. 
 
 Such was the origin of that modern political economy which so 
 entirely repudiates the ideas of Adam Smith, and finds in trade 
 the substitute for commerce. Retrograde throughout, it requires 
 that we should at once, and for ever, ignore the existence of an 
 all-wise and all-benevolent Deity, and put our trust in a Being by 
 whom had been instituted great natural laws in virtue of which 
 men should necessarily, and regularly, die of want. " 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 469 
 
 Retrograde throughout, it teaches 
 
 That, in the early stages of society, as the first miserable tools 
 are obtained, by means of which to work, men are enabled to 
 compel the earth to yield larger rewards to labor ; but, that, as 
 soon as they have applied themselves to cultivation with any 
 energy, and have brought to it any tolerable tools," * a new law 
 supervenes, in virtue of which the return to labor becomes yearly 
 smaller than before. 
 
 That, although the progress towards civilization has every 
 where been marked by an increase in the power of man over mat 
 ter, there exist "fixed and permanent causes" why matter must 
 everywhere, and under all circumstances, obtain greater power 
 over man. 
 
 That, although the value of man had everywhere increased, as 
 the value of the commodities required for his use has diminished, 
 the true road of progress is to be found in the direction of in 
 creased use for ships and wagons, because in their use is to be 
 found the greatest increase in the value of those commodities 
 
 That, although men have everywhere become more free as em 
 ployments have become more diversified, and as the utility of the 
 various kinds of matter has become more and more developed, the 
 road of progress lies in the division of nations into agricultural 
 and manufacturing ones the single workshop being thousands of 
 miles distant from the places at which the materials are produced. 
 
 That, although man has always thriven in the precise ratio in 
 which the price of the raw material has approximated that of the 
 commodity manufactured from it, his further progress is to be in 
 creased by the adoption of a policy looking to cheapening the 
 raw materials and increasing the quantity thereof required to be 
 given for the finished article. 
 
 That, although he has always acquired value with the growth 
 of commerce, and with decline in the necessity for trade and trans 
 portation, his condition must be improved by establishing the 
 supremacy of trade. 
 
 That, although progress had always been marked by increase 
 in the power of labor over capital, it is now required that "labor 
 should be abundant and cheap," in order that it maybe kept 
 " sufficiently under the control of capital." 
 
 * J. S. MILL : Principles of Political Economy, vol. i. p. 212. 
 
470 CHAPTER XIX. 8. 
 
 Such being the tendency of all its teachings, it is no matter of 
 surprise that modern English political economy sees in man only 
 an animal that will procreate, that must be fed, and that can 
 be made to work an instrument to be used by trade ; that it 
 repudiates all the distinctive qualities of man, and limits itself to 
 the consideration of those he holds in common with the beast of 
 burden or of prey ; that it denies that the Creator meant that 
 every man should find a place at his table, or that there exists 
 any reason why a poor laborer, able and willing to work, should 
 have any more right to be fed than the cotton-spinner has to find 
 a market for his cloth ; or that, as the reader has already seen, it 
 assures its students that " labor is a commodity, " and that if men 
 will marry and have children without having previously made 
 provision for them, it is for them to take their chance and that 
 if we stand between the error and its consequences , we stand 
 between the evil and its cure if we intercept the penalty, (where 
 it does not amount to positive death,) we perpetuate the sin." * 
 
 8. Adam Smith knew nothing of any such "dismal science" 
 as that above described. Having full faith in the advantages of 
 commerce, he held in great contempt the system based upon the 
 idea of converting a whole nation into a mass of mere traders in 
 the products of other lands. Believing that " the one thing 
 needful was, obviously, to make land yield the largest possible 
 surplus," he favored its division, because "small farms," as he 
 saw, could "afford a greater surplus than similar portions of a 
 larger one;" and because his eyes had not been opened to the 
 imaginary fact, that consolidation of landed property " raises uni 
 versally the standard of competence, and gives force to the springs 
 which set industry in motion, "f Had that idea been suggested 
 to him, he would probably have inquired why it had been that, in 
 all other countries, such consolidation had been the companion 
 of depopulation, slavery, and moral and political death. 
 
 A firm believer in the equal rights of man, he was as little able 
 to see the justice of prohibition of commerce among the colonists, J 
 
 * Edinburgh Review, October, 1849. 
 
 f MoCuLLOCH: Principles, p. 259. 
 
 J "To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of 
 customers may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shop 
 keepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shop- 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 471 
 
 as he would now be to discover the propriety, or the advantage 
 to England herself, of a "warfare" on the part of great capital 
 ists at home, with a view to the destruction of competition at 
 home and abroad. Having a confident belief in the existence of 
 the being known to him as MAN a being possessed of feelings 
 and affections he held in great admiration the " small proprie 
 tor who," knowing "every part of his little territory, views it 
 with all the affection which property, especially small property, 
 naturally inspires ; and who, on that account, takes pleasure not 
 only in cultivating, but in adorning it;" and he would, with 
 scorn, have rejected the idea of the modern politico-economical 
 man a being that sleeps, eats, and procreates, and must have so 
 much wages as will enable him to supply the lowest wants of his 
 nature, and those alone. Seeing clearly that " the most advan 
 tageous employment of the capital of the country to which it be 
 longs, is that which maintains the greatest quantity of productive 
 labor, and increases most the annual produce of the land and labor 
 of that country," he held in small respect the opinions of those who 
 saw in "foreign trade" the only index to prosperity; and in as 
 little respect would he, were he now living, hold those of the men 
 who see in the import of 
 
 "The wealth of climes, where savage nations roam, 
 Pillaged from slaves to purchase slaves at home," 
 
 any compensation for the establishment of a system under the action 
 of which "man" becomes " a drug, and population a nuisance." 
 Holding to scarcely a single opinion in common with that modern 
 political economy which since has emanated from the school of 
 England,* it is little matter of surprise that we find in his great 
 work no evidence of his belief that the "misery" described by 
 Mr. Malthus had its existence in virtue of any of the laws of God 
 
 keepers ; but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by 
 shopkeepers." Wealth of Nations, book 4, chap. vii. Of the measures that 
 had been adopted with a view to carry out this idea, and to magnify trade 
 at the expense of commerce, as is still being done, Dr. Smith gave his opin 
 ion in the following words: "To prohibit a great people, however, from 
 making all they can of every part of their own produce, or from employing 
 their stock and industry in the way that they judge most advantageous to 
 themselves, is a manifest violation of the most sacred rights of mankind " 
 Ibid. 
 
 * The chief point of agreement between Dr. Smith and his followers is to 
 be found in his chapters on Money, where he was most in error. 
 
472 CHAPTER XIX. 9. 
 
 that that great and beneficent Being had provided no place at 
 his table for important portions of the human family or that he 
 believed a nation was to be enriched by such an extirpation of 
 
 "A bold peasantry their country s pride" 
 
 as has since taken place in every portion of the United Kingdom. 
 Appreciating fully the advantages pecuniary and political, 
 moral and social resulting from commerce, Dr. Smith saw 
 clearly that it increased as the necessity for the services of the 
 transporter diminished as the men engaged in effecting those 
 mechanical and chemical changes in the form of matter required 
 to fit it for man s consumption, more and more took their places 
 by those engaged in developing the treasures of the earth, and in 
 augmenting the quantity of raw materials requiring to be con 
 verted ; and that every step in that direction was attended with 
 diminution in the value of commodities, and an increase in the 
 value and in the freedom of man.* 
 
 9. The reader may now readily comprehend the simple and 
 beautiful law in virtue of which society tends gradually to assume 
 the form described in a former chapter, f 
 
 Among savages, raw material is low in price, while finished 
 commodities are dear. Among civilized men, the reverse of this 
 is true raw material being dear and finished commodities cheap. 
 The former give skins that have cost them days, in exchange for 
 
 * In the notes to Mr. McCulloch s edition of the Wealth of Nations, that 
 gentleman tells his readers that "it would be inexcusable" to waste their 
 time "by endeavoring to prove, by argument, the advantage of having sup 
 plies of food at a low price. To facilitate production," as he continues, 
 " and to make commodities cheaper and more easily obtained, are the prin 
 cipal motives which stimulate the inventive powers, and which lead to the 
 discovery and improvements of machines and processes for saving labor and 
 diminishing cost." p. 520. The words "price" and "cost" are here treated 
 as if thev referred to the same idea ; whereas, the one refers to the value of 
 corn in money, and the other to its value when measured by labor. It is 
 precisely as " the inventive powers" become stimulated, that the former 
 rises, as may be seen by a comparison of Poland with France, or England 
 of the days of George I. with the same England of the time of George III. 
 It is then, however, that the latter falls, as may be seen by a comparison of 
 France of the present time with France of the days of Louis XV., or Eng 
 land of the present day with the England of those of the Plantagenets. The 
 more numerous the discoveries and "improvements of machines," the less 
 will be the "cost" of food, the greater will be its tendency to a rise of 
 "price;" and the more rapid the improvement in the condition of man. 
 
 f See ante, p. 223. 
 
OF MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OF FORM. 473 
 
 knives produced by the labor of little more than minutes. The 
 latter receive from the neighboring miller in the form of flour 
 nearly all that they had given him in that of wheat. 
 
 Between these two conditions of society there are many stages, 
 for whose illustration we give the following figures : 
 
 Finished commodity 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 
 
 Cost of transportation and conver 
 sion 987654321 
 
 Raw material 123456789 
 
 We have here a rapid increase in the proportion retained by 
 the producer, accompanied by corresponding decrease in that 
 going to the payment of the various persons engaged in the works 
 of trade, transportation, and conversion. In the first, the latter s 
 share pays for the labor of nine times as many persons engaged 
 in the work of cultivation who are, of course, slaves both to 
 nature and to their fellow-men. In the last, it pays for the labor 
 of only one-ninth as many men ; as a natural consequence of 
 which, the slave of the earlier days is represented by the freeman 
 of the later ones. 
 
 Admitting, now, that all were equally paid that wages in all 
 employments were the same society would tend gradually to 
 take the forms that here are indicated : 
 
 Employed in trade, trans 
 portation, and conver 
 sion 900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 
 
 Employed in developing 
 the resources of the 
 earth 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 
 
 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 
 
 The form of society thus gradually changes from the top-heavy 
 and unstable one of an inverted pyramid, to the beautiful and 
 stable one of a true pyramid the mass of the physical and 
 mental power of the community being, in the last, given to ef 
 fecting those vital changes in the forms of matter, which result 
 in augmentation of the quantity of things to be consumed ; while 
 but little of it is required for effecting changes in the places, 
 forms, or ownership, of the things produced. With every 
 stage of this progress, agriculture becomes more and more a 
 
 VOL. L 31 
 
474 CHAPTER XIX. 9. 
 
 science the men employed in developing the resources of the 
 earth rise in the scale of being the various utilities of matter are 
 more and more called into activity . local centres are created 
 food and clothing are more and more readily obtained and man 
 becomes more happy and more free. With each, mind is more 
 and more stimulated into action the feelings and affections are 
 more and more developed and man becomes from year to year 
 more fitted for occupying the place for which he was intended 
 that of master over nature, and master of himself. 
 
 Such, under a natural system, are the results of an increase of 
 population. That they are so, is shown by every page in the his 
 tory of improving nations. That Mr. Malthas should so have 
 misrepresented the action of the Creator that he should have 
 made slavery, instead of freedom, the ultimate condition of man 
 kind was due to the fact, that he lived in the midst of an arti 
 ficial system, whose tendency to produce the enslavement of man 
 is being, with each successive day, more clearly demonstrated.* 
 
 * In a recent debate in the House of Commons, it was stated that in the 
 bleaching establishments of both England and Scotland, men, women, and 
 children were obliged to work from sixteen to twenty hours per day, and 
 under a temperature so high that, not unfrequently, " the nails in the floors 
 became heated, and blistered the feet of those who were employed in the 
 rooms usually called wasting shops, because of the extraordinary de 
 struction of life of which they are the cause." To remedy these evils, and 
 to protect the work-people especially those whose tender age forbids that 
 they should protect themselves, and whose lives are now, as was said by one 
 of the speakers, "being expended just like those of cattle on a farm" it 
 was proposed to limit the hours of employment : but the bill for that pur 
 pose was rejected after a speech from Sir James Graham, in which, as the 
 reader will here see, the laborer is regarded as a mere instrument to be 
 used by trade : 
 
 " It is admitted that the bleaching trade is exposed to the most severe 
 competition with foreign rivals, and that it requires all the skill and energy 
 of the British manufacturer successfully to contend against that compe 
 tition. Just as in a race where two horses of exactly equal powers are to 
 run if you put three pounds extra on one of them, his defeat is certain : so 
 it is with regard to this trade. Mr. Tremenheere admits the keenness of 
 this competition, but, while he states most distinctly that if you follow 
 his advice, the additional cost of production will be 10 per cent., and the 
 addition to the selling price 1 per cent., he maintains that this is a very 
 trifling matter indeed. That is so astounding a proposition in a matter of 
 trade, that I, for one, cannot consent blindly to follow Mr. Tremenheere as 
 a guide. If the effect should be as he states to add 10 per cent, to the 
 cost of production I predict at once that by such hasty, wild, and extrava 
 gant legislation, you would insure the success of our foreign rivals in this 
 branch of trade." 
 
 END OP VOL. I. 
 
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