There is one great example that will show us the truth of this: I mean commerce. In the case of commerce, the truth of what has just been said is self-evident, and commerce is in this respect the image of all progressive, all civilizing activities. It is the image of invention, and invention is the essence of economy and of manufacture, and the practical application of science. Progress in all these branches would have been impossible-if we only saw the matter completely, it would have been unthinkable-without the desire in individuals to acquire property, and without the certain prospect before them of being able to so. The amelioration of the social condition of the people can only be obtained by teaching them how to help themselves, by giving them correct principles to guide their lives by, and demonstrating to their common sense the value of labour, steadiness, thought, and thrift. Any scheme that tends to equalize property must tend to paralyze civilization in the very act of diffusing it, and to debase the coin in the very act of distributing it. Let the ideal state it aims at have ever so many things to recommend it, it contains in itself the elements of its own dissolution; for not only is the constant struggle and ambition of the individual needed to advance civilization, it is needed also if we would keep civilization from retrograding.

" To preserve our material civilization even in its present state, there is a vast amount of skill and knowledge requisite, which men will only take the trouble to master for the sake of some adequate reward, and which, in the absence of any incentive to master it, might readily become lost to mankind altogether. But this is not all. If it is thus evident that there