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PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS

THOSE who have observed, reflected or written on political economy and the various branches of knowledge connected with it, may be-ranged in two classes, the intel¬lectual and the mechanical. Of later days, and in this country, conspicuous amongst the intellectual speculators or philosophers stands Mr. Godwin, the author of " Poli¬tical Justice." Equally eminent amongst the mechanical reasoners, particularly in his earlier productions, is Mr. Malthus, whose treatise on the " Principles of Popula¬tion" is become almost the text-book of a politico-economical sect. The intellectual speculators, informed by their own feelings of the gentle, ever-springing, and all-sufficient pleasures of sympathy and intellectual culture, their animal wants being all comfortably supplied and there¬fore exciting little of their attention, little studious perhaps of the physical laws of nature, of the physical constitution of man and the beings that surround him, conscious of their own power of restraining and regu¬lating what they regard as the grosser propensities of our nature, proclaim man as capable of attaining happiness by his mental powers alone, almost independent of material subordinate agency. To such a superiority have they elevated the thinking part of the human organiza¬tion, as to suppose that man may hereafter, by the perfect use of it, will his own health independent of the ma¬terial agents usually employed to promote it. They have thought that the mind may command mechanical ope¬rations, such as ploughing or navigation, without the

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intervention of intermediate physical means. How these mysterious processes, these wonders of volition, were by possibility to be carried on, consistent with any esta¬blished analogy of things, could not of course be ex¬plained. Though such alleged possibilities were the extreme of the system of those who rested their hopes of the improvement of mankind, almost exclusively, on the cultivation of, their intellectual powers ; it is easy to conceive how'.gr;eat' avi influence such theories must exert over the judgement \vhf-n directed to the investiga¬tion of th- eveiy-day, sluggish, realities of life. In possession of so. compendious and sublime a mode of commanding nature, how should 1 hey submit to walk the lowly paths of observation, to toil through the end¬less slavery of experimenting in order to get a glance at a new power of nature, or of a new or more useful mode of application of any thing before known ? how could they stoop to examine the vulgar agency, by which rustics and mechanics elaborate inanimate matter into forms moulded by the caprice of their superiors ? Would they not almost esteem it time lost to discuss the effi¬ciency of unthinking things in influencing the happiness of a being so superior, or capable of being made so superior, to their controul ? As the superstitious impute all changes to the arbi¬trary caprice and favoritism of their divinities sporting with the essential and immutable properties and mutual relations of material things ; so do these intellectual speculators introduce a species of divinity within them¬selves, to exercise that controuling power over nature, before which, when placed without them, the superstitious tremble. The fears of the one and the hopes of the other, are almost equally vain. For whatever advances mankind may make in the arts of social happiness, they must be indebted, to an enlarged and minute acquaint¬ance with the surrounding universe of things and of themselves, and to the wise use and distribution and regulation of them. The intellectual speculators on political economy, wishing to make man all thought,

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affect to disdain labor as mechanical and grovelling, unaware of the paramount principle of utility by which alone the worth or worthlessness of every thing must be estimated. What is thought, but motion pro¬duced and felt in the brain ? what is labor, but motion communicated to and in co-operation with the ever-active energies of nature ? And by what standard is the superiority of either species of motion to be esti¬mated, but by their relative tendency to produce human happiness ? Herein, in their contempt for the me¬chanical drudgery of labor, coalesce the intellectual with the political aristocracy. The one disdaining its exer¬cise, ungratefully glory and plume themselves in the use and exhibition of the articles it produces; while the other, the intellectual aristocrat, disdains, or affects to disdain, equally its exercise and its productions, for¬getting that without its kindly and ever-recurring aid in the supply of food, clothing and shelter, the high in¬tellectual energies, of which he boasts, could scarcely for one hundred hours preserve themselves distinguished from the unconscious air around them, or from any other masses of unorganized matter. There are endless shades of opinion amongst these intellectual speculators on wealth and human happiness. They all agree in over¬estimating the capabilities of mere mind, or what they term morals or virtue, to promote happiness, and leave too much out of their calculation those homely physical agencies, on which the development of both mind and morals depends, and without which they could not exist. If the class that I have termed intellectual speculators, leave material things and physical agencies too much out of their calculation, those whom I have termed me¬chanical speculators adopt the opposite extreme. With them, intellectual power and sympathy form no part of the creature, man : he is altogether a mechanical agent, like the plough or the loom or the horses with whose motions he co-operates; and he is to be urged to labor by the same rude means that operate on other animals. Those who call themselves pure political economists, and

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profess to have no other object but wealth in contem¬plation, belong more or less to this class. By them the sublime notions of intelligence, benevolence or mutual co-operation and perfectibility, are held in derision. Their sole object is so to arrange, as that the machines, whether living, as cows, men, or horses, and propelled by food and air, or inanimate and propelled by steam or water, should produce in the greatest abundance all articles of food, clothing, shelter, and elegance, or caprice ; and that, on the other hand, means should be devised that an abundance of consumers should be found to use the articles produced, so that every year a con¬tinual demand should be kept up for these or similar articles. By what means, or by whom, the articles were produced, whether by camels, horses, men, slaves or not slaves, whether by bard labor or easy labor, by healthful or life-consuming exertion, signified not; ex¬cept in as far as the wear and tear of the dead or living machinery might enhance the price and lessen the pro¬duction. By what means, or by whom, these articles were consumed, whether by the mass of the producers to diffuse gladness through a smiling population, or by a few living in palaces surrounded by unenjoyed waste and sickly appetites, signified not. The problem with them has been, how to raise the greatest produce and to ensure the greatest consumption or efficient demand. No considerations but such us related immediately to wealth or exchangeable value, were admitted into the reasonings of these severe economists. Amongst these mechanical reasoners there are shades of opinion as well as amongst the intellectual speculators; and they occa¬sionally adopt more or less of their adversaries' views. Is it to be wondered nt, that neither the one nor the other of these two classes of reasoners on political economy and human happiness, called here the intel¬lectual and the mechanical, have arrived at truth ? that no consistent and useful system of human labor and the most wise and wholesome distribution of its products, has yet been devised between them ? that while each of

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them have discovered on their own side a good deal of truth, their chief felicity has consisted in developing the errors of their opponents ? How should it be other¬wise ? Man is not a mere machine like a steam-engine or spinning-jenny, nor an uncalculating animal like the horse or the ox whose labor he employs. Nor is man a mere intellectual agent, without properties in common rtdlh both the inanimate and the living things around him. Man is a complicated being. Like the timber or the wool on which he operates, he is liable to the im¬pulses of external things. Appropriate agents produce chemical and mechanical changes on his structure, both within and without, just as on other masses of matter. The overwhelming force of the current or the tempest equally shatters and sweeps away him and all inanimate obstacles, whether the shed which he has reared for his protection or the plank to which he clings for succour, in proportion to the mass and powers of resistance of each. Certain living powers, the result of organization, developing themselves in nervous and muscular motions, enable man to increase but a little his power of resist¬ance. Like all other animals, man exists but on the condition of keeping up the eternal excitement of air and food: like the best organized of them, he is liable to various sources of enjoyment and of pain, by means of the terminations of different species of nerves in what are termed organs of sense on different parts of the body: like them, he is liable to certain impulses arising from internal secretions, entirely independent of his volition, and thence to certain propensities, desires or wants, in¬separable from his actual organization. But, unlike condensed or aerial particles of inanimate matter, un¬like any known vital organization but his own, not only is he liable in a super-eminent degree to the feelings arising from the observation of all things around him and their relation to himself, not only to the feelings °f memory perpetuating these original feelings of ob¬servation, but also to those of comparison and reasoning. Hence he is enabled to look in upon his own structure,

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to look forward into futurity to calculate the effects of his actions, and thence to be guided by distant as well as immediate motives. By proper training, he is enabled to add to the pleasures of the senses and of internal excitement, the pleasant feelings of intellectual culti¬vation ; and by the wise regulation of his appetites and passions, he not only increases indefinitely their plea¬sures, but avoids the evils to which want of foresight would lead them, and contracts a sympathy and inclina¬tion to benevolent co-operation with his fellow-creatures. Can we reason then on any matters, in which the labor, voluntary or forced, of such a creature as this, is the chief ingredient, as we could respecting sheep or the wool separated from their bodies, or respecting the powers of air, water, steam, and machinery ? Or can we justly reason on any matters in which such a creature as this is chiefly concerned, as if he were all composed of intellect and benevolence, as if he were uninfluenced by the chemical mechanical laws of nature operating within and around him, as if he could shake off the feelings and impulses co-existent with the several stages of his or¬ganization, as if he were gifted with a mysterious power of producing changes within and around him, by mere volition, without the intervention of the usual ascer¬tained natural agents or causes ? like the power ascribed to the great spirit or mind of nature, in the poetical creation of all things ? I conceive, then, that in order to make the noble dis¬coveries of political economy—and magnificent they are when viewed in their proper connexion—useful to social science, the application of which becomes the art of social happiness, it is necessary always to keep in view, the complicated nature of man, the instrument to ope¬rate with and the creature to be operated upon. Without a constant reference to it, the regulating principle of utility is sacrificed, and the grand object of political economy, the indefinite increase of the accumulations of wealth or of its yearly products, become worthless objects consigning to the wretchedness of unrequited

Page IX toil three-fourths or nine-tenths of the human race, that e remaining smaller portion may pine in indolence midst unenjoyed profusion. It is not the mere pos¬session of wealth, but the right distribution of it, that is important to a community. It is with communities as with individuals. Men cannot be happy without the physical means of enjoyment, which in all civilized societies consist chiefly of objects of wealth : but, with a comparatively small portion of these objects, men may be happier than they have ever been seen to be; while, though surrounded with them to superfluity, they may still be miserable. Tis not the multitude but the use and the distribution of the objects of wealth, with which society is chiefly interested. Hence the necessity of considering wealth not only in its effects on industry and reproduction, but also in its moral and political effects, in every way that it can influence human happiness. Moralists have been, for the most part, ignorant of physical science and of the truths of political economy: theologians affect to disdain all other knowledge but their own peculiar and profitable dreams: political economists profess to direct their sole attention to the production and accumulation of wealth, regardless of its distribution further than as it may influence re-production and accu¬mulation, leaving to moralists, politicians and statesmen, its effect on happiness, and drawing a broad line of distinction between their solid material speculations and the airy philosophy of the mind. Nay, more; the chemist and mechanician and operative manufacturer or merchant, have, till lately, affected to disdain the speculations of political economists, as mere theories, inapplicable to the realities of their respective operations. What is to be inferred ? Not that we condemn the division of knowledge any more than the division of labor ; but that we would have it limited to theimprove- it of its own particular branch, and not have it ap-pied to the immense concern of social happiness without regard being had to all those other equally important data on which a just application must depend. Social

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science, the science of morals, including legislation as one of its most important sub-divisions, requires not only a knowledge of what is technically called morals and political economy, but of the outlines of all that is known, with a capacity for following up any particular branch that may be, on particular occasions, conducive to the general end. None of these speculators have confined themselves to their own peculiar province, but have adventured, without appropriate knowledge, on the direct application of their isolated speculations to social science. A few illustrious exceptions might be named, one of whom has done more for moral science than Bacon did for physical science: for whereas Bacon did no more than point out the new and secure road to physical discovery, he has not only pointed out the right road to moral investigations, but has made such pro¬gress in it as no man ever before conceived, much less accomplished. Following in the road which he has de¬monstrated, our object is to apply to social science the ascertained truths of political economy, making these and all other branches of knowledge subservient to that just distribution of wealth which tends most to human happiness. Mr. Mill in his useful epitome, the " Elements of Political Economy," chapter on Distribution, page 52, says, " If the natural laws of distribution were allowed to operate freely, the greater part of this net produce would find its way, in moderate portions, into the hands of a numerous class of persons exempt from the neces-sit) of labor, and placed in the most favorable circum¬stances both for the enjoyment of happiness and for the highest intellectual and moral attainments. Society would thus be seen in its happiest state." These natural laws, or tendencies to distribution in particular channels, with the effects, moral and political, as well as economical, necessarily resulting from them, are no where developed, partly because they extend be¬yond the mere bounds of political economy or wealth prescribed to the work, and partly perhaps because the

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inthor conceived that the intelligent reader might gather 'them in the way of inference. I need not cite the vague speculations or the more numerous and unreflecting portion of the community, to prove that no particular opinions are yet assented to as true respecting the most useful distribution of wealth; but simply refer to the opinions of some of the most able writers who have lately condensed and simplified for public use what they conceive to be the ascertained truths of political economy. The author of the " Con¬versations on Political Economy" (as well as of those on Chemistry and Natural Philosophy) would lead us to believe, that such an inequality as we see in England in the distribution of wealth, that such luxury as we see concentrated in capital cities and elsewhere, is necessary to give employment and food to the great bulk of the industrious and productive classes of society, and that the poor must starve if there were not to be found masses of wealth of hundreds of thousands of pounds per annum concentrated in single hands to set the peo¬ple to work, by means of its expenditure. Much of abuse as may take place in the expenditure of these enormous masses, she still thinks that the state of things producing them, is necessary, even for the employment of the productive laborers themselves. The necessary inference is, that this mode of distribution being so excellent, our efforts in legislation and otherwise should be directed to its support and continuance, if not to its increase. The celebrated author, as above, of the History of British India gives his opinion as to the best mode of distributing the national wealth. And what is—as far as his explanations can aid us in forming a supposition —this best mode ? He tells us that literary men not un¬der the necessity of any bodily labor for their support, possessed in a moderate degree of the comforts and con-reniencies of life, are capable of enjoying, and do enjoy, lore of happiness than any other members of society. therefore advises such a'state of things, such a dis-

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tribution of wealth, as will tend most to increase the number of this happy class of beings. I need not go further to point out the fallacy of these speculations founded on mere partial views; the one founded on an excessive admiration of the baubles engendered by ex¬cessive wealth, the other founded on a more rational admiration of moral and intellectual pleasures, than thus to put them abreast, and permit them, like cer¬tain chemical mixtures, to neutralize each other. It is evident that some more general, some universally-com¬prehensive principle, embracing the happiness of the whole of men or of nations, taken, not as classes, but as sentient beings, must be resorted to, in this moment¬ous inquiry. Consequences so extensive, so awfully important to human happiness, as those arising from different modes of distributing wealth, must not however be left to mere inference. That inference, which to one intelligent mind may appear legitimate, another may look upon as unconsequential. Not to advance beyond the proposition above quoted from Mr. Mill,—how many are there who think the present state of society, of excessive wealth and extreme poverty, preferable to the existence of the numerous class of small possessors therein described ? who will not admit the existence of any natural law or tendency to bring about such a state of things ? and who still think that such a natural tendency ought by every possible means, even by force, to continue to be restrained, as it now is everywhere, by force restrained? ^o me it appears that the natural laws of distribution, if left freely to operate, would produce much more hap¬piness in any community so wise as to unchain them, than is even promised above: to me it appears not proved, nor a just inference, that freedom from the necessity of moderate labor is essential either to the highest intellectual or moral attainments, or, as flowing from these and from a due supply of physical wants, to the enjoyment of the greatest happiness: to me it appears that the natural laws of distribution, if left freely to ope-

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rate would, with the present aids of art and science, do much more than produce to a numerous class, intellec¬tual and moral culture, with the comforts and conve-niencies of life, and therefore happiness : to me it ap¬pears, that what I conceive to be the natural laws or the wisest mode, of distribution, would even produce these blessings to the community at large. Is it not then of consequence clearly to ascertain what these natural laws of distribution are, from which such mighty conse¬quences are anticipated ? and respecting the actual ten¬dencies of which, and the desirableness of these ten¬dencies, opinions so contradictory prevail ? But the subject, the distribution of wealth, is a hack¬neyed subject. What subject important to human hap¬piness is not hackneyed ? The subject of wealth in general is indeed so : but it is conceived that the least hackneyed branch of the subject is the distribution. No bold hand, it is conceived, has yet presumed to lay down just principles on this all-sensitive subject. Force, fraud, chance, prescription, are almost every where the main arbiters of distribution, and have almost frighten¬ed reason from daring to contemplate the mischiefs they have caused. Injustice in this most momentous matter has every where prevailed ; but the perennial source has not been unfolded. Hence discontent, misery, vice, uni¬versal degradation—degradation not always absolute, but compared with the state of happiness attendant on the natural laws of distribution, if left freely to operate, in the present state of improved and every-day extend¬ing knowledge. In every nation, and in almost every age, of the world, the blessings of equal comforts to all, and the enormous evils of great inequality of wealth, have been dimly seen and recognised; and vain and ignorant its have been made to establish a just distribution. Force is the instrument employed by ignorance to accomplish every thing, even justice itself: to establish equality, therefore, was force employed. But no sooner was force made use of than security fled, and with se-

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curity production and consequently the means of happi¬ness. Here therefore is the cruel dilemma in which mankind have been placed. Here is the important pro¬blem of moral science to be solved, "how to reconcile equality ivith security ; how to reconcile just distribu¬tion with continued production" This problem it is the object of the following pages to develop, to trace its consequences, and to point out those just and gentle means by which the natural laws of distribution may be every where introduced, and by which security, im¬partially applied to all, and not exclusively and hypocri¬tically applied to a few, may become the firmest guaran¬tee, instead of being the eternal opponent, of rational and healthful equality: as it is the only sure basis of the continued reproduction and accumulation of wealth. This momentous problem has not been yet fully solved. Mere political economy has not attempted to solve it. To the minds of a few enlightened men the first principles necessary for its solution maybe familiar: but none of them has yet undertaken the task of bringing to a point the scattered rays of knowledge on this subject, applying them all to the distribution of wealth. To diffuse, and by diffusing to direct \.Q prac¬tical use, the knowledge acquired on this branch of so¬cial science, to lead forth from the calm closets of phi¬losophical inquirers, where they have delighted and ele¬vated the minds of a few, into the world of life and action, those important truths, which it behoves all mankind to know and to practise, to assist in wiping out f\ie stain from science, noticed thirty years ago by Condorcet, but still adhering, that though she had done much for the glory of mankind, she had done nothing or little for their happiness, is to me an object of the most anxious desire. Who can throw his glance over the affairs of the civilized portion of mankind, and not rejoice ?* Who can behold the proofs, every where and every day exhi-

*Written in 1822.

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bited of the diffusion of real knowledge, and not rejoice? Who can behold all the civilized nations of mankind either in the very act of calmly new-modelling their social institutions according to their respective degrees of knowledge, or on the point of undertaking the bounteous, the magnificent, the inevitable operation, and not rejoice ? Who is there that sees not that whatever may be the absolute quantity of knowledge or of the articles of wealth in a community, it is not their abundance, but their right use and distribution, that constitute the happiness of that community ? Is not this therefore peculiarly the time to investigate with un¬compromising steadiness the natural laws of distribu¬tion, to ascertain how far legislatures and individuals may usefully co-operate with these tendencies of things,that new organizations of society may reject those per¬ennial sources of vice and misery which ancient igno¬ rance engendered? But if the aspect of the great commonwealth of civi¬lized nations and the interest which we of these coun¬tries have in the general progress of events, be not sufficient to awaken our attention to a matter moment¬ous like the present; there is an aspect of things nearer home, in our very bosoms, which challenges our atten¬tion this moment to the distribution of wealth. How comes it that a nation abounding more than any other in the rude materials of wealth, in machinery, dwell¬ings and food, in intelligent and industrious producers, with all the apparent means of happiness, with all the outward semblances of happiness exhibited by a small and rich portion of the community, should still pine in privation ? How comes it that the fruits of the labor of the industrious, after years of incessant and success¬ful exertion, are mysteriously and without imputation fault to them, without any convulsion of nature, It is not for want of physical knowledge ; it is not for want of abundant materials of wealth to make all comfortable, it is not or want of the capacity or inclination to abundant reproduction. To what then

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is this strange anomaly in human affairs to be attributed? this misery in the midst of all the means of happiness? That savage tribes, ignorant of the means of produc¬tion, disinclined to labor, should be overtaken by want, were a matter of no surprise : but that where art and nature had run, as it were, a race of emulation in the prodigality of their gifts to intelligent and industrious millions, that these millions should be disenabled from enjoying these products of their own creation—this is the mystery, this the astounding spectacle. To what but to a vicious distribution of wealth can this extraor¬dinary phenomenon be attributed ? What so natural as the cry of injustice, under such circumstances ? What so natural and so usual as the imploring of the inter¬ference of the strong arm of power, to remedy such in¬justice ? What so necessary as to ascertain the causes of this vicious distribution ? whether they are of a tem¬porary or of a deep-rooted and permanent nature ? whether present appareances are any thing more than the full development, the maximum, of the evils in¬herent in long-established errors and radically vicious institutions, now brought to the crisis of their injurious operation ? whether there are in art or nature any means to be found, excluding the use of force, which would make impossible the recurrence of similar ca¬lamity, and substitute a universally-benevolent, self-regulating, and self-preserving distribution for the pre¬sent, engendering the evils notoriously experienced ? Can any inquiry be more called for, not with a view to mere topical, temporary, remedies, but to radical cure? The tendency of the existing arrangement of things as to wealth, is to enrich a few at the expense of the mass of the producers ; to make the poverty of the poor more hopeless, to throw back the middling classes upon the poor, that a few may be enabled, not only to accumulate in perniciously large masses the real national, which is only the aggregate of individual, capital, but also,by means of such accumulations, to command the products of the yearly labor of the community-

Page XVII Who is not alarmed at the every-day increasing tendency to poverty on the part of the many, to the ostentation of excessive wealth on the part of the few ? Who sees not the gradual undermining of the nation's resources, the sickening of the very spirit of industry on the part of her producers, if this progress cannot, by a recurrence to first principles, or otherwise, be arrested ? Is it not time to inquire whether, by the laws of nature and so-ciety, we are doomed to submit to actual and anticipated evils such as these, under the peril of enduring still greater, if we rashly attempt to remove them ? All moral and political wisdom should tend mainly to this, the just distribution of the physical means of happiness : for how senseless would it be to send codes of laws and maxims of morals to the savages of New Zealand for the regulation of their passions, if matters were not so adjusted, as that—if not by gift—at least by the exercise of their faculties, these savages might be put in the way to pro¬cure not only the means of existence, but of comfort in life ! 'Tis in the use and distribution of these that all their good or bad qualities, their vices or virtues, must be chiefly developed. Skill and persevering in¬dustry are necessary to produce the objects of wealth, the means of enjoyment. Truth or falsehood are used to facilitate their acquisition by exchange or otherwise. Honesty is displayed in respecting the acquisitions of others; violence and cruelty in ravishing them from their producers ; prudence and temperance in so regulating their use, as to secure all the immediate pleasures they are capable of producing without the drawback of those contingent remote evils which would follow a blind obedience to instinctive feelings; and beneficence in yielding to the grateful emotions of sympathy under the guidance of wisdom, and making wealth tri-butary to the happiness of others. In this way is the most important portion of our virtues and vices so in-dissolubly connected with the distribution of wealth, that to speak of morals and legislation with an affected contempt of such matters, is to grasp at a shadow and

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to leave a substance—is to add hypocritical or ignorant insult to the miseries of communities. Should we find that that mode of distribution which political economy requires, militates against political utility, while general morality is silent, we must weigh the claims of wealth and politics and carefully adjudge the balance. Should we find the increase of wealth and supposed political utility calling for one mode of distri¬bution, and universal morality prescribing another, we must, consistently with our principles of promoting the greatest happiness of the whole, compell both wealth and politics to bend to that distribution which ensures the greatest virtue, the greatest happiness. But should we be so fortunate as to find that that species of distri¬bution of wealth which tends most to its production and accumulation, tends also to political utility more than any other possible distribution of it, and affords the grateful aspect of the widest diffusion of moral habits, while it is, at the same time, so simple as to require no cumbrous legal machinery, almost no machinery at all, for its support; weshall unite all impartial voices in ap¬probation of a mode of distribution so recommended. Such, and attended with so many concurring benefits, is, it is believed, the mode of distribution, the descrip¬tion of which follows. Three modes of human labor are discussed and con¬trasted in the following pages : first, labor by force, or compulsion direct or indirect; second, labor by unre¬stricted individual competition ; third, labor by mutual cooperation. The last of these modes of human labor, that by mutual co-operation, is shown to be as superior in production and happiness to the second, or that by individual competition, as the second is superior to the first, or labor by force or compulsion. The immediate incident that gave rise to the inquiry pursued through the following pages is as follows : In one of the literary societies established in the city of Cork for the diffusion of knowledge, a gentleman cele¬brated for his skill in the controversies of political

Page XIX

Investigation of the Natural Principles, Rules, or Lotus, on •which aujust Distribution of Wealth ought to be founded: deduced from our organization, and the circumstances, physical and social, which surround us.......................... 1

Sect. 1. Labor is the parent of Wealth.................. 6

Sect. 2. Object of the Distribution of Wealth, is, or ought to be, to procure the greatest possible quantity of happiness for those who produce it .......................... 17

Sect. 3. But, all sane adults, male and female, are capable of equal happiness from wealth........................ 21

Sect. 4. Therefore, the happiness of the greater number is to be preferred to that of the lesser number.............. 24

Sect. 5. Wealth being produced by labor, sufficient stimulus must be given, in the way of motive, to render this labor most efficient in the production of wealth............ 29

Sect. 6. The strongest stimulus to production, and that which is necessary to the greatest production, is, security in the free direction, and entire use of the products, of labor (see Sect. 12, page 103, for free Direction of Labor).. 35

Sect. 7. Also, all voluntary exchanges of these products increase happiness................................ 45

Sect. 8. On the other hand, the forced abstraction of these products diminishes happiness...................... 58

Sect. 9. Smallest abstractions from numbers, to be enjoyed by one, also diminish happiness........................ 68

Sect. 10. Therefore, no part of the produce of labor, should be taken from any producer without an equivalent by him deemed satisfactory.............................. 78

Sect. 11. Wealth should be so distributed as to produce the greatest equality, consistent with the greatest production 90

Sect. 12. To effect this, no artificial restraints or encouragements are necessary ............................... 103

Sect. I3. Inequality, as far as necessary to security, is useful 144

Sect. 14. Inequality, not necessary to security, is pernicious 151

Sect. 15. General Inferences. Statement of Natural Laws of Distribution, " Free Labor, entire Use of its Products, and voluntary Exchanges" ........................ 173

CHAPTER II.

Of the Evils actually produced by forced Inequality of Wealth. . 179

Sect. 1. Of the moral evils of forced inequality of wealth. ... 180

Lessens sum-total of enjoyment from wealth .......... 181

Does not add to the happiness of the rich ............ 182

Engenders positive vices and consequent misery in the rich .......................................... 187

Diffuses these and other vices through the rest of the community .................................... 192

Sect. 2. Of the economical evils of forced inequality of wealth 195

Its annual consumption is so much uncompensated loss. . 196

Sets in motion that species of industry which is the least useful ........................................ 203

Sect. 3. Of the political evils of forced inequality of wealth 210

Necessitates the monopoly and misuse of political power 210

CHAPTER III.

Of the collateral Benefits of the Natural Louis of Distribution ; viz. "Free Labor, entire Use of its Products, and voluntary Exchanges;" — that is to say, of Equality limited by equal Security ........................................223

Sect. 1 . Political benefits of the Natural Laws of Distribution 223

They are incompatible with all but representative Institutions of Government ............................225

Would indispose nations to war : render them strong for defence ...................... ................228

Would remove the strongest motives to the commission of crime ......................................231

Would reduce to the lowest standard the expenses of public administration ............................232

Would render the support of all religious associations voluntary ...... ..............................235

Sect. 2. Economical benefits of the Natural Laws of Distribution ..........................................239

Production and capital would immensely increase ...... 239

Sect. 3. Moral benefits of the Natural Laws of Distribution 259

Peculiar vices of wealth and want would almost cease . .259

CHAPTER IV.

Of the acquisition and diffusion of Knowledge, as one of the" means of increasing production and enjoyment, and securing the permanence of the Natural Latus of Distribution ...... 272

Sect. 1. Connexion of knowledge with labor and wealth .... 272 Page xxiii Sect. 2. Of social Institutions, as one of the means of ditfusing or suppressing knowledge: and thence wealth and happiness............................................ 278

Sect. 3. Of Instruction, verbal or written, addressed to adults, as the second means of diffusing or suppressing knowledge. Obstacles to its progress .......................... 315

Sect. 4. Of Education, strictly so called, previous to manhood, as the third mode of diffusing knowledge, and thence wealth and happiness.............................. 330

CHAPTER V.

Of the present state of the Distribution of Wealth, as resulting from the Institutions of Insecurity ; and of the means of reducing the existing forced expedients, of unequal distribution to the voluntary mode, of Equality limited by Security .... 363

Sect 1. Of the general evils of the abstraction by political power, of the products of labor without the consent of the producers or owners of them; termed here public plunder, and shown to be more extensive, more difficult of cure, and consequently more pernicious, than private plunder........................................ 363

Sect. 2. Of those particular institutions or expedients, whose most obvious effect is to generateforced inequality of wealth —or that inequality not called for by equal security.. .. 363

Sect. 3. Of those particular institutions or expedients, whose most obvious effect is to perpetuate forced inequality of wealth ........................................ 365

Sect. 4'. Of those particular institutions or expedients, whose obvious effect is, both to generate and perpetuate forced inequality of wealth .............................. 365

Sect. 5. Of the means of reducing these existing expedients of forced unequal distribution to the voluntary mode of the Natural Laws of Distribution, inducing equality limited only by equal security........................ 366

Benefits of the principle of Individual Competition in the production of wealth and happiness.................. 366

Evils of the principle of Individual Competition............ 369

CHAPTER VI.

Of voluntary Equality in the Distribution of Wealth. Labor by co-operation opposed to labor by individual competition.... 381

Sect. 1. Statement of the essential or characteristic features of the system of Voluntary Equality.................... 386

Sect. 2. Benefits of the system of Voluntary Equality of Wealth by mutual co-operation............................ 393

Sect, 3. Obstacles to production and happiness which the proposed system would not remove.................... 432

Obstacle which it would seem to aggravate .....,. . . . 435

Sect. 4, Is the system of VoluntaryEqiiality of Wealth, by mutual co-operation, practicable?.................... 443

Sect. 5. Popular objections to the system of Voluntary Equality of Wealth by mutual co-operation .................. 491

Theory founded on philosophical necessity.......... 491

Practical arrangements founded on restraint........ 493

Restraints on loco-motion and change of abode...... 500

Restraints of law .............................. 502

Moral sanction or public opinion within and without these communities............................ 505

Restraints of superstition........................ 510

Restraints of public plunder...................... 511

Restraints on genius and exalted exertion .......... 514

Restraints on the culture of the Fine Arts.......... 519

Uniformity of pursuits and character.............. 521

Competition would spring up between communities .. 523

Corporation rule would usurp their management .... 533

Over-population would reduce them to wretchedness.. 535

Voluntary Equality would overthrow the present institutions of society............................ 563

Unequal fertility of soils, physical obstacle to Equality of Wealth .................................. 571

Equality of Wealth must be established by reason alone 578

CHAPTER I.

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INVESTIGATION OF THE NATURAL PRINCIPLES, RULES, OR LAWS, ON WHICH ALL JUST DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH OUGHT TO BE FOUNDED : DEDUCED FROM OUR ORGANIZATION, AND THE CIRCUMSTANCES, PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL, WHICH SURROUND US.

UTILITY, calculating all effects, good and evil, immediate and remote, or the pursuit of the greatest possible sum of human happiness, is the leading principle constantly kept in view, and to which all others are but subsidiary, in this inquiry. In Bentham's " Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation," and the first chapters of the celebrated " Traites de Legislation," this principle, recognised by Helvetius, Priestley, Paley, and others, is developed and established for ever, to the exclusion of all other pretended tests of morals. No subject is more interesting, or if rightly treated more useful, than the Distribution of Wealth; because on its just and wise distribution will be found to depend, not only, direct!}', the physical comforts of every community, but, consequentially, in a very great degree, the quantum of morality, of the pleasures of sympathy, prudence, and benevolence, as well as of intellectual enjoyment, within its reach. The distribution to be here inquired into, is that which will promote the greatest possible quantity of human happiness, or the greatest happiness of the greatest number. It will be seen that this greatest number is never a mere majority, but nine out of ten, or ninety out of a hundred, of the whole community. In fact, the real happiness of the whole, even of the apparently sacrificed minority, will be found to coincide with the greatest happiness of the greatest number. The greatest possible quantity of human happiness, the greatest happiness

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of the greatest number, the happiness of the community, and the happiness of the whole, will therefore be found, in almost all cases, to imply the same, and may for the most part be indifferently used. The propositions on which the natural laws of distribution are founded, appear to me so plain, as to ensure assent as soon as they are understood, and the consequences flowing from them are the most universally extensive in their application, and most intimately connected with human happiness. They should be therefore freely canvassed; for, if true, they should be always kept in mind, to direct our reasonings on moral and political subjects: if false, the sooner their errors are pointed out the better, that they may not be injuriously applied in practice. In the investigation of truth respecting quantity and numbers, certain positions are laid down, the perception of the truth of which is felt, as soon as the terms are understood. Just so should it be in moral and political disquisitions. Though for want of an accurate measure of the degrees of resemblance or difference, of the different intensity of the same or different species of feeling, and of the consequences of actions, including these and other particulars, we cannot reach the same certainty of ultimate deduction in the moral sciences, that we can in those of quantity and numbers; yet as our moral deductions require to be extended but a few links beyond first principles, we may still arrive at nearly the same certainty in both ; for first principles are equally capable of intuitive evidence, or perception, in both ; and the more necessary it is that we should know what these first principles are, on which so much depends. We shall find, that though we cannot by means of them ensure mathematical certainty in all our reasonings, we shall arrive at that strong and overwhelming probability, even in matters of minute detail, on which the mind justly aiufneces-sarily reposes with as much confidence, and which leads to as energetic practical demonstrations in the affairs of life, as if measurement could verify every step of our progress. Be it observed, that where we cannot arrive at this strong probability, called moral certainty, the importance of the object to human happiness proportionally decreases; as hi metaphysical, antiquarian, and theological speculations. It will be asked, " What is meant by the words, natural principles, natural rules, or natural laws, of Distribution, to be here inquired into?" No word has been more misapplied than the word Natural; nor is it necessary here to enter into an analysis of its original, derivative, or present significations. So pleasing are the as-

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sociations connected with it, that it is arbitrarily allied to almost any tiling which it is sought to recommend. The word Law, too, implying a sanction, a penalty, is something which must be obeyed. If therefore the name of law can be applied to any proposition, and if to that can be superadded the word natural, no exhibition of consequences or uses is supposed' to be requisite. To disobey the law is criminal, to gainsay is presumptuous: to this add, that the law in question is not that of one or a few individuals like ourselves, but of a mysterious and irresistible power called Nature, and who shall dare to oppose ? Even political economists have frequently used these words without any accurate definition. They frequently refer to the Natural Laws of Distribution, as things existing and known, and use them as grounds, or as aids, to argument, precluding reply. Against such abuse of these terms the reader is warned. No natural laws of distribution, or of any thing else, in the sense here given them, any where exist. By natural laws of distribution enlightened political economists do mean, or ought to mean, those general rules or first principles, on which all distribution of wealth ought to be founded, in order to produce the greatest aggregate mass of happiness to the society, great or small, producing it. As therefore economists have hitherto used the terms, they are here retained ; but without any wish to derive any factitious aid from their employment. Our inquiry is respecting those useful rules or first principles on which distribution ought to be founded, which by others have been vaguely hinted at under the name of the Natural Laws of Distribution. The most appropriate meaning perhaps which can be given to the word, natural, in conjunction with the words, laws, rules, or principles, of distribution, is simply such as require no factitious aid, which demand the removal or the non-imposition of restraint,, instead of new machinery for their support. The Laws here spoken of have never been written or promulgated, still less enforced; they exist only in the discussions of the inquirers after truth, and if admitted by rational men after the most severe scrutiny that can be applied to them, will become the rules of action and the guides of real written law as to the distribution of wealth. The word, natural, may be supposed to qualify them, as intimating that such good or evil alone attends their violation or observance, as follows the ordinary course of events where no human compulsion interposes. 1 be found that no aid whatever is sought to be derived in ollowing pages, from the words, Natural Laws, in support any argument. To truth, tracing the real differences

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and resemblances of things and the real consequences of human actions, the appeal is always made. To the rules of distribution here proposed, no sort of deference is asked in consequence of the use of two metaphorical words, retained with a view of entering more easily on a train of inquiry in which they had been employed by others. Too much mischief has been done by pretenders of all sorts, in every age, by feigning mysterious intercourse with certain oracles ; their own will, guided by their own interest, rarely by mere delusion, the only gods that dictated the responses. We pretend to have discovered no oracles, to have intercourse with none: the natural laws here to be investigated, are simply, with the modifications above explained, the opinions of the writer. The propositions to be proved in this chapter are the following ; placed here consecutively, that the reader may bear their connexion in mind.

SECTION 1. Wealth is produced by labor: no other ingredient but labor makes any object of desire an object of wealth. Labor is the sole universal measure, as well as the characteristic distinction of wealth.

SECTION 2. The object to be aimed at in the distribution of wealth, as in its production by labor, is to confer thereby the greatest possible quantity of happiness, i.e. of pleasures, whether of the senses or of a moral or intellectual nature, on the society producing it.

SECTION 3. All members of society (cases of mal-conformation excepted) being similarly constituted in their physical organization, are capable by similar treatment of enjoying equal portions of happiness.

SECTION 4. The happiness of the greater number is to be preferred to the happiness of the lesser number: otherwise, the object in view, the production of the greatest possible quantity of happiness, would be sacrificed.

SECTION 5. Those means of enjoyment or happiness which come under the name of wealth, being produced by the application of labor, guided by knowledge, to the materials afforded by nature, sufficient stimulus, in the way of motive, must be afforded to put the necessary labor guided by knowledge into motion, to produce this wealth.

SECTION 6. The strongest stimulus to production (and that which is necessary to the greatest production) that the nature of things will permit, is, "security" in the entire use of the products of labor to those who produce them.

SECTION 7. All voluntary exchanges of articles of wealth,

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implying a preference on both sides of the thing received to the thing given, tend to the increase of happiness from wealth, and thence to increase the motives to its production.

SECTION 8. The forced abstraction of the products of labor, the objects of wealth and means of happiness, from any individual, will cause more loss of happiness to him than increase of happiness to the person acquiring.

SECTION 9. The forced abstraction of small portions of wealth from any given number of individuals, will lessen the whole quantity of happiness more than it can be increased by the additional pleasures conferred on any one or more individuals enjoying these united small forced masses.

SECTION 10. Therefore, the produce of no man's labor, nor the labor itself, nor any part of them, should be taken from the laborer, without an equivalent by him deemed satisfactory.

SECTION 11. The materials of wealth should be so distributed as to accomplish the double object of promoting the utmost possible equality of enjoyment and the utmost possible production ; that is to say, to promote the utmost possible equality of distribution " consistent with security ;" the degree of development of every useful human energy, physical and intellectual, and of course of the production of wealth, depending on the degree of security enjoyed.

SECTION 12. To accomplish this just distribution, no encouragements, or restraints, partaking of the nature of wealth, whether of a positive or negative kind, on the direction given to labor, or on the free interchange of the products of labor, should be instituted or upheld.

SECTION 13. That inequality in the distribution of wealth, and that alone, which arises from securing to every man the free use of his labor and its products, and the voluntary exchanges thence ensuing, should be upheld; because without that extent of inequality, there would be no security, without security no production, without production no wealth to distribute.

SECTION 14. All other species of inequality of distribution, being not only unnecessary, but injurious to the excitement of production, should be repressed; because they unnecessarily detract from the benefits of equality, and thus lessen the sum total of happiness, the object aimed at in the distribution of wealth,

SECTION 15. General inference from the above premises.

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"Natural Laws of Distribution," or General Rules, the observance of which is necessary in order to attain the greatest happiness derivable from wealth.

First. All labor ought to be free and voluntary, as to its direction and continuance.

Second. All the products of labor ought to be secured to the producers of them.

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Wealth is produced by labor.- no other ingredient but labor makes any object of' desire an object of wealth. Labor is the sole universal measure, as well as the characteristic distinc¬tion, of wealth.

A few illustrations will perhaps be sufficient to demonstrate this proposition, whether as applying to articles the unaided production of nature, or to those in which the agency of man is alone conspicuous. But first let us state what is conceived to be a just definition of wealth; in the support of which all our illustrations will terminate. The word, wealth, signifies " that portion of the physical materials or means of enjoyment which is afforded by the la¬bor and knowledge of man turning to use the animate or in¬animate materials or productions of nature." Perhaps it may be useful to bear in mind in more compen¬dious, if not as accurate terms, that wealth is " any object of desire produced by labor." Value in exchange is not necessary, though it almost always attaches, to the idea of wealth : for small communities have been _lch and happy by labor in common, without any ex¬changes. Would not woollen cloth be wealth though every man made his own coat ? Without value in exchange, an ar¬ticle, ever so much an object of desire to him that owns it, and produced by ever so much of his labor, can have no marketable value : it will not in a market be exposed for sale to those who have no desire for it: but that does not make it the less an object of wealth to him who desired it because it was useful, and who wisely employed himself in its fabrication for his own use. Without labor there is no wealth. Labor is its distinguishing attribute. The agency of nature constitutes nothing an ob-

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ject of wealth : its energies are exerted altogether equally and in common, in the production of all the means of enjoyment or desire, whether objects of wealth or not objects of wealth. Labor is the sole parent of wealth. National wealth is nothing more than the aggregate of the individual masses of the matter of wealth. Land, air, heat, light, the electric fluid, men, horses, water, as such are equally unentitled to the appellation of wealth. They may be objects of desire, of happiness ; but, till touched by the transforming hand of labor, they are not wealth. Of these, air, heat, light, the electric fluid, and frequently water, though objects of desire and utility, even of necessity, not only to health, but to the continuance of life, are not objects of wealth. Why so ? Because it requires no labor to produce them, to gather them together for use, to enjoy them. They exist in such quantities, and are used and enjoyed with so little exer¬tion, some of them requiring—as air, light, and heat—a posi¬tive exertion for the exclusion of their operation upon us, that no sort of labor is necessary to gratify our desires for them. Droves of horses or horned cattle abounding in regions thinly peopled, arc not objects of wealth any more than the air or light. There are more of them than are wanting for use: no human exertion lias produced them: whoever will employ the labor necessary lo appropriate any of them, becomes their owner: and the mere labor of acquisition makes that an ob¬ject of wealth which before was merely an object of possible desire. The value of the animal depends entirely on the ave¬rage quantity of the labor of men of ordinary strength and skill, necessary to convert it to use, whether as a beast of bur-di-n, or for the use of the flesh, or of its skin merely. What renders a fine horse an article of wealth in civilised society ? What nature has done for him ? No such thing. Nature has done as much for the wild horses of South America; and they are not articles of wealth. Has nature done more for the ned horse? No; but man has done it: and the horse, :mg in his strength, stands, pawing the earth, the repre-:ive of the labor employed in producing the things he •onsumed, and for which his labor lias not yet compen-ed, from the time he was born till his exhibition for sale, hng value at birth is but a mere equivalent for the amptoon of food during the time lost from labor by his er, when nourishing him before and after birth, and for expenses incurred on the father in fitting him for his idle occupation of pleasing 100 concubines. Thus, as Commonly esteemed objects of wealth, lose that quality stances ,n which no labor is requisite for their

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production; so do other articles, not esteemed objects of wealth, gain that quality when under circumstances making labor necessary for their enjoyment. By day, when light profusely flows every where over the illumined half of our planet, that species of light, the light of the sun, the most useful and grateful of all light, is not an object of wealth. But let the earth continue its revolution and avert from the sun its J lately illumined portion, and let light be still desirable for human convenience, and it will become immediately an article of wealth under the name of the substances from which it is in scanty portions extracted. The value of candles, oil, gas, &c., is only the value of the light extracted from them; and as science improves and the modes of extracting are increased and facilitated, the value of light diminishes with the smaller quantities of labor necessary for its extractiou. Till directed by labor under the guidance of knowledge, the powers of na¬ture, in point of useful production of articles denominated wealth, are beneath estimation. Where nature would give the means of mere existence to a few individuals, of shelter, clothing, or comfort to none, labor does, out of the same ma¬terials, produce all the means of happiness to thousands. Let the labor of any community cease but for one year, and how many of that community would be preserved in life, by the materials en- enei-gies of nature, to tell the perilous experiment to the succeeding year ? Not only the comforts but the very existence of all nations depend on the eternal operation of la¬bor. While the mouth consumes, the industrious arm is re¬producing. Wealth is limited to the physical means or materials of en¬joyment. Labor or muscular exertion can be occupied on physical things alone : they only are capable of accumulation. There are numerous means of enjoyment besides those of a physical nature, besides those which are tangible, visible, or which tend, through any other of the senses, to the production of happiness. All of these numerous means of enjoyment, though founded on and resolvable into exterior and interior sensation or feeling, may clearly and usefully be considered apart: physical enjoyment, meaning those pleasures only which directly affect the senses. There are moral and intellectual, as well as physical, pleasures; and what the two former -want in intensity is more than compensated by their facility of ac¬quisition or cheapness, their permanence, and facility of re¬production. With these moral and intellectual sources of happiness we are not now concerned, as they are not directly comprehended in the meaning attached to the word, wealth. There are also numerous physical means of happiness which

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come not under the definition of wealth. Light, by its varie¬ties of colors, gives pleasure to the eye, water to the taste, the sexes to each other; yet are neither of these means of happiness denoted by the term wealth, because they are the ,rit'c of nature alone, without any addition made thereto by the labor or skill of man. The mere utility of a thing carried to any extent and su-peradded to its mere existence, or what we call its production by the hand of nature, constitutes nothing an object of wealth till labor in some shape becomes identified with it: then it is separated from all other objects of desire, all other means of happiness, and becomes wealth. What is wealth also in one country is not wealth in another, because the very same article which in one region, whether from the constitution of our nature or from mere caprice, is an object of desire requiring labor for its production, in an¬other region causes pain, and of course no labor is expended in its acquisition or preparation. Thus ice in equatorial civilized regions is an article of wealth and luxury; while approaching the poles, it becomes the bane of existence. In parched sandy countries, a well of water is a source of wealth; while the land is the property of no one, not being worth the trouble of appropriation. Labor was not necessary to make the well, nature, we shall suppose, having produced it; nor is the labor of drawing out the water to be alone estimated. But the existence of the well in that .spot saves the labor that would be otherwise necessary to bring water there from its nearest supply; and the value of the well is to be measured by the quantity of labor thus saved. Men and women, at different times and places, have been converted into mere objects of wealth; compelled by brute force, without any equivalent, to administer to the pleasures of their owners; and still this disgrace to humanity continues, upheld by the two nations, at either side of the Atlantic, who boast most of their love of liberty and their regard to human happiness. The two circumstances necessary to constitute wealth being, " objects of desire" and " procured by labor," or effort, apply to human beings, like any other substances, such as iron or sheep, when tyrannically converted into ob¬jects of wealth. Not only is an expense of labor, of force or efl'ort, necessary, in the first instance, to make human beings slaves, and thus objects of wealth, but also to retain them in slavery. And this expense of effort is of the most irksome kind, and attended with constant risk ; differing for the worse, in these particulars, from ordinary labor. False calculations of partial interest give birth to the desire of possessing slaves. Whether human beings ought (i.e. whether it promotes the

Page 10

happiness of them and their masters, collectively and indivi¬dually taken) under any circumstances, to be so converted, is quite another question. Other principles will show the wicked¬ness, because the overbalance of misery, produced by such appropriations. It will not be objected, that, by including effort and force under the head of labor, every act of violence and robbery would constitute any thing desired by the ferocious, an object of equal praise with that acquired by 'peaceful in¬dustry. It will prove indeed that such objects of desire as are by force sought after, must in all probability be objects of wealth; but not that those objects of wealth ought to be en¬joyed by any one who can seize them. Scarcely would risk and effort be superadded to ordinary labor in the acquisition, if the articles were not esteemed articles of wealth. The simple question now discussed is, not to whom these articles of wealth ought to belong—which we shall presently discuss— but what circumstances they are which constitute any objects of desire articles of wealth; the possession, the distribution of them, so as to produce the greatest quantity of happiness, being the main subject of this inquiry. As to violence exerted to constrain, say the person of a woman to submit involuntarily to man's inclinations ; wherever this violence is permitted, women become property, to people harems, as men do to cultivate the soil or to work in domestic thraldom. It would be little better than impertinence, in an inquiry addressed to a civilized community, formally to except human beings from becoming objects of desire and of appropriation to each other : nor would it be necessary; for, wherever these most pernicious desires have existed, so as to lead to appro¬priation, property has followed, and they have been constituted matters of wealth, like any other materials animate or inani¬mate. Wherever the power of appropriation has accompanied tl.j fatal desire, the appropriation, and the sometimes illegal, but always unjust, conversion into property or wealth, has followed of course. Numerous are the objections that may be made, from par¬tial views of particular objects, to this simple explanation of what constitutes an object of wealth. To explain them all would be an endless task. It may suffice to notice a few of the most conspicuous and apparently of the most difficult ex¬planation. Of all the physical objects of desire to man, few are more attractive than the possession of a rich and well-cultivated piece of land, yielding every year teeming harvests of grain and fruits, or sending forth from its bosom useful minerals, such as iron, tin, silver, rock-salt or coal. Is this

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land, or are all its products objects of wealth? First, are this land and all its products objects of desire ? Circumstances evidently may exist under which neither the land nor any of its products, internal or external, may be objects of desire in the way of appropriation; as where rude hunters occupy it, as half a century ago was the case with all the fruitful lands and immense materials, or things capable of being converted into wealth, in the territories of the United States, west of the Alleghany mountains. Vast tracts of these lands, now culti¬vated by men flourishing and happy in as far as free, and erected "into states, were not then objects of desire to any hu¬man beings. Want of knowledge as well as of inclination arising from acquired habits, concealed from their savage oc¬cupants the uses to which they might be applied. Remote¬ness, want of security, necessarily prevented civilized stran¬gers from thinking at that time of settling on them. Though abounding in all the physical materials of happiness, they were not therefore objects of wealth, because not objects of desire. But when the scene changed, and civilized men turned their eyes and footsteps towards them, desiring to con¬vert them to the means of happiness ; were they then convert¬ed into objects of wealth ? They were simply in the way of becoming so : but they were not yet so converted. Labor was wanting to be superadded to mere desire, and in proportion as labor was bestowed upon them, they were transformed from mere objects of desire into objects of wealth. The first settler cleared the timber and erected a shed, and affixed the value of his labor to that part of the soil on which it had been ex¬pended, and to those contiguous spots rendered by it more convenient for use. A second settler, paying for the labor under the name of the land, still added to its value by expend¬ing more labor upon it, in clearing a larger space, cultivating useful crops, and improving the sheds, and perhaps rearing and domesticating some animals. A third settler pays an in¬creased value for all these products of labor under the name of the soil to which they are attached, introduces stock and machines, all produced by labor, and leaving the former erec¬tions for subordinate or temporary purposes, erects houses and makes fences suited for permanence and convenience. Thus is a piece of rich land which was a few years ago an object of no value, now converted into an object of wealth. What has nature done towards this conversion ? Nothing. What has man, what has man's labor done ? Every thing. All that we call the work of nature, the mere existence of the land and its capabilities, were in as palpable existence before the land was converted into wealth as after it. Nay, by repeated culture

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the capabilities of the best land are frequently impaired or exhausted. But, all this time, the minerals lying on the sur¬face of the land, or arranged in its interior, though capable of the most extended use, have not been regarded, have not been esteemed articles of wealth. Whence conies this new pheno¬menon ? In general, because none of these articles have been all this time objects of desire, and therefore no labor has been expended upon them. Some of them, such as coal, have not been objects of desire, because other articles procured with less labor, such as wood, necessarily cleared away to lit the ground for cultivation, have been used instead of them. Others, such as iron, from want of the skill and machinery necessary to convert them to useful purposes on so limited a scale, have been disregarded, in as much as less labor applied to the soil would procure articles sufficient to get them, or ra¬ther things fabricated from them, in exchange. But let an increase be made in population, let the number of those re¬quiring such articles be such as to afford constant employment to the machinery and skill of a few, let the timber be cut down and exhausted; then will the neglected iron-stone and the coal become objects of desire; then will labor be bestowed upon them and they will become objects of wealth. A new value will be given to the land; not because nature has done any thing to increase the capabilities of useful application of the objects of which the land consisted, but because circum¬stances have led to the formation of desires for their appropria¬tion, and in consequence of such desires, labor has been be¬stowed upon' them. If it be objected that these lands are bought, before any labor has been expended upon them, of the United States government; it may be observed, that the moderate price paid is but a very small remuneration for three benefits which the comparatively weak individual occupant derives from the powerful community from whom he purchases; by which he is saved a hundred fold in risk and labor in the cultivation, in the enjoyment of his land. 1st, Imme¬diate peaceable possession; 2d, Guarantee by the national force from savage attack or fellow citizens' annoyance, permit¬ting the whole of the cultivator's exertions to be directed to improvement, none of it being abstracted for defence; 3d, Security of title in future enjoyment or transfers, the original appropriation becoming a public act registered and authenti¬cated ; thus saving litigation resolvable into loss of wealth or useless expenditure of labor, with its accompanying vexation and consequential evils to an interminable extent. Nor does the fertility or barrenness of the soil require any

Page 13

modification to be made in the definition given. If the land be so barren as not to afford an adequate return in the means of comfort for the labor that might be bestowed upon it, that labor will be withheld; and this desire will depend on the faci¬lities of getting from other sources by means of less labor, the objects contemplated by the application of labor to the land in question. No matter whether the land be rich or poor, let the desire of making it, or any thing attached to it, tributary to enjoyment, be once produced, and let labor be in consequence applied, the value of the land will necessarily depend on the quantity of labor guided by ordinary skill and judgment be¬stowed upon it. If land more fertile be discovered, after lands less fertile have been cultivated, and so near and convenient in point of situation as to come in competition with them, the new land may be cultivated in preference; and that part of the labor bestowed on the old which had not been returned by means of the crops but expended in more durable changes, called permanent improvements, would be lost. That parti¬cular parcel of land first cultivated, ceasing, from whatever cause, to be an object of desire, the labor expended upon it would no longer preserve it an article of wealth, as the labor of drawing stones, not objects of desire, from the sea, would not convert them into articles of wealth. Let any thing be once an object of desire, labor is the only ingredient necessary to erect it into an article of wealth. The desire removed, no labor will, except by compulsion, be employed upon it. The desire excited and the object not to be obtained without exer¬tion, labor is bestowed upon it, and it is converted into an article of wealth. Suppose a trading colony settled on a confined barren spot, as the British on the island of Malta, for the mere purposes of commerce: What will determine the value of the few barren spots of ground in their neighbourhood ? The quantity of labor that has been expended upon them. What determined that quantity of labor ? The quantity that it has been necessary, or that it would be necessary, to expend upon them in order to afford for sale whatever articles the climate and convenience permitted, on the same terms that articles equally good could be imported from the cheapest accessible market. If more money were demanded for a vineyard, an orange-grove, or a corn-field, than this mass of labor, with the necessary profits of capital as they are called and superintendence, would amount to, it could not be given without loss; because the productions of the spot would not repay the interest of the capital deposited with the yearly expenses of culture necessary to meet the rival foreign article. The value again of the ar-

Page 14

ticles brought from abroad would depend on the quantity of labor there necessary to produce them. Suppose that instead of being barren, the spots of the island had been very rich; their value would be equally determined in the same way, either by the quantity of labor expended upon them, or (whether to the whole amount expended or not) by the quantity of labor, or the worth of labor, they would save the proprietor, the amount which without them he would have to pay in freight, first cost, and attendant ex¬penses, for a quantity of produce equal to that which his home culture could produce. In such way would the value of a piece of land be deter¬mined for agricultural purposes on such an island. In what way would it be determined for building or for pleasure-ground ? The value of building ground depends on the quantity of labor in carriage and otherwise which the situation would save, and in the probability of quicker sale or letting it would afford; all which are resolvable into the saving of labor. The price of pleasure grounds depends on the competition of the desires of the rich. To these, when wealth is viciously divided, and when great ignorance is joined to great wealth, it is hard to assign a limit. The loss of other enjoyments, which the acquisition of a spot, so over-valued by caprice beyond its agricultural or building value, would entail on its acquirer, is almost the only check to this competition. If labor somewhat beyond what could create agricultural sites, could create new sites equally suited to caprice for pleasure-grounds; the amount of this labor would stamp the value. But these favorite pleasure-grounds are in general limited in quantity, and such as cannot be imitated by labor. They have therefore a surplus value of their own, arising from the' com¬petition of desires, more or less reasonable, on a supply neces¬sarily limited. But this surplus, over and above their agricul¬tural or building value, or value for health or any other useful purpose that can be estimated by labor, could scarcely have place, or but to a very small extent, as we shall see, under the natural, unconstrained, and most useful distribution of wealth. This surplus is a mere artificial value, not appreciable or worthy of being appreciated in the scale of the wealth and happiness of any community. Still however, in all cases, the two ingredients of desire and labor are necessary to constitute an article of wealth. If nature have limited the supply of the article so that labor cannot furnish the demands of desire, the artificial value of caprice commences: but whereas, in ordi¬nary cases, the value of an article of wealth extends to the smallest quantity of labor that could produce it, here the value

Page 15

of caprice cannot extend even as far. Scarcely any amount of labor, not such as any individual fortune could purchase, could create a new river for instance and form sites upon it, or continue exploring the earth till new diamonds or similar baubles equal in size the largest known, were discovered. Even this surplus artificial value therefore comes within our rule: for not only can it never exceed the amount of labor necessary to produce similar articles, but it seldom reaches that amount. The amount of labor expended or saved on objects of desire, is therefore in all cases the utmost limit of their value and what constitutes them articles of wealth. Though the proposition heading this section, asserts that labor is the sole measure of the value of an article of wealth, it does not assert that this sole measure is in all cases an ac¬curate measure. As an article must be an object of desire to be an article of wealth, and as these desires and preferences are apt to vary with circumstances both physical and moral, particularly with the quantum of knowledge, (of science and art) of the means of converting to use the materials and energies of nature; it is evidently impossible that the absolute quantity of labor can be any accurate index to these. Su¬perfluous trinkets without use are sought after by the savage and the courtier. Under representative self-government, they would be equally disregarded as things conferring merit, and reduced to their commercial value, to the value of real use. Uninformed nations may disregard die sea-weed and the siliceous sand on their shores; by the union of which, by means of heat, into one substance, light and warmth might be enjoyed in their dwellings; and should other substances sup¬ply the place of these, in cheaper substitutes, they would, if not wanted for other purposes, be equally disregarded by ci¬vilized nations. What is asserted, is, that in any given state of society, with any given desires, at any particular time, la¬bor, employed with ordinary judgment on objects of desire, is the sole measure of their values; and under such circum¬stances, an accurate measure. While the quantity of land and the supply of the materials of many articles remains sta¬tionary, population and knowledge at the same time increas¬ing ; while desires or tastes vary as the moral and intellectual condition of mankind improves, no accurate measure of value, as applied to wealth, can be given. To seek it, is to hunt after a shadow. Nothing but labor or effort bears any rela¬tion to the converting of objects of desire into objects of wealth: they may by possibility all change their characters, and be at one time objects of wealth, while at another they are mere objects of desire; or may cease to be even objects of desire.

Page 16

Greater skill it is evident is exerted in one species of labor, and by one laborer at the same work, than in another. But these are resolvable into the ordinary labor of the community. If by extraordinary skill at a particular employment, or by ordinary skill at an employment requiring a considerable ex¬penditure of previous labor to learn, an individual accom¬plishes that in two days which ordinary skill or untaught skill could not accomplish in less than four, this labor is double the value of ordinary labor. The estimate of the value of a day's labor is that produced by ordinary skill and diligence in the ordinary occupations of the laborious part of the com¬munity. There are also other circumstances, such as danger, noxious smells, noxious airs, moisture, cold, extra-exertion, which increase the value of particular species of labor. The products of these species of labor being objects of desire, the repulsiveness of the work requiring greater effort must be met by increased remuneration, if it cannot be obviated by indirect means requiring more labor or time. Thus, though labor is not an accurate measure of the relative value of articles of wealth under the varying circumstances of hu¬man society, it is the best approximation to such a standard; and is the only standard by which we can judge whether an article of desire is or is not an article of wealth. There is no one article of desire, usually esteemed an article of wealth, which has not been, and which is not, in many places, denied that title. There are tribes, by whom neither corn, nor cottons, nor woollens, nor gold, nor rice, nor silver, would be esteemed articles of value, or wealth: but there are no tribes, there are no human beings, with whom human labor is not esteemed an article of value. Ignorant or enlightened, poor or rich, depraved or beneficent, labor is every where, to all men, an article of value: it is every where the price paid for the continuance of existence as well as for the means of enjoyment. It is the only universal com¬modity. No where without human labor or effort can objects of desire be obtained in such quantity or state of preparation as to support life. Enough, it is hoped, has been said to prove, that " wealth is produced by labor; that labor is the sole ingredient by which an article of desire is converted into an article of wealth ; and that labor is the sole universal, though still not an accurate, measure, of the value of wealth." From what has been said follows also the truth of these propositions, First, The mere desirableness of, or desire for, any phyt sical, or other, object, does not constitute it an object of wealth.

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Page 17

The object to be aimed at in the distribution of wealth, as in its production by labor, is to confer thereby the greatest possible quantity of happiness (i.e. of PLEASURES, whether of the senses or of a moral or intellectual nature) on the society producing it.

Our organization has made us sentient beings, that is to say, capable of experiencing pleasure and pain from various sources. Happiness denotes that continued state of well-being which is compounded of the different items of pleasurable feeling, experienced during a considerable space of time. Pleasures are the component parts, of which happiness is the aggregate, or the result. There is no space here for making an estimate of the different species of pleasures which compose happiness. The only rational motive to exertion of any sort, whether to acquire wealth or for any other purpose, is to increase the means of happiness, or to remove or lessen causes of annoyance, immediate or in

Page 18 prospect. To add to happiness therefore, wealth is produced. If nature produced spontaneously an abundance of food and all other comforts for the use of man, as she does of air for his respiration, no effort would be made to produce or appropriate them, no distribution would be thought of: every one would take and consume as his wants demanded. With the sole view of adding to happiness, wealth, which nature does not give, is produced by labor: and the greater the happiness produced, the more satisfactory must be the effort. If we are delighted with one portion of happiness as arising from our wealth- be it enjoyed by whom it may- we must be more delighted with two portions, and with three still more than two; and so on with any increase, to any extent of the number of portions. And as wealth can only be produced with a view to being made the means of comfort or enjoyment by its use or consumption, and as it must be distributed in order to be consumed, that distribution must be the best which gives the greatest number of portions of enjoyment, which gives the greatest possible quantity of happiness to those, the society or community, that produce it. The community producing the wealth will not send the fruits of their labor to add to the happiness of a neighboring community, because that community possesses equal facilities for the production, because there is no reason to suppose a greater capacity for happiness amongst other communities, and because such gratuitous supply would annihilate the motives to production in the idle community recieving, as well as in the giving, unrequited, community. The organization of man is so constituted as to enable him to enjoy an extent of happiness indefinitely greater than that of such an animal as an oyster or any number of oysters, or perhaps even of any number of horses: therefore is his comfort to be preferred indefinitely to the comfort of such inferior animals, whenever their happiness is incompatible with his. Between the capability of happiness of man and those animals that are unprovided with one or more of the five senses, as the oyster, the distance is immeasurable. Between man and the most perfect of other animals, as the ape, the distance is perhaps as great between the ape and the oyster, or perhaps greater. This is to be attributed to the superior organization of man's extremities, his organs of voice, and particuarly his brain, the organ of thought or feeling. From development of this latter, comes foresight; by which he guides his future conduct by inferences from the past, and is liable to the pleasures of memory and anticipation. In this, and from this, in his immense capacity for knowledge and all

Page 19

species of intellectual and moral pleasures, those of association included, stands the pre-eminence of man; the anticipations of other intellectual capacities, and thence the capacities for happiness, of even the most intellectual of other animals being extremely faint, hardly equalling that of a child of a year old. If now any one human being could demonstrate that his organization so excelled that of his fellow men as to enable him to experience infinitely greater happiness than the rest of his species, his claim, like that of man above the oyster, ought to be allowed, and wealth and all other means of happiness ought to be applied to him, as by such application they would be the most productive. Even such a state of things would not violate our present rule. The greatest quantity of happiness wherever it may be found to alight, must be pursued. If, on looking round into society, we find the actual distribution very different from what we would expect from the principle of so distributing as to produce the greatest possible sum of happiness, it is quite another question to inquire how, under such circumstances, the happiest distribution could be brought about. We are now investigating the first principles, unshackled by any fortuitous combination in any community. Time was when this proposition, which some may now perhaps deem too trivial to be used as a basis of moral reasoning, too plain and too universally admitted to need illustration, would not have been endured. In days of ignorance of the principle, both acted on and avowed, was, "We are possessed of the means of gratifying our appetites and passions, and will keep what we have: we have the power of adding indefinitely to these means, and will use that power to make the happiness of others subservient to ours. We know of no greatest happiness but the greatest happiness to ourselves." To this selfishness, this short-sighted selfishness, the reply was obvious,- "If your happiness be all to you, the happiness of every other individual is all to him, and so any number of individuals: but to a third person, say a calm reasoner or legislator, it would be unimportant whether A. or B. enjoyed the happiness; his object would be to produce the greatest quantity by whomsoever enjoyed." The only reason that can be given for the production of wealth at all, is, that it tends more to produce, to add to the stock of happiness, the object of its production, by one mode of distribution than by another. The object being happiness, the greater quantity of happiness held in view and attainable, the more completely is that ob-

Page 20

ject accomplished, and the greater, of course, the efforts to produce it. What possible reason can be given that a smaller quantity of happiness, enjoyed by whom it may, should be preferred to a larger quantity of happiness? The state of things supplied by nature or by labor, before anyone has expended any labor, or acquired any property. What reason under such circumstances could any one give, that his avowedly smaller happiness should be preferred in the distribution to larger portions of happiness of one or more of those around him? If it could be proved that more happiness on the whole would accrue to society by centring on the whole sum of wealth in many or a few individuals, such should be the distribution of wealth, in full accordance with this first principle. It assumes nothing as to the sort or numbers of persons to whom the distribution is to be made; but merely puts those to the proof, who assert that the greatest sum of happiness would be produced to society by distributing its enjoyment to them rather than to others. Consistently with this principle, if the slavery of nine out of ten and the superlative happiness of the tenth increased the sum of total happiness, that distribution of, of slavery, should be pursued. All that is asked by this first principle, is, that the greatest quantity of agreeable sensations, both in intensity and duration, should be the object aimed at in the distribution of wealth. To deny it, would be to affirm that pain is to be preferred to pleasure, that no sensations are preferable to agreeable ones, that not feeling, which is tantamount to non-existence, is to be preferred to feeling or existence. Unfortunately, in older times, there were few calm observers; all were influenced by the state of things and prejudices in which they had been brought up; and from the immediate necessities of life, every one pursued his own immediate apparent interest, without thinking, or being able to think, of first principles. Happiness in the abstract, and the greatest possible quantity of it, being then our first object, let us proceed to ascertain what mode of distribution will ensure the most of it. Our next proposition is,

Page 21

"All members of society (cases of mal-conformation excepted), being similarly constituted in their physical organization, are capable, by similar treatment, of enjoying equal portions of happiness."

We might modify this proposition, and say merely, All sane individuals are capable of equal enjoyment from equal portions of the objects of wealth;" this branch of the larger and more important proposition being all that is necessary for our inquiry, which is limited to happiness as affected by wealth alone. The larger propositiion, however, I hold to be demonstratably true in a comprehensive and legislative sense: that is to say, the apparent deductions to be made from it can no way affect comprehensive reasonings of education or legislation. It is not here meant to enter into any argument with some followers of Dr. Spurzheim, who would maintain, not only the local spot of existence of certain portions of the brain producing, when excited by their appropriate stimulus, certain mental feelings; who maintain, not only the capability of these portions of the brain to produce, when developed by circumstances, certain feelings leading to particuarl actions; but who maintain also the inflexibility of these organs, or of the whole cerebral mass, and their determiantion, in spite of circumstances and education, or in the absence of external exciting causes, to produce peculiar habits and characters. In cases of ordinary cerebral organization, as of ordinary visual or auditory structure, which is that of nine out of ten or ninety-nine out of a hundred of mankind, it does not appear that any anatomical or practical probablility has been shown on which the structure of thought, or particular species of thought, depends, is incapable of being modified, altered, or new moulded, as it were, by education. Nay, the probability of such modification is almost infinitely stronger when applied to the cerebral organization, the organization of feeling or thought, than when applied to the organization of the senses. Within a few months after birth, the senses of man are developed to nearly as great perfection as they attain through life. Educate them or not, sounds, odours, colours, flavours, and external contact, will operate upon them: and no particular accidents occurring, they are equal in point of development, or capacity for use and enjoyment, to all men. Far different it is with the organization on which our mental feelings depend. Neglect them, they are little superior to those of the ape: cultivate them to the extent

Page 22

of what is now known, and they much excel what poets feigned of the mind or morals of the old immortal gods. Instead, then, of supposing in the cerebral organization any thing more intractable, or any thing less liable to change in the senses, the fact is directly the reverse. INstead of the greater tendency to inequality in the organization on which the feeling of thought depends; the original inequalities of that organization are more liable to be rectified and improved by education or circumstances, than those of the organization of the senses. But these general facts admitted, it will perhaps be said, that "as there are peculiarities of constitution, called idiosyncracies, tending to particuar vital actions and appetites, to be operated upon by particular medicines, so there are peculiar tastes of the senses and of the mind. The taste of tobacco, of an onion, is disgusting to one person, while by another these tastes are extremely relished: the flavours of different fruits are preferred, as if by caprice, by different individuals: even the same individual will prefer different tastes at different parts of the day; tea and bread are insipid at the end of the day to those whose stomachs have been over-excited by excessive stimuli, particularly of fermented and intoxicating liquors. As to moral feelings, magnanimity and fortitude will more attract one, gratitude and pity another. In intellectual pursuits, not only is one pleased with lighter analogies of the imagination, another with palpable differences, such as can be measured by the senses, and relate to the matter-of-fact detail of life; but one prefers the dramatic representation of the very same senses or feelings, which another will prefer to see exemplified in an heroic poem or a romance." All these things are true, but do not weaken our general position; for not to mention that many of these peculiarities, particuarly the moral and intellectual, are clearly the result of circumstances or education, yet are these inequalities so trifling as not to affect, on the whole, the aggregate of pleasures of any particular sense, not to say the aggregate of all the pleasures of sense of any individual, and still less the aggregate of all his pleasures sensual, intellectual, and moral. But were even this the case- which it clearly is not- were the capacity for the aggregate sum of pleasures lessened by these peculiarities; what mode, what measure, have we to ascertain where or by whom his superior aggregate of pleasures, arising from such peculiarities, is enjoyed? To us therefore such inequalities of capabilities of enjoyment do not exist, because they are by us inappreciable: they cannot enter our moral and political calculations; for they can no more than the galvanic fluid be seized and measured. We have no means of weighing or measuring them, even if their

Page 23

existence, and the inequality of their effects as to happiness, were as demonstrable as the light of the mid-day sun. The fact of their inequality is one thing, the possibility of measuring the degrees of this inequality, so as to make them serve as basis of distribution, is another. 'Tis in vain that we say different degrees of susceptibility to happiness exist, if we cannot demonstrate "where they are, and in what proportions : without this they can be of no practical use. But, let us advance another step in the argument Suppose that these capabilities, or susceptibilities, of enjoyment were, in the sum total of pleasures, different in different individuals, suppose moreover that we had discovered a mode of measuring them; another difficulty, of a practical nature and insurmountable, occurs. Who are to be the measurers of these susceptibilities ? the rich or the poor, the young or the old, the studious or the illiterate? Are we to institute a court, and to impanel a jury, in the case of every individual: or, if this be too troublesome, are we to use a judge without jury, and label every man's neck, to say nothing of the women, with tickets of susceptibility of one to one hundred, supposing these numbers to comprise the extreme lengths of the chain? Behold ! no sooner are our labels attached, no sooner is this delicate operation performed of valuing susceptibilities, than changes begin to take place, and the most accurate valuation becomes deranged. Accidents, diseases, the progress of years, mental or moral improvement or deterioration, all these causes are in unceasing activity; so that the table of susceptibilities of one year will be quite inapplicable the succeeding year, or perhaps the succeeding month. We must dismiss then, as altogether unworthy of consideration, the notion of influencing the distribution of wealth by speculations as to the capacities for enjoyment of different individuals. Whether, under similar treatment, with like incidents and diseases, similar moral or mental qualities would be developed, is not now the question: s merely whether similar treatment, operating on healthy Organization, will produce equal capabilities as to the aggregate of enjoyment., though it will also perhaps be found that in 99 cases out of 100 similar treatment will produce similar intellectual and moral qualities also. As to our immediate subject indeed, the distribution of wealth, even so much is not required. 'Tis not the susceptibility to every species of enjoyment which is demanded for our main argument, but simply to those particular enjoyments arising from the use of the objects of wealth. That " all sane members of society, similarly treated, are capable of similar degrees of enjoyment from equal portions of wealth," will now I trust be admitted, though the

Page 24

larger proposition as to an equal capacity for all species of enjoyment—which appears to be equally incontrovertible— should be denied; always keeping in mind the impossibility of acting on these inequalities, even if they were proved to exist. In the application of punishment, indeed, the susceptibilities to pain may usefully be taken into account in order to render those punishments equal, opportunity being afforded in such cases of inquiring into individual circumstances. Let it be always recollected that our reasonings apply to the capabilities of all human beings as formed by nature, and modified by external circumstances. If an actual state of degradation of a great portion of any community, and a consequent incapacity of physical enjoyment, could be exhibited, it would not weaken our argument, until it could be shown that the portion of the community so degraded, had been subjected to similar treatment with the more fortunate members of the same community. But such an extreme case does not exist, except perhaps amongst the slaves and slave-drivers of the West Indies, and in some of the so-called free states of the American Union. And have these slaves and their drivers been subjected to the same treatment ? Passing by the circumstance of their being of different complexion and race, who knows not that the treatment of the black and the white, from their earliest infancy, and through every stage of their existence, has been diametrically the reverse of each other? And after all it may be doubted, which of them, the slaves or the masters, from the opposite and balancing vices of their respective situations, are capable of the most enjoyment, through the means afforded by wealth. Nothing is more certain than that a given portion of wealth, particularly a small portion of wealth, would produce incalculably more happiness to the slave, alive to every unused pleasure, than to the master, over-excited and satiated with these same pleasures.

Page 24

The happiness of the greater number is to be preferred to the happiness of the lesser number; otherwise the object in view, the production of the greatest possible quantity of happiness, would be sacrificed.

THIS proposition necessarily follows the preceding; for if all sane persons are, by similar treatment, capable of equal por-

Page 25

tions of enjoyment; to say, that the happiness of two of these eouals is to be preferred to one, is no more than saying that tvvo or any other number are more than one. Happiness being the object, the sum total would be lessened by the abstraction of any portion of it. Why then the necessity of stating a self-evident proposition? Because, though sometimes admitted in theory as to smaller associations, it has been most flagrantly and lamentably neglected in practice, not only as applied to society at large, but even in its application to these minor associations. To enumerate the practices that prevail in violation of this principle, would be to enumerate almost every case of privilege and exemption. It must be observed again, that though this, like the other propositions, is expressed in general terms as applicable to every species of happiness, to happiness derived from all other sources as well as from wealth, because they are thought to be universally true; yet is our general argument concerned with no more than this, that that portion of the happiness of the greater number, which is derived from "wealth, is to be preferred to that portion of the happiness of the smaller number which is derived from the same source. The direct operation of wealth is chiefly to afford the means of more extensive pleasures of the senses: it is only indirectly that it operates to increase our moral and intellectual pleasures; and when unequally distributed, and in very large masses, it tends, as will be proved, to eradicate almost entirely these higher moral and intellectual pleasures. There can be therefore no possible reason why the happiness of a smaller number of individuals should be preferred to that of a greater number. How are we to find out who this favoured smaller number shall be ? the already rich ? This circumstance might be a very good argument in leading us to direct our attention to those not yet provided with the objects of wealth or happiness; but it is surely the worst of all possible reasons why we should do again what was already done, (supply the rich with the means of more happiness or more wealth,) and neglect that which is undone, supplying those who are unsupplied, and who want those means. Of all the perversities of human selfishness distorting human reason, there is perhaps no where to be found more lamentable absurdity than is too often exhibited under this head; confounding the pursuit of security of wealth obtained by labor or voluntary transfer, with an interminable effort to add to the heap by usurpations on the right of the poor > tree labor and free exchange of the products of labor. If this smaller favored number are not to be the already rich, who are they to be? The individuals, virtuous or vicious,

Page 26

happy or miserable, actually in possession of the collective power of the society ? If we do not name them, will they, having the power, convert it to any other distribution of wealth amongst any other favored number of individuals, the literati, the moral, or the religious ? The very thought, the very statement of the question, seems absurd. If they are not convinced to use their power, as far as it can or ought to influence the distribution of wealth in preferring the happiness of the greater to the smaller number, if any exception be allowed to this rule, they will naturally make the exception in ; their own favor; for we are all the best, the most worthy of I happiness, in our own eyes. The alternative is therefore evi- i dent and pressing. Either the general principle of impartial justice set forth in our proposition, must be adopted, or philosophy must sanction the law of brute force, the empire of the strongest: for to what number of individuals less than the majority shall we leave the decision as to those to be elected into the favored few, for whose particular enjoyment the distribution of wealth is to be fashioned ? If we leave it to the majority, they will naturally determine in favor of their own happiness, and thus establish our principle. But we shall find I as we proceed, that whatever really useful advantages the fa- J vorers of any smaller number may expect from their system I of direct favoritism, these advantages will be attained in a more easy and effectual manner by adhering to our rule of j universal justice, without producingany of the ill consequences, I selfishness, jealousies, murmurs, arising from their arbitrary I preferences. We shall find that in every thing the unrestrained tendencies of things, aided by knowledge, will produce more of happiness, than any artificial arrangements. But should not the happiness of the intelligent and the moral, some will still perhaps weakly ask, be preferred, in the distribution of wealth, to the happiness of the ignorant, and vicious ? First, it was dissimilarity of treatment alone that made the one enlightened and the other ignorant, the one moral and the other vicious. None so ready to proclaim this truth as the intelligent and the moral. Ask them from what sources their happiness is derived : ask them how much of it proceeds directly from mere wealth, and you will be astonished at the scantiness of the proportion of their enjoyments arising J from that source, beyond the supply of the average comforts of life. Will they wish, will they demand that the physical • enjoyments of others should be deliberately sacrificed to theirs ? that the distribution of wealth should be directed out of its natural channel of free labor and voluntary exchanges,

Page 27

to favor them ? Will they desire by any artificial regulations, to obtain the fruit of other men's labor without their consent, for which there is no equivalent given? Far from the intelligent, far from the moral, would be such wish: if they want to obtain additional wealth, an additional supply of those means of happiness which wealth bestows, they will desire no more than that free competition, which the rest of the community do, or ought to, possess. If they want wealth and have no moral or intellectual equivalent to offer, they will devote themselves to industry, instead of wish-ino- by fraud or rapine, open or disguised, to appropriate the products of other men's labor without their consent. The happiness of the wise and good could not be promoted by such means; they require the forced sacrifice of no man's happiness, of the happiness of no portion of their fellow-creatures, to promote theirs. Such injustice would but mar their happiness instead of increasing it. To the slave-driver they would resign the sweets extorted from the unrequited labor of die slave. The more abundant their sources of happiness independent of wealth, the more unjust would they feel it to be to wring from those who have no other sources of enjoyment, a portion of that scanty source which is left to them. They respect the happiness of all other men equally with their own. But suppose the case were the reverse; suppose that the wise and moral did, in this unwise and immoral way, require the sacrifice of the happiness of others, of the greater number, to theirs, how should we find out who were the moral and the wise? By the forming of such wishes? Who woiild not then put in his claim for morality and wisdom ? Every individual would assert his exclusive claim. To avoid this confusion, we give—to whom?—the power of deciding who are to be the favored virtuous and wise. If to those in power, whose legislative measures regulate the distribution of wealth, will they prefer the interest of the wise and good to their own exclusive interest? Or will they not find out at once that they are the wise and good; that to themselves and their friends, the wisest and the best, the preference should be given; if the happiness of a smaller is to be preferred to the happiness of a larger number? Let us turn to which side we may, it will be impossible to find any rational ground for preferring the happiness of the smaller number as derived from wealth, or indeed from any other source, to the happiness of the larger number. If we took any side on this question of preference and exclusion, it would be that directly opposed to those notions which have beenen generally entertained and acted upon. Were there ten

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Those means of enjoyment or happiness 'which come under the name of wealth, being produced by the application of labor and knowledge to the materials afforded by nature; sufficient stimulus in the "way of motive must be afforded to put the necessary labor guided by knowledge into motion to produce this wealth.

FOR every voluntary human exertion, an adequate motive must be afforded; and the longer continued and more painful the exertion, the more remote, the slighter, and more doubtful, the advantage to be derived from the exertion, the more powerful must be the motive to produce the effect required. Man in his first wild uncivilized state, like the other animals surrounding him, is urged to exertion, almost exclusively by the feelings of hunger, and the desire of enjoying the pleasures of taste. Were it not for the immediate and painful feeling of hunger and the pleasure obtained by gratifying it, it is very doubtful whether the remote advantage of preserving life would be sufficiently appreciated by the rude human animal to rouse him to the exertion of keeping his stomach supplied with a sufficient quantity of food to preserve life. Certainly no other species of animals would preserve their existence, if depending on such distent motive to urge them to the activity requisite for its support. How should it be otherwise ? What is life good for to these animals but for the pleasures of eating and drinking attendant upon it ? The pleasure of sexual intercourse is only occasional; the pleasures of the eye, the ear, the smell, the touch, abstracted from their connexion and association with the pleasures of eating and drinking, are feeble and little enjoyed by them, and by no means capable of stimulating, by their immediate pressure, to any continued line of action, such as the regular acquisition of food. As to the motive presented by foresight, and operating in the shape of apprehension of the loss of these gentle pleasures, it does not appear that any animal but man is capable of regulating his conduct by such distant and extensive views. If some animals lay up food for half the year, they are urged to such exertions by the desire of continuing the pleasures of eating and drinking alone, not from any abstract wish of preserving their existence or with the view of enjoying more delicate pleasures: some think that the inferior animals act without even this motive, without any motive, by instinct, as mere machines. In man's rudest state, he so far resembles inferior animals, that

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the acquisition of food to avoid the pain of want and procure the pleasures of taste and feeling, is the paramount object of his existence, forms the ruling motive of his conduct. Satisfied at first, like other animals, with seizing what nature throws in his way, of vegetable or animal nutriment, he never learns till these fail him, to domesticate, to confine, and rear, wild animals, or to imitate the processes of nature in sowing a kernel or seed with a view of reaping the grain or gathering the fruit to be produced by them. He is urged in all things by the pressure of want, or by the apprehension of future want, less frequently by the desire of pleasure. It is on the most sagacious only, that apprehensions for the future arising from experience of the past, will strongly operate: but the most sagacious will probably be the best able to supply their wants as they arise, and be independent of the necessity of providing for the future, from the frequent union of strength with sagacity. It is not then probable that the most strong, or those best able to protect the products of industry, will be the most provident, will be most inclined to lay up stores for future consumption. Were those who began to cultivate the earth, or in any other way to provide for future wants, universally the most capable of protecting the fruits the produce of their labor, they might be led to persevere in their exertions, particularly if they were able to exchange any superfluity of the products of their foresight for any other objects of desire. But here is the great obstacle to the development of exertion amongst mankind, not only in its earlier stages, but through all its subsequent struggles; the want of " security." No sooner has the provident matured and brought forward in a state for use, for consumption, the articles of food—those being always the first objects of human foresight and industry —than they are exposed to the attacks of all around, urged by superior strength or the urgent calls of appetite. The first obstacles to the progress of industry in the acquisition of wealth are, want of adequate motives to conquer the love of ease, want of foresight, want of apprehension, want of knowledge to devise the means of-producing or increasing the quantity of the articles required. When these difficulties are surmounted, when knowledge has been acquired, when motives sufficiently urgent have been developed by circumstances; there remains still a condition without which all knowledge to produce, all desire of producing, must remain eternally barren and unproductive of effectual exertion—the want of security. Without it, exertion, continued exertion, is impossible. Even with ils most assured aid, it is often almost impossible to conquer the indolence of savage man. Frequent efforts have been made

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in North America by individuals and governments, on a confined and on an extensive scale, on whole tribes and on a few selected from the mass of uncivilized men, to induce them to change their habits of indolence for industrious habits ; but almost uniformly without success. Not only has perfect security been afforded them by the aid of protection, superior to their own, from external violence; not only has the whole of the produce of their labor been afforded to them, but implements and facilities of exertion have been gratuitously supplied, so as to enable them to reap much more than the fruits of their industry in the production of articles of comfort and convenience. Here knowledge is supplied without the intellectual labor of reasoning and invention, to uncivilized man; here motives are assiduously sought after and presented to his mind; here an addition is made to the natural products of his -industrious exertions, and full security is afforded for the peaceful enjoyment, of them. Yet has it been found an infinitely quicker and more advantageous process to people whole provinces, and tracts of the magnitude to nourish nations, by increase from the neighbouring mass of civilization, than to persevere in the hopeless effort of inducing man brought up in the state of wildness and idleness, to turn to habits of industry. Whether it is possible by other means of persuasion and new combinations of industrious exertion to overcome these difficulties, is a question which it is not necessary here to discuss *. It must be observed however, that as it is the impulse of want, of necessity, backed and supported by the desire of pleasurable sensations from the supply of food, which prompts the exertions of the savage, in his wild state, even to support his existence; so is it the same impulse of want, of necessity, aided by habits acquired in early life, which prompts the exertions of the productive laborers of civilized communities. The savage must hunt for his animal or vegetable repast, or starve; the civilized laborer must ply his tools, and pursue his industry, or he must starve also. If the uncivilized man is asked to adopt the slow-producing labors of civilization, he has always an alternative, the old hazardous chase, or the new persevering and slowly but certainly-rewarded toil. But to the civilized laborer, no such alternative is presented. To him no wilds of nature are open to allure him to liberty and risk, to exertion and repose. He must persevere in industry, or * See Mr. Hunter's interesting memoirs of his captivity from childhood to nineteen, amongst the North American Indians. Mr. H., it is said, is about to try an experiment of civilization amongst his Indian friends on the banks of the Mississippi.

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perish; necessity compels him to labor in order to live. Annihilate the neighbouring woodlands or immeasured plains ofi the savage, and lie too, like the civilized laborer, must work or starve. But, from want of acquired habits of industry, his I exertions will be grudged, and will be limited to the rudest supply of physical wants. Knowledge, motives to labor from seeing the good effects it produces around him, secure enjoyment of what his labor produces, all these favorable circum-.stances are insufficient to make the savage industrious. Yet the civilized man is industrious under apparently similar circumstances; similar certainly as far as mere wealth is concerned. We must look then beyond mere wealth into the intellectual constitution of man. In what do these two supposed ] sets of laborers, the civilized and uncivilized, now differ ? In the different habits which each of them has acquired in early life. The wants and circumstances of the savage, have impressed upon him the habit of occasional violent exertion, of long rest, of freedom from restraint, and have hi a great measure absolved him from the necessity of so regulating his conduct as to avoid the ill-will and ill-offices of those around him :-i with social morality, springing out of the relations of men to and dependencies upon each other, lie is little acquainted. Circumstances of a very different nature surrounding from his birth the civilized man, he acquires the habit of gentle and continued labor, of short repose, of skill in handling certain tools, of using and therefore wanting certain small gratifications, and of shaping his conduct to the restraints of established laws, established customs, or established force, and consulting the passions and interests of those around him. Such being the difference of character, of inclination, of the two individuals or classes of men, the savage and the civilized, when both are newly-placed, as we have described, under exactly similar external circumstances; let us further inquire how these different habits have been generated, and how they must be altered or amended. Habits are generated by false or true associations, by false or true views of interest. Habit is the constant repetition of the same act or series of actions; but for.] doing the first act or for repeating it there must be some j reason, some inducement, some motive, dread of pain or de—I sire of pleasure. In savage life the motive to exertion is ur-1 gent, is direct, the immediate necessity by direct means of I appropriating food from the common storehouse of nature. The call is seldom made, but when made cannot be resisted. Hunger and thirst provided for, the call for labor ceases, and indolence reigns. There is no reason to fear but that the habit of yielding to this energetic call will always remain in

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full force in the mind of the savage. The reason of the habit is true, energetic, and always present. Having been accustomed to obey such obvious and direct motives alone, he will not yield to such as are less energetic. He feels not the want, because he has never enjoyed the pleasure, of the objects which superfluous toil is to produce : he therefore despises the want, and the labor employed to produce it. The drilling, the habit of the civilized man, of the productive laborer of civili/ed life, will lead Mm to be operated upon by motives more distant than those necessary to impel the savage to action. But has the habit of persevering industry ever been taught, can it ever be taught on a national and general scale with any energy or success, if those who teach the habit, who set the example, do not themselves feel the benefit of the habits, which they diffuse? 'Tis vain to say that they too, the teachers, may "have been brought up mechanically to the habit without further motive assigned than the dread of authority. While childhood or even youth and authority last, such motives may operate; but they will but feebly survive the withdrawing at maturity of this forced and unsatisfactory stimulus. Habit will not supersede the necessity of adequate stimulus, in the shape of rational motive to exertion in the production of wealth. It will merely facilitate, it will clear the way, it will open a theatre for the exhibition and development of motives, which without the acquired habit of industry would produce no effect whatever. Industrious habits render men accessible to the motives for production. Without these habits of activity, without the previous conquering of the love of indolence, men are not accessible to any motives but those of immediate want. The habit of exertion therefore, however developed, whether mechanically, rationally,. or from a union of both reason and authority, will produce nothing without motive: it resembles the magnificent lamp, provided i burners overflowing with oil, and aided by surrounding dished and reflecting surfaces : without a constant supply of 1 air, it gives neither light uor heat, nor is the beauty of Construction visible. Motives of interest are the vital air to whose industrious habits are formed: a constant supply of these is eternally necessary to keep up the production of wealth, to diffuse its vivifying effects through society. A review of the state or progress of all nations, whether industrious or indolent, will prove that industry has every where prevailed exactly in proportion to the motives held out in the form of rewards of industry, enjoying the product of its labor. It would not be necessary to dwell so much on these simple truths were it not that, from the habit which almost all of us

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have acquired of surveying the immense machinery of production constantly in motion, we are apt to think that there is some internal sufficient cause for its eternal continuance, like the eternal revolutions of the planets; and never inquire for those all-pervading agents, the rational motives, that support these voluntary actions in never-ending exertion. By neglecting these, and by looking on production as a mechanical effect, instead of being the result of the voluntary action of intelligent agents, the springs of industry have been undermined, and habits of happy exertion have been palsied and annihilated. " Labor conquers all things, but without gain industry languishes"—is destroyed. In many parts of the world at this moment, and in almost every country at some period of its history, an expedient has been adopted of setting the wheel of industry in motion, without the aid of any voluntary motives. Force has been substituted for voluntary motive, and the dread of pain, compulsion, have been made to produce the stunted imitations of healthful voluntary exertion. In an economical point of view, this labor has been proved to be the most expensive. In a moral point of view, it abstracts from the mass of human happiness. If there be any truth in the principles here laid down, no proof of the comparative cheapness of production by compulsory labor, no proof of the impossibility of procuring any desired portion of wealth without such labor, would suffice for a moment to justify its introduction or continuance. The simple question of justice to be asked is—" Is the sum total of human happiness, including that of the slaves as well as of their masters, lessened or increased by substituting compulsory for voluntary labor?" To ask such a question is absurd, because, if compulsory labor produced more happiness, there would be no need of using compulsion, it would become voluntary. Wherever slavery is established, however, the greater number are the slaves; for were it otherwise, the forced labor of a wretched minority could hardly raise the necessary supplies to keep an idle majority in existence; not to speak of affording them comforts. Be the slaves the majority or the minority, the sum total of happiness is diminished, were it even by the existence of a single slave; his happiness is diminished, and that of the rest of the society is not increased, but cankered by the example of permitted injustice. All motives arising from terror being then excluded, and man being to be operated upon as a voluntary agent, sufficient stimulus must be applied in the shape of voluntary motive, to induce him to continue the exercise of those habits of industry, which in civilized life he must more or less have formed. It

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is evident that in proportion as these motives are of extensive range and cheering operation, their effect on the laborer will be proportionably increased, and the produce of his labor and his own happiness will be augmented. A distinction, very important but often overlooked, must be here made. It would be quite superfluous to hunt for motives to induce men to desire and aim at the appropriation and enjoyment of the materials of wealth after they are produced. To appropriate and to enjoy without the labor of producing, is too much the wish of mankind, and requires not a spur but a curb. The motives to appropriation and enjoyment, the constitution of man abundantly supplies, without any need of external aid or arrangement of any sort; the only difficulty is to supply motives for production. As soon as these motives are supplied and production is accomplished, our work as to the supplying of motives is done. Nature supplies such energetic desires and efforts for the use of what labor has added to riidu materials, that the course to be pursued by the legislator and pliilosopher becomes altogether changed. He must take heed that the motives to appropriate, to consume, or accumulate, do not interfere with those which are necessary for continued production, the great and paramount object to be aimed at. Any mode of distribution unfriendly to continued and increased production, is like a child gnawing the entrails of the parent that produced it. The great object is to supply sufficient voluntary motives for production. Where is this sufficient stimulus to be found? Our next proposition undertakes to solve this question.

SECTION 6

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The strongest stimulus to production (and that which is necessary to the greatest production] that the nature of things -will permit, is 'security' in the ENTIRE USE of the products of labor, to those who produce them. WE have already seen, that no extent of knowledge on the part of the productive laborers, no profusion of motives tempting them to exertion, not even the acquisition of industrious habits, will induce them to persevere in the continued production of wealth, if they are not by some means protected, whether by their own strength or by co-operation, in the use of what their labor has produced. To continue voluntary

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labor, uncompelled, for the benefit of others, would be a proof of insanity; and has in fact, on a national scale, never occurred. It is a moral impossibility. In order to continue voluntary production at all—for it may be begun without reflection or by the way of experiment—the producer must derive the expected benefit from the thing produced. But this general principle admitted in words, has been pertinaciously opposed in practice. The constant effort of what has been called society, has been to deceive and induce, to terrify and compel, the productive laborer to work for the smallest possible portion of the produce of his own labor. The object of those who instituted and maintained such a state of things, was altogether different from the simple object which is here put forward as the only just end of legislation, of morals, or of the association of men, the production of the greatest possible quantity of human happiness. Such men, possessing mostly the wealth and the ruling powers of society, have uniformly established their subordinate objects as ultimate ends of pursuit ; such as the support and continuance of their order, the continuance of the system of rule, whatever it might be, which they had introduced; the continuance, at all events, and increase of their own superiority in wealth, power, and happiness. Now, to promote different objects, different means must be used. It were childish to expect results from a set of mea-sui'es favorable to one object, which were instituted with a view to opposite results: except by way of ignorance or acci-cident, no such consequence can follow. The only candid way of reasoning on the first principles of economy and legislation, is, to avow explicitly our ultimate object. The ultimate object of political economy has been to increase the absolute mass of accumulated wealth in society, leaving it to moralists and politicians to divide the yearly produce and the permanent accumulation in whatever proportions their mysterious wisdom might think fit; satisfied with the achievement of increasing the wealth (the productive powers of the labor) of the society, and confident that comfort and happiness must, somehow or other, or somewhere or other, be the necessary consequence of increased and increasing wealth. The rich and the powerful, with eye intent on the direction of this wealth, when produced to their own use, were altogether soothed and pleased with speculations developing the easiest means of multiplying all the objects that could minister to their delights; and they fancied themselves, from their adventitious command over these means of enjoyment, the dispensers of food, clothing, and habitation to the productive classes. " Enough must be left with the laborers," say the rich, " to make them work," All

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beyond this was so much lost to themselves; nay, worse, tended to make the working classes discontented, insolent. With such ultimate objects in view, the absolute quantity of wealth to be produced was only a secondary object, and held no importance, except as ministerial to the most abundant supply of their own means of enjoyment. It is necessary then candidly and explicitly to avow, that we hold all such objects as the mere production and accumulation of wealth, to be childish; all such preferences of the happiness of one class of human beings "over that of another, to be absurd, cruel, unjust; that no regulation, no institution, ought to stand in the way of, ought to be one moment substituted for, our principle of the greatest happiness; that we accept of no parley, no compromise with any other interest; that our principle must reign uncontrolled, and suffer no divided empire. The question, then, comes simply to this: The object being to promote the greatest sum of happiness to the productive classes—for even the increase of wealth, if it were not accompanied with an increase of happiness, would cease to be an object of rational desire—will these productive classes be more happy (all other circumstances, climate, institutions, morals, manners, &c. being equal) in the use of a 2>ctrt or of the -whole of what their labor has produced ? It will be demonstrated elsewhere, that the happiness of the majority of the productive classes, instead of being opposed to the happiness of the whole community, is intimately connected with it: that they are necessary to each others' well-being; and that the welfare of the majority includes and necessitates the happiness of the whole. In truth, the productive classes must always, in every society deserving the name, form an immense majority of the whole of the community. Were the nature of things otherwise, were these interests of the many and the few irreconcileable, our position is still unalterably true. The less must yield to the greater, if they are incompatible -with each other. If more and higher animal enjoyment be derivable from a given tract of fruitful country, if peopled by civilized men, than if peopled by carnivorous animals, the inferior animals should, with as little suffering to them as possible, be compelled to give way. Even so in a community of civilized men, if real interests—which seldom happens—are incompatible, the lesser must yield, with such compensation, as always to preserve the greatest possible sum of happiness on the whole. Well then, the question thus simplified, "Are the produc-'e classes, are the laborers likely to produce more and to be happier by that portion of security which guaranties to them the free disposal of the whole of what they produce, or of any

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smaller quantity?" The habit or facility of exertion being acquired, a specific object is required to set labor in motion. Neither rude nor civilized engage in voluntary laborious exertion for the mere sake of the pleasure of the exertion, but for some advantage, some means of pleasure beyond, to be derived from it. The greater the advantage, the more productive the means of pleasure, the more likely is it that the exertion will ensue; the less the advantage, the less probable the exertion. The uncivilized can be stimulated with nothing less than the desire of the immediate gratification of energetic appetites or passions. The civilized has formed numerous smaller, gentler wants, which are sufficient to put his productive powers into motion. Will both of these, the uncivilized and the civilized, lavish the most exertion where they obtain and enjoy the whole of what that exertion produces ? Suppose a thousand individuals, healthy, willing to work, with acquired habits of industry in different departments, associated together for mutual support on the system of mutual co-operation and economy by all the aids of science, applied by art to useful purposes. Suppose them without tools, without a supply of clothes or food, till their labor could be made productive, without land to till, without materials to work upon. It is evident that these one thousand individuals are in many respects in a much more unfavorable situation for production than one thousand savages associating amidst the wilds of nature—were such a phenomenon possible, even in the neighbourhood of civilized man—for a similar purpose. The civilized colony resembles the savage in being destitute of any supply of clothes, but the immediate covering on their bodies; they resemble each other in being destitute of tools; they resemble each other in being destitute of a supply of food, till their labor can produce it: but in other respects the difference is extreme. The savage has all the materials of nature, unused around him, to work up. Are there minerals, plants, or animals within his reach, affording the materials for clothing, food, for tools, shelter, or other conveniences ? he has only to put out his hand and gather them, and transform them by labor into consumable or exchangeable wealth. Does he want land teeming with the powers of reproduction and inviting his arm to co-operate with and direct the sleeping energies of nature? He is bewildered in the choice of rich land, claiming no owner, and ready to reward abundantly with its fruits and permanent possession the industry that will occupy and give it a value. How opposite, in these respects, the colony of civilized men, in a civilized community ! Against them, all the materials to work

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upon are appropriated by the previous labor, force, or fraud, of some of their compatriots, not a piece of stone containing any iron or any useful metal, not a branch of a tree, not a skin of any animal, no rude material that can be turned to any use for food, clothes, or covering, or any purpose subservient to convenience, that is not already obedient to an owner. Nature yields the civilized colony nothing in the way of rude materials. And as to land to work upon, which presents itself every where to the savage settlers, where shall the civilized colony find it? Even the very mountain, bristling with rocks and repelling the tools and the toils of cultivation, is fenced round by the claims of ownership. Not a foot of land can the civilized colony procure to work upon without giving a full equivalent, according to the market value of the land. What equivalent have they to give for the land, any more than for the materials ? Nothing but their labor. The land itself to work upon, the materials the basis of furniture and clothing, as well as the tools to work with, must, as a preliminary step, be purchased by labor. To counterbalance these two fearful advantages of the savage colony,—unappropriated supply of land and rude materials,—what has the civilized to boast of? Nothing but the acquired habit of labor, the skill of hand and limb in the operations of agriculture and manufactures. Behold then our colony of a thousand, men, women, and children, without stock of clothes or food, seeking for a settlement where every thing for which any object of desire that can be had in exchange, as well as land to work upon and materials to work with, is eagerly appropriated and guarded. Behold them provided with nothing but habits of industry and skill. What shall we say ? Can mere industry and skill surmount these giant bars to happiness, to existence ? How shall we stimulate this helpless colony into exertion sufficiently energetic to conquer so many obstacles, and to raise themselves into the enjoyment of the comforts of existence? By giving them security in the entire use, the free disposal of whatever their labor can procure, shall we accomplish this desirable object ? or by giving them any thing less than the entire ? Assuredly the question is preposterous. Assuredly the difficulty is, how without removing some of these obstacles, how without some additional encouragement, to put the labor of such a colony into productive motion. The difficulty assuredly is, how without compulsion—the compulsion of want superseding that of force—to make such a colony labor at all, further than necessary to existence; the prospect of acquired comfort out of the produce of labor being so remote.

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To accommodate matters to this striving colony, the owner of the land comes forward and says that he will not insist on an equivalent in labor for the purchase of his land; but he will be satisfied with disposing of the yearly use of his land, getting in return every year so much labor, measured by its products, so much of the increase of the soil, as may be deemed an equivalent. The colony then undertakes to give the produce, every year, of a portion of its labor applied to the soil, in the way of rent for the use of the soil and its productive powers. The owners of the rude materials for manufactures make a similar claim on the labor of the colony for the use of the materials with which to work up the clothing and other comforts of the colony; the productive laborers yielding a portion of the value of the articles they make to the suppliers of the materials, which portion constitutes their profit. Sometimes even the owner of the tools to work with, if they be very complicated and costly in their structure or require permanent fixtures or buildings, make a similar demand on the unprovided laborers; and even those that possess the food that the laborers must consume until the produce of this labor is in a state for consumption or exchange, demand a profit, a portion of the return of the labor, tor their aid, with repayment of the whole of the food advanced. Will any one ask, Why should the laborer be burthened with payment of a part of his labor for the entire cost or the use of the tools, clothes, food, materials, or land, with or upon which he works ? Why not give him the "whole absolute produce of his labor without any of these deductions ? Because other people who have appropriated this land, these materials, by labor or voluntary exchanges, who have made these tools or clothes, who have co-operated with nature in the production of this food, require the same stimulus to continue their productive industry, require the same " security," in the entire use of what their labor has produced, that is demanded for the unprovided laborer. We must not rob one producer to encourage another. Security in the entire use must be administered impartially to all. By violating the security of another, the productive laborer annihilates with his own hand his own claim to security, not only in the entire use, but in any use of what his labor has created. No exchanges but such as are voluntary, no possessions but such as industry has acquired, are reconcileable with impartial security. As to the amount of compensation claimed by capitalists, that will be considered hereafter. Now with all these deductions to be made from the produce of the labor of the colony; with a deduction every year for

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the yearly use of the land, with a deduction for the use of the materials of manufacture, with a deduction for the use of tools and machinery, and with an additional deduction to be made for the advance of food; will the productive labor of the colonv yield such a surplus as to afford more than sufficient stimulus to set the colony to work for the sake of such a remuneration ? Even under such terms, the pressure of extreme want—for they must work or starve—it may be said, will compel them to work. Yes, truly. But is this the strongest stimulus, the highest reward that the nature of things will permit? Is this giving to productive laborers the entire use of the whole of the produce of their labor ? Can political economy devise no further expedient, no additional encouragement to cheer, to reward, the labors of such men ? In the way of wealth, and on a scale of such extent as to produce any thing like national utility, political economy can do no more than this; and this is giving the laborer security in the entire use of the produce of his labor. But, be it always recollected, this is exactly the situation of every unprovided laborer in every civilized community. Still it will be objected, " May not bounties be given; may not rewards, honorary or otherwise, be held out; may not contributions, subscriptions, be raised, to buy for, and present to, the colony, the land out of which they must raise their food, the materials out of which they must manufacture their clothes, furniture, or other conveniences, the machinery and tools with which they may work, or at all events the supply of food to keep them alive till they have provided food of their own ? None of these things will be done on a large scale, because capitalists will not risk their capital without being assured of the ordinary profit. And for the payment of this profit, not to speak of the risk of their capitals, they will hardly be satisfied with the guarantee of such a community. It is evident that voluntary transfers could never be expected on a large scale. To force wealth, obtained by productive labor and voluntary exchange, from those who have produced it, in order to encourage others to productive labor and voluntary exchange, is evidently undoing with the one hand what the other is aiming to accomplish. As to bounties or honors, in a case of tremendous exigency like this, they would not be thought of. They may misdirect labor: tlie question here is to produce it. If the application of force, then, to excite productive labor must be discarded; if no presents of land, materials, food, or tools, can be expected; if the mere pressure of absolute want will produce no cheerful exertion at all, or if such exertion will relax as soon as such pressure is removed; if no boun-

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ties or honors will avail; if no other way can be devised for making the laborer work with alacrity for less than security in the entire use of the products of his labor; may we not try, whether the drilling of superstition through the associations of early education, will not lead him to work as a matter of duty for less than the entire use, and whether these associations would not be a more energetic and productive principle of action ? The whole history of the exertions of human industry has belied this hope. If superstition could stunt the growth of the faculties as directed to one subject or one line of thought or exertion alone, without weakening the faculties themselves ; if men could be kept children in one matter, and that the most important of their lives, without being spiritless, uninventive, and unproductive in every other matter; then might such a scheme succeed. But such is not the constitution of our nature. Gross deception destroys that curiosity, that elasticity of mind, which is requisite for vigorous exertion. And, after all, when it has made man an unthinking automaton, will it feed and clothe him ? will it supersede the necessity of presenting substantial motives to excite his feeble powers ? or will it only make him stupidly inaccessible to all impulses of reason and his own interest ? The unfailing effect of such schemes has been to render men stupid or ferocious, but always passive, slaves, producing almost nothing for their own comfort or that of their masters. If superstition, or false or pretended, knowledge, can give no new stimulus, no stimulus at all, but is an absolute drawback on industry, real knowledge will wonderfully strengthen and accelerate its efforts, will afford tree scope for the operation of all tutelary motives, will show the benefits of moral habits, will explore modes of improvement and economy, will appreciate the blessings of just institutions and equal laws, and produce the full development of human capabilities. Hereafter, under another head, we shall have to eulargeonthis topic. Enough to say here, that knowledge can never act as a substitute for the stimulus of the entire use of the products of labor. On the contrary, it would make this entire use the first condition of productive industry; but, with this condition, it would indefinitely increase its powers. The state of a savage colony of 1,000 laborers has been compared with that of a colony of an equal number of civilized men, and their respective peculiarities pointed out. There is however a third stage of colonization, such as might occur on the rich and now-peopling lands in the western parts of the United States of North America. There a great many of the inconveniences of both the savage and the civilized

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colony would be avoided. One thousand industrious poor men emerging from the bosom of civilization and settling here would have land free or nearly so, would find all the rude materials around them unappropriated, and would require nothing but a supply of tools, food, and clothing, till they could make their labor productive. 1 he tools required tor the land are the least expensive of machinery; the chase, fish, and wild fruits, would assist the supply of food and clothing; d of this last the most simple might satisfy, for a time, the laborer. Such a colony would have the habits of industry of the civilized, with the wide command of nature of the savage. But even here, what stronger stimulus can be afforded to impel the colony to the greatest'exertion, than security in the entire use of what their labor produces ? In no state of things can any stronger stimulus be devised; nor can any otlie'r stimulus be resorted to or even imagined, as capable of beino- used as a substitute for it. This is the reward which the American settler receives; it is through this stimulus alone he has been urged to those creations which have converted wildernesses, in a few years, into busy nations. This has been the only and the sufficient stimulus, and this has been applied to its fullest extent and on its grandest scale. No stimulus so strong has ever in any part of the world, on a national scale, been successfully applied. But, in addition to the obstructions to the development of industry, which nature or the progress of cultivation throws in the way of the savage, or the civilized, man, or of the American settler, there are other obstructions of an appalling nature, and to an indefinite extent, which have been foolishly, or wantonly, or cruelly thrown in the way of the productive laborer. Those who neither supplied him with land, nor materials, nor tools, nor food, (however unreasonable their demands for the use of such materials,) have pressed round him and demanded a share in the produce of his labor. The entire me—these deductions made—of the produce of his labor has not been left with him: he has been permitted to enjoy security in the use of no definite part of it. Those who had no visible or tangible equivalent in the way of the exchange of wealth to bestow, have seized on parts of the produce of his labor. His consent has not been asked to sanction the transfer. No equivalent, by the laborer deemed satisfactory, whether of a physical or intellectual nature, has been afforded him. We do not ask, for the present, whether such spoliations, whether such violations of the principles of sccnrity, are just, whether they may or may not be supported by reasons of a higher order and altogether superior to the

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production of wealth. Our object is now simply to inquire whether such forced deductions, over and above those which are necessary and voluntary, or which nature imposes, do or do not tend to weaken this strongest stimulus to the production of wealth. As the stimulus to production would be increased (all other things, knowledge, moral habits, &c. being equal) by removing any of the necessary obstacles, so would it be evidently diminished by adding arbitrary obstacles of any sort to those which are inevitable. Under no circumstances in the world has labor on a grand scale been so free and secure in the entire use of its products as in the United States of America; and no where has it been so productive. In proportion as the reward of productive labor has departed from this maximum, have the efforts of industry been relaxed j till at length, at their extreme point of apathy, from want of voluntary stimulus, brutal force has been used to extort, by means of terror, a reluctant produce from the arms of wretchedness. All history proclaims this truth; and it might be illustrated from thousands of pages. The same reason that would justify the taking away one portion of the produce of labor "without the laborers consent—which is the golden and universal check that we are in search of—would justify the taking away any other portion; till in the end, no stimulus being left, no possible exertion, no production but in obedience to physical want or compulsion, would ensue. The principle of security is equally violated in the taking away of the first as of the last portion. On what principle can any person but the producer lay claim to any portion of what another man's industry has produced ? On the same principle can another lay claim to another portion; and so on without end. Admit one step, one inroad, and you can secure nothing. Will it still be said that security to the laborer of the entire use of the produce of his labor would make him immoral, and thus prove useless to him ? The question now before us is not as to the effects of the entire use on morality, but on production. Morality or immorality depends on other circumstances, though on none more essentially than on the proportion of the fruit of labor enjoyed by the producer. Moral or immoral, under any given circumstances, the quantity of production will depend on the stimulus to production: and the strongest stimulus is necessarily security in the entire use of the products of labor. Let these different stimuli, the entire use or the partial use, operate on any two colonies of laborers, the one moral, and the other immoral, and we shall find that in both cases, whatever may be the absolute superiority of production and enjoyment on the part of the moral over the immoral, a

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similar relaxation of industry, though differing in degree, will be produced on both the moral and the immoral, by lessening their securitv in the enjoyment of the whole produce of their labor. Other opportunities will occur of demonstrating the fallacy of the apprehension that the highest possible remuneration that free labor can produce, has any natural or necessary tendency to produce vice. On the contrary, it will be shown that it tends equally to elicit the greatest quantity of morality, as well as of production. It is hoped, then, that all difficulties have been removed, in the way of admitting that, " the strongest stimulus to production that the nature of things will permit, is security in the entire use of the products of labor to those who produce them." How far the claims of capitalists injuriously abstract from this entire use, will be inquired into hereafter.

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All VOLUNTARY exchanges of the articles of-wealth, implying a preference, on both sides, of the thing received, to the thing given, tend to the increase of happiness from~wealth,and thence to increase the motives to its production.

WITHOUT exchanges there can be no industry, no continued production of wealth. Labor without exchanges would be nearly as useless as exchanges without labor, as no one man can produce all the articles necessary to his own well-being. Suppose again a colony of 1000 laborers or a thousand individuals, including the usual proportion of women and children. The whole of these must not only be fed, but clad, and provided with dwellings, furniture, and other conveniences. By what process shall all these numerous wants be supplied r* Shall every individual endeavour to supply all his wants himself, make his own tools, build his own house, till the ground for his own food, search out the materials for his own clothing and furniture, and manufacture them himself? But if every man should provide all his own wants, why should not every woman provide also hers ? Why should not she also, till, build, manufacture clothes, food, tools, &c. for her own use? Because, not having as much strength as man, and a great portion of the time of her most vigorous years being devoted to the rearing of successive children; not only would she not have time to accomplish all these objects; but what

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she attempted would be inefficiently performed. Convenience would require that the woman should occupy herself with that species of labor, useful to herself and her companion, and their offspring, in which her peculiar organization, and thence-resulting powers, would be the most productive. This reason is so very striking, that none but the most brutal and stupid of savages have been uninfluenced by it. In a few cases in savage life, the men have made the women carry burthens, work in the fields, as well as mind the house; rewarding them with compulsion and blows, making them complete slaves; as amongst some tribes in North America. The object of these savages however was not to increase production, but to gratify their own love of ease, of idleness, and domination. Our object being different, different means must be used to attain it. Now the very same convenience with respect to the increase of production, and thence of enjoyment, which would lead the man and the woman of one hut into different species of labor, would lead different men of the same community in to different modes of production, or rather into the production of different articles. If all were to work at all trades, all would have to learn all trades. Evidently as much skill could not be learned in all trades as in one or a few. Here is then a loss of skill by the effort of every man to produce every article of his wants for himself. Then comes a second inconvenience of loss of time in turning from one operation to another; not only the time lost of putting up one set of tools and materials and getting out another, of loco-motion from place to place, but the chance of abstraction of mind or interruption from without, during the passage from one employment to another. But this is not. all: one man may live in the neighbourhood of water or wood, and thence may find it more easy to catch the fish or make the tools, the materials for which are at hand. Again, some operations require the strength of many, others such expedition as only many hands can supply, both in agricultural and manufacturing operations. If such operations are undertaken by solitary individuals, it must be at a o-reat disadvantage, one laborer unassisted not producing perhaps the lOOdth part instead of the 5th part of what five co-operating could produce. Moreover, some men are of weakly constitutions from delect of organization, disease, or accident, or may have acquired a particular delight and skill in a particular line of labor. The weak or the skilful may produce double the value of useful things in that line of labor for which they are adapted. Their time therefore would be comparatively lost in any other occupations. Another obstacle superior to all these together comes in the way. There is scarcely a spot on

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the globe capable of feeding the smallest community, say ours of 1000 individuals, that contains within its own bounds all the rude materials of clothes, tools, &c. necessary for the comfortable existence of its population. To go no further, let us instance iron. What tool so simple as not to require prepared L for its fabrication ? but how few comparatively are the spots on the globe where this metal abounds; and how totally destitute of agricultural and other facilities are almost always the spots on which, or beneath which, the ore of this most useful metal is to be procured ! If then all members of every community, or of any colony, made themselves, individually, all articles to supply their respective wants ; all their productions would be wretchedly deficient in quality, in quantity, and many of the most useful articles for production or consumption "must be entirely dispensed with. Still other evils assail the scheme of solitary unaided exertion. Can the independent supplier of his own wants predict exactly the capacity of his stomach or his family's stomach, or even the number of that family for the year ? if he could, can he also foretell the produce of the soil and the accidents of the seasons ? Is he sure therefore that his best-regulated exertions will procure him exactly enough of food to supply his yearly wants ? and that no useless surplus will be produced'{ Will the leather for shoes, thongs, and other uses, always require a whole hide neither more nor less, the chairs or table always require a whole tree neither more nor less, the coat require exactly a whole fleece ? and so on of all other rude materials. If there be a deficiency or superfluity of food, clothing, or other manufactured articles, what is to be done with this superfluity ? how is this deficiency to be supplied ? Is the superfluity to be turned to no account, to be an absolute loss ? Is the deficiency to be submitted to with its train of privations, famine, sickness, and perhaps death ? Where is the remedy to be found ? In voluntary exchanges.- so simple, so efficacious. Without the use of exchanges, the application of labor to the appropriation or modelling for use, the productions of nature, would be comparatively barren and inoperative in increasing wealth and the pleasures derivable from it. Exchanges therefore are as necessary to useful, to enlarged, production, as labor is. We have in truth presumed far beyond the nature of things, far beyond the experience of any community however small, in supposing that individual exertion for the" exclusive use of its separate members, could procure for the laborers a comfortable subsistence. Co-operation of labor on some occasions, division of labor on other occasions, are necessary to any thing worthy the name of production. Over-pro-

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duction and under-production from natural or accidental causes, where no exchanges took place, would be so frequent and so discouraging, that all stimulus to labor, so uncertain and unsatisfactory in its results, would be taken away. No skill in any thing could be acquired: no one object of necessity or convenience could be good in its kind. The herculean effort to produce every thing by solitary effort, would be relinquished by the individual or the individual family, as soon as undertaken; and nothing but what the necessity of existence demanded, would be ultimately produced. And the fact is, that mankind have no where been discovered in such a state of barbarism, except perhaps the savages on some spots of Austral-Asia, as not to have added to individual labor the practice of exchanging their mutual superfluities. Inferior animals labor, and some of them have partial foresight and accumulate against future want. But their intellectual capacity, their cerebral organization, is so deficient, that they have never conceived the use of exchanges: hence the effects of their labors, even of the most intellectual, have been merely to keep up a supply of food to satisfy the most pressing and universal want of hunger, but seldom have they proceeded so far as to prepare habitations. The simplest food and the simplest dwelling necessary to support life—what are they in comparison to the endless wants and enjoyments of civilized men ? It does not appear indeed that the savages of New Holland, unacquainted with the benefits of exchanges, attained to the improvements of many, winged, four-legged, or four-handed, animals. Their life was an eternal contest with surrounding things, their own species sometimes included, to seize and devour whatever they could master, to allay the feelings of hunger as they arose; at one period over-gorged, at another almost famished. Not only then in order to make labor productive to any extent, but in order to set the human arm to work at all, in order to raise man from the most degraded state of savage wretchedness, the utility of exchanges must be discovered, and exchanges must be practised. Take away the faculty of exchanging, and you annihilate the motives to labor. Give life to the principle of exchanges, and no solitary exertion of labor is lost. What is useless to the individual producer or even to those around him, brought into the common stock, will find some person with whom it is an object of desire, and who will give for it some equivalent in exchange. We are thus led to the moral effects of exchanges. Useful as they are in an economical point of view, indispensable as they are to the production of wealth and the physical comforts

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in its train, they are no less indispensable for the evolution of morality, of beneficence. Shall \ve picture to ourselves what man would be, what an isolated family of the human race would be if working for itself alone, and deprived of the resources and benefits'of exchanges ? Nothing to give to, nothing to receive from, any other individual, no co-operation implying muuml exchanges of labor, man is an object of apprehension, of distrust to his fellow-creature. Has the more intelligent, the more industrious labored? has he accumulated? Is the''idle, the improvident, the ferocious in want? His cunning lies in wait to purloin, his strength is ready to seize, whatever appetite or caprice may demand. The art, the wisdom of equivalents, of exchanges, he has never learned : force and cunning are his only arms, want his only and all-sufficient plea. The industrious lives in a state of eternal alarm : he has worked for himself alone; too happy if his unaided exertions have produced the means of supplying his own immediate and simplest wants, nothing is to be spared for the gratification of rapine. What kindly feeling can spring up in the human mind under such circumstances ? Necessity, the necessity of existence, forces every thought home on self. The feelings, the interests of others, are always seen in opposition to our own. The association of the happiness of another coexisting, conjoined with, and dependant on, our happiness, cannot be formed : because that state of things does not exist in which this union of feelings and pleasures can arise. Instead of benevolent feelings, those of an entirely opposite nature must, under such circumstances, be engendered. Envy and rapine on the one side; alarm, suspicion and hatred on the other. Such a state of things as individual labor without exchanges, would be a school of vice. But, change the scene: let the utility of mutual exchanges be once understood; let their mutual blessings be felt in practice, and what was lately a theatre of rapine, a school of vice, becomes a nursery of social virtue. Man being, in common with all other animals, essentially a sentient being, it is impossible that any line of action should be followed by him which did not tend in his opinion, directly or indirectly,' immediately or remotely, to his well-being. Tell him to be virtuous, to be beneficent, to promote the happiness of his fellow-creatures ; you must show him it is his interest to be so. Tell him to be virtuous, and surround him with such circumstances as make the virtues you recommend contrary to his apparent interest; his conduct will unhesitatingly follow in the line of what seems to him his interest, and all exhortations in opposition thereto, will be unheeded and inoperative, Improve his powers of comparing and judging,

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teach him to observe the consequences of his own actions well as those of others, as well as their immediate effects, teach him foresight; and then, surrounded by favorable external circumstances, all the virtues will necessarily spring up. Let any other animal, without the cerebral organization and capacity of mental development that man possesses, be placed in circumstances the most favorable for the acquisition of sympathy and the practice of benevolence, that animal will never acquire such habits, because it is not capable of forming those associations, of exercising that judgment and foresight which are necessary to make it perceive that sympathy and beneficence are indispensable to its own well-being. What does the simple introduction of exchanges tell to man, capable of appreciating the truth ? He sees that in the numerous ways pointed out, the co-operation of his fellow-creatures with him, and of him with them, is necessary to their mutual happiness : he becomes interested in the success of their joint labors; he feels a sympathy in their exertions; his feelings are carried out of himself in this first and simplest exchange of labor. When he finds that he has produced more of any article than is necessary for the supply of his own immediate wants till new exertions can procure a new supply ; when he finds another person possessing an article which he wants, but which is to his neighbour a superfluity, and when in consequence he makes an exchange, giving superfluity for superfluity, receiving an object of desire for an object of desire; here again mutual satisfaction is produced, mutual sympathy is excited, pleasure is felt at the same time, from the same cause, by both, and thus a pleasurable association is formed, and the discovery is made that the happiness of others is not necessarily opposed to our own, but is frequently inseparably connected with it. The more of these mutually convenient exchanges that take place, the more man becomes dependent on man, the more his feelings become sympathetic, the more social he becomes, the more benevolent. He finds that these mutual good offices generate in his neighbour kindly dispositions, and thence, when an opportunity occurs, kindly actions. He partakes himself of a kindred disposition; and thus all traces of ferocious isolation become lost, from a perception of real and palpable interest. The germs of benevolence and of production are thus born, nursed, and expanded at the same time: the same simple expedient, that of exchanges, has called both into existence. With what an ardor will production henceforth proceed I Has any particular individual more delight or more skill in one mode of exercising his industry than another ? Can he

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make tools for agriculture or for hunting or for simple manufactures, or can lie build huts in a way superior to his neighbours ? He gives free scope to his industry; he works not for himself alone, but for as many of those around him as he can supply. He fears not lest he should spend too much or too little time about his favorite occupation, lest he should suffer a deficiency, or have unprofitable superfluity to waste. Satisfied that all his labor will eventually, by means of exchanges, turn out profitably to himself, through the instrumentality of the interest of others, he works cheerfully and in confidence, and all his faculties are on the stretch to improve, knowing that the more his commodity pleases, the greater will be the equivalent he will receive. Thus it appears that not only do all exchanges of the products of labor, tend to increase happiness, and thence the motives to the production of wealth, but that they are also at the basis of social virtue and of production, and without them labor itself would be inefficient to any extensive usefulness. Would it not be trifling to ask whether these exchanges should be in all cases voluntary or forced, or whether forced should in any case be substituted for voluntary exchanges? What virtue is there left in these exchanges if they are not voluntary ? is not this circumstance the very essence of them ? Take away voluntariness from an exchange, take away from the laborer without his consent the produce of his labor, and what is the result, what is the operation but brute force and robbery ? As all voluntary exchanges confer happiness equally on both the parties concerned, and promote production and benevolence; so do all involuntary exchanges annihilate industry and virtue. They are in every respect opposed to each other: the one operates on the understanding and leads captive the will; the other condescends not to reason, but forces away what it demands. Whatever are the effects of the one, those of the other must be directly the reverse. Involuntary exchanges-—if they be not a contradiction in terms—turn back every thing to the rule, the oppression, of the strongest; and not only exchanges, but production, but labor, would soon wither in their embrace. But, will it be allowed that the general principle of voluntary exchanges must be held sacred ? that exchanges would be unmeaning and fraudulent if they were not voluntary? while at the same time some exceptions are put into the general rule, to accomplish some special purposes. We maintain unhesitatingly that this is a rule which admits of no exception. The most trifling attack on it destroys altogether the principle of security, and consequently of production. The broad principle of security applies equally to the protec-

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tion of the products of labor and of the free exchange of these products. Such is its useful, clear, and natural extent; beyond which (as will hereafter be fully developed) all further extension is pernicious, but within which it is necessary, it is indispensable to production, to virtue, to happiness. What are these pretended exceptions to the principle of security, as applied to exchanges ? What is the state of things that could justify the application of force to exchanges, and the yielding, at the option of one of the parties, of course of the strongest, an equivalent deemed unsatisfactory by the other, or no equivalent at all ? When the surplus produce of a man's labor is taken from him, it may be either without any pretence of any return, of any equivalent in exchange, or it may be accompanied with such equivalent as the stronger party may deem adequate. The first of these cases was dispatched in our last section, where it was shown that security in the entire use of nil the products of labor was necessary to ensure even the rude beginnings of production. Where part of the surplus products of labor are taken away contrary to the wishes of the owner, and it is pretended to give an equivalent in exchange; either that equivalent is in fact a real equivalent with which the productive laborer ought, if he knew his own interest, to be satisfied, or it is not a real equivalent, being in fact of no value, or of none commensurate to the thing taken. First, the equivalent given is supposed to be fully equal in real value to the thing taken, but through the obstinacy or ignorance of the producer, it does not to him appear to be a full equivalent: he is dissatisfied with it. In this case, what is wanting to be done by the person forcing the real equivalent on the productive laborer? what more simple and easy than his task? He has but to enlighten the ignorance, to explain the truth, to show his own interest to the person whom his proposed exchange would serve. And is this, in case of real interest, so difficuli a task ? has not the productive laborer the same mental powers, the same powers of feeling, comparing and judging, that the man of force has? Nay, is it not probable, is not the very fact of his being industrious a proof of his foresight and judgment, a proof which will hardly be found in the idleness and rapacity of him who wished to take without giving any satisfactory reason ? The thing offered is supposed to be a real equivalent: surely its utility can be shown, and then, on the just principle of exchange, a double benefit will be produced, an equal and satisfactory benefit to both of the parties exchanging; a loss to none. Observe the difference between the continued employment of force in such real exchanges, and the employment of reason, of knowledge. Know-

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ledge once diffused, reason once convinced, all difficulty in the way of such useful exchanges for the future, is removed: the operation once performed, is performed for ever. All such future exchanges enliven industry and promote mutual kindness by affordmg mutual and voluntary compensations of en-ioyment But where force is once employed to compel [an exchange ever so useful, it is not the less necessary to employ it a second time, but the more necessary. Ill-will is generated by the employment of force; a false and unfavorable association is formed, that of pain with proffered exchange; prejudice is thus callod forth; and indignation at presumed injustice takes away the power of reversing hasty decisions. It is therefore the more necessary to continue the employment of force, or the apprehension, the alternative offeree, to compel such exchanges, than it was originally to employ it: reluctance increasing, when the reason is unconvinced, with every repetition of the violence. Thus what might be ever so useful, ever so auxiliary to production and happiness—an exchange in itself useful—becomes, by substituting force for reason, an engine of oppression blasting all the motives to industrious exertion. Even the real use that might be derived by the unwilling producer, from the forced equivalent, is lost to him : he will not use the pretended gift of oppression : instead of admitting it to be a real equivalent, he abstracts from it all sort of merit: the original vice of its introduction to him is mingled with it, and makes it hateful to him : his antipathy converts sweetness into poison, and he loathes, through false associations, what might be a source of happiness to him. Another argument equally cogent in favor of the use of knowledge and persuasion, instead of force, in effecting exchanges, is, that the persuasion, the satisfaction of the producer—for by the supposition the other party is persuaded and satisfied—is the best test that the nature of things will permit, of the utility of the exchange. It is not an unerring test No such tests are to be found amongst creatures whose reasoning powers are imperfect. But compared with any other supposable test, it is the most likely to be true: nay, it is impossible to devise any other test that can serve, a moment, as a substitute for it. By this test the two parties interested, and with opposing interests, must be convinced ; by the other only °ne .- double the pleasure of satisfaction therefore in this case. But this mutual satisfaction mostly goes hand in hand with real utility. Where it does not, where even the concurrence of two, and those interested to judge correctly, is not always sufficient to ensure correct judgment and wisdom in exchanges, shall we increase the chances of wisdom and justice by letting

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the decision rest with only one of the parties ? and that one with an adverse interest, 'uncontrolled, deciding in his own cause ? Shall we not on the contrary reduce the chances of just decision almost to nothing? Make it necessary to produce conviction in the mind of the producer, to produce conviction without fraud, and you lay an immediate restraint on the selfish desires of the party demanding the exchange. You lay him under the necessity of finding reasons, of conciliating, of adding to the value of his equivalent. All the countless host of enormities that would flow from following his uncontrolled notion as to the value of his equivalent, would be rendered impossible: and where the interest of both parties must necessarily concur, and free use is given to their faculties, useless or pernicious productions or exchanges could not long continue. All the cases that can be brought forward, of both of the exchanging parties being in error, such as exchanges of slaves for spirits or implements of destruction, prove nothing. For it is not pretended that the power of voluntary exchanges will give to mankind at once, or at all, perfect wisdom: it will produce, not an unerring perfection, but an infinity more of production and happiness than any other arrangement. No other arrangement can possibly be devised that will not lead directly to the domination of the crafty and the strong, to all the combined miseries of force and fraud. The simple and obvious remedy for those cases where both exchanging parties are mistaken as to their real interest, is to show them their mistakes, to give them knowledge. As soon as they see their mistake, they will of course correct it. This operation of showing them their interest, is not only the most certain and lasting remedy, but the speediest. After preventing these exchanges a thousand times, the disposition (the judgment remaining uninformed) is still as fully inclined as before to engage in them through any number of years: but when once the judgment is disabused, such exchanges cease of themselves. Ignorance must be always compelled : but knowledge once diffused keeps the springs of real interest in motion without any farther, without any external, aid. In the case of the exchange of slaves, however, the principle of security, of voluntary exchanges, has been altogether violated. The original vice of the acquisition of the slave mingles itself with every future operation. What skive was ever obtained by voluntary exchange ? When did savage or civilized man ever voluntarily surrender for a little water and a bit of bread, the power of bruising or torturing their bodies or minds, ana of extorting labor at the option of a master.'' The disposal of labor, of the smallest portion of labor, the exchange of the produce of labor,

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of its minutest part, must be voluntary, and yet the disposal of the whole man that includes all labor all exchanges, all volition, may be involuntary or forced. How could our principles of free labor and voluntary exchanges, be more signally violated tlrm in this case? Where such iniquities as those ot slave-making exist, as along the coast and in the interior of Western Africa, the usual consequences of poverty, wretchedness and vice, follow, as in all cases where the principles of free labor and voluntary exchanges are departed from. The question then is reduced to the voluntary exchange of two things, fairly and voluntarily acquired. Both parties, we shall suppose, are in error; the production of one, or the other, or of both of the articles to be exchanged, was pernicious; or the exchange was conducted on unfair principles. Under such circumstances, the probability is, that the exchanging parties only participate in the general ignorance and false associations of those around them as to such matters; and still the only remedy is the diffusion of knowledge. For, though it were possible—which it is not—to place an unerring director of exchanges over such a community; still the violation done to the principle of security in interfering with voluntary exchanges, would not only preponderate over the pretended good to be derived from any superiority of judgment, but would sap and ultimately annihilate the springs to industry, and thence to virtue and happiness. Of what use, then, would be superiority of judgment without any industry to work upon, to guide according to its particular notions ? The first object is to ensure industrious exertion; the second and minor object is to direct it. In whatever state as to knowledge a community may be, security in the free disposal of labor and of the products of labor must be equally upheld. Without this, there can be no exertion, no industry; and as to knowledge, this freedom of labor and of exchanges, is the most efficacious expedient to develop it where it does not exist, to improve it where it has been born, and to facilitate its introduction where it is offered from without. The supposition of any person or any number of persons (the violation of the principle of security even for a moment forgotten,) being calculated, in a simple intellectual point of view, to produce more rectitude of decision, and of course more useful exchanges, than would be made by the parties themselves, is in the last degree futile and absurd. Who that is not acquainted with all the circumstances of both the parties exchanging, with their moral and physical character, their previous supply, all their domestic and external arrangements and connexions, could possibly hazard an opinion as to the

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utility or inutility of any particular exchange in the case of any ' two individuals ? From a hundred accidents, the exchange that may be useful to-day, may be useless or pernicious to-morrow. Who but the parties themselves can know any thing about these eternal individual changes ? What less than omniscience could direct such transactions? and it we obtained omniscience, we must add to it universal benevolence, universal sympathy with the wants and wishes of all. Allowed, say the lovers offeree or the pretenders to unerring wisdom, allowed the absurdity of general interference. We would only select a few particular cases of evidently erroneous judgment, and where the exchanges would be hurtful to others. Here the ground of interference is altogether changed. In as far as the interest of others as well as of the parties themselves is concerned, correct their judgment, give them real knowledge. In as far as their conduct in exchanging interferes with the security of free labor and exchanges, restrain them; as these rights ought to be equal to all. Should any consequential injury arise to third parties from a voluntary exchange of things justly acquired, (and we are supposing none others,) restrain the injurious act, as you would any other act equally injurious to society; but interfere not with the faculty of freely exchanging, the evil arising from the violation of the general principle being incalculably greater than any partial benefit from modifying particular exchanges. But, the security of all being in the eye of justice equally sacred, no violation of the security of others should be permitted. But, even these restraints should be voluntary. This will be hereafter developed : otherwise, security in freedom of labor and voluntary exchanges could not exist. From what has been said it appears evident, that security in voluntary exchanges is as necessary, as in the free use of labor and of its products. They are the parents of production, and not only of production but of morality and happiness. Without them man could scarcely raise himself above the inferior animals, on whom he now so proudly looks down. No substitute can be devised for voluntary exchanges *: no su-

* Mr. Owen's plan, of labor in common, and mutual co-operation, may be cited as a practical objection to this position. In his societies, or small associations of a few hundred to a few thousand individuals, production and happiness proceed, it may be said, without any exchanges. Perhaps it may be more correctly said, that his system—as far, and only as far, as it is perfectly voluntary—is the perfection of voluntary exchanges and of the kindly feelings they engender. In his system, every one labors for every one, every one benefits and is benefited by every one. Though I here is no exchange of individual articles from individual to individual, there is a constant and universal exchange nf benefits. This universal system [continued at bottom of next page]

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periority of force or of intellect, real or supposed, of either of the individuals concerned or of any other persons, can in any case be usefully substituted for voluntary exchanges. They are founded on the interest, and produce the satisfaction of the parties concerned. Their operation extends through the whole structure of society, to the grand outlines of it« organization, as well as to the minute operations between man and man, and to all his social relations. They are founded on the utility of the employment, in all things, of reason and persuasion, instead of brute force; and the great extent and influence of their operation will be hereafter more fully developed. The same principles of justice, because of benevolence, of benevolence because of tendency to promote the greatest happiness, that should regulate the distribution of wealth, particularly the principle of voluntary exchanges, should regulate all human intercourse, and pervade all human institutions. Wherever this principle is neglected, misery and vice follow in proportion to the extent of the violation. This will be exemplified further on, when the forcible exactions made for supporting existing establishments come under review. Let it be always recollected as a justification of the simplicity and extent of our details, that as reasonings on moral, political, and economical, subjects, cannot be safely carried to very remote deductions; it is the more indispensable that our first principles should be clear and thoroughly sifted, and that every one should perceive their truth and utility. An illustration of this observation will be afforded in considering our next proposition.

-*of voluntary exchanges, could only be elicited by wisdom in a very improved state of social science. It is but applying the principle of one individual exchange to the mass of all the labor o'f every individual. If the ultimate benefits of this general system of exchanging the whole labor of every individual for portions of the products of the labor of the rest of the community, be found more productive of happiness than the system of individual exchanges, why should it not be pursued ? It is not substituting a new principle to that of exchanges, but applying it on a comprehensive and universal scale. This system of mutual co-operation will be resumed in a chapter. The question is, whether the general and remote motive of individual benefit from mutual co-operation, will be a sufficient substitute for the ever active principle of immediate personal interest, attending every separate individual exertion and exchange ?

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The forced abstraction of the products of labor, the objects of Wealth and means of happiness, from any individual, will cause more loss of happiness to him than increase of happiness to the person acquiring. WHY undertake, it may be asked, to demonstrate so simple, so universally received, a proposition ? Who is to be convinced ? Who denies its truth ? Why demonstrate what no one disputes ? Because the mere assenting to a proposition, without knowing the reasons for the assent, produces very little salutary effect 011 conduct, directing merely in cases of every day practice, but rendering the understanding incapable of perceiving the most gross violations of the principle, provided those violations are as frequent and notorious as the observances. Knowing the reasons of a principle, we can make it universally operative, and can detect the sophisms that would exclude its benefits, where perhaps they may be of by far the greatest importance to human welfare. Besides, the energy of our conduct in supporting the useful operation of the principle, is doubled, when we see distinctly its utility: we do not act as machines, but as rational beings. We shall never neglect the principle where it ought to be applied : we shall never suffer evil to be done under the pretence of its right application. Although few will in words deny this principle, yet does almost every one habitually act in flagrant violation of it, or unconcernedly witness its violation. Laws even and institutions are enacted and upheld in opposition to it. Its application and misapplication are universal; and so are the evils or benefits resulting from it. It is necessary therefore that it should be put in a clear light. When forced abstraction is made from any individual of the products of his labor, the objects of wealth, in what does the loss which he has sustained consist ? what are the constituent parts of the evil which he has experienced ? On the other hand, what is the gain which the party taking has made, and what are its constituent parts ? Let us review these two masses and compare them together, that we may see where the balance of evil lies. First, as to the mere articles themselves, which are taken from the one and seized by the other, they are evidently, in most cases, the same in the hands of both parties: what the

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loss or waste of the materials is necessarily attendant on the transfer, though it may most frequently occur. It is our object to reduce things to their simplest elements: therefore let us suppose that what is lost by the one, is gained, withouthout defalcation, by the other. A bushel of corn will go as far in feeding, and a pound of flax towards the clothing, of one individual—size and appetite being equal-as of another. The article then itself not being affected by the transfer, the jrain of matter capable of usefulness being as great in the one case as the loss in the other, we must look out for other sources of difference in the two cases; and we shall find them in the immediate feelings, the state of mind, of the two parties concerned, and in the future consequences resulting to each of them from the operation. The man who forcibly takes the corn, consumes and digests it like the producer: his taste and hunger are gratified notwithstanding his robbery. But what are the associated feelings which arise in his mind, from the laws of his organization, while the animal consumption is going on? An ox might consume corn forced from another ox, just as if it had not been so obtained; but no human animal, ever so rude, is without those powers of mind which produce feelings necessarily associated with such enjoyments. The man of force consumes, but, while he consumes, he cannot help knowing that he has excited the ill-will of him whom he has plundered; he knows that he is liable to his ill-oflices, that if opportunity occurred, the plundered article would be taken back by the producer, the owner. He has moreover a feeling of his own injustice, and sometimes a feeling of regret, of pity, towards those whom he has wronged. He knows that he would not like that another person should take away from him what he had with much labor produced : and though he yields to the temptation of enjoyment, and seizes what he can from another, the feeling of the injustice must occasionally intrude, and so far lessen his satisfaction. Should he be above all fear from insecurity, should he be beyond all remorse for injustice, he will perhaps be the more accessible to pity for the miseries caused by his plunder. Or, under a last supposition, which is a very rare one, and almost impossible, he may be without fear, remorse, or pity; and if so, what will be his capacity for enjoyment? -That of the hyaena. The mere animal feeling of the moment "without foresight or sympathy, without any of the pleasures ot judgment or benevolence to increase his animal gratifications, or to fill up their intervals with lighter but more fre-

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quently-renewed pleasures. In fact, however, such a human creature could hardly exist; for it' he had sagacity enough to make his force available to cope with the combined sagacity and strength of his neighbour, and to prevail in his seizures, he must have sagacity anough to perceive some at least of the effects of his conduct. If he had no more sagacity than the hyaena, his attacks would be repelled with equal facility. But still, were such a human creature possible, what immediate pleasure would the corn give him ? The sole pleasures of taste and hunger: after these, mere insensibility: no pleasures of association, or of communicating enjoyment to others: whereas in the case of the producer, the corn supports his existence to make it the vehicle not only of the pleasures of taste and hunger, but of all the other gentler pleasures incident to the sagacity requisite for industrious labor. Still perhaps it will be objected, that we have omitted in our enumeration the greatest pleasure of all felt by the seizer of another's labor, the pleasure of success (of successful rapine or injustice to be sure, but still of success). We are reminded of the universal prevalence of this feeling to such an extent as to have originated a proverb, " Stolen waters are sweet; and bread eaten in secret is pleasant." Than this a more false or more pernicious proverb was never countenanced by man *. What means this proverb, if it have any true meaning at all ? To seize by force the products of industry and to consume them in secret, may be sweet when compared with the absolute deslitution of idleness and rapine. A hungry robber, like a hungry and pursued wolf, rejoices in the immediate gratification of his rapacious appetite; and compared with the miseries of starvation, even such consumption may be sweet. But compared with the pleasure of consuming the same things produced by the industry of" the consumer, and enjoyed, not in secret, but in open and free security, without apprehension, without the sense of injustice, what becomes of its pretended sweetness ? " Stolen waters are not sweet, and bread eaten in secret is not pleasant." To the lawless alone, plundering [continued on next page]

* Tis true, that a vague intimation of terror and vengeance follows; " but he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell." That is to say, " Though we allow that it is sweet and pleasant to consume in secret the acquisitions of robbery, yet we tell you, you are in the way to hell if you indulge in such enjoyments." "But he knoweth not that the dead are there," is like the pernicious frightening of children with Raw-head and Bloody-bones, Yet sitch are the things that have been given to mankind, by way of, or instead of, reasons, to induce them to refrain from what is called immoral conduct, and what they are at the same time told is delightful conduct. Now, in the text, the sweetness and pleasure of such secret consumption is altogether denied.

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and exposed to plunder, who had never felt the pleasures of consuming in peace what their industry had produced, who never knew of any comparison to be instituted, except between want and plunder, it belongs to deny this position: to them alone is such consumption sweet and pleasant. To them comparatively sweet it is ; but absolutely it is bitter as wormwood. All things are called good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, sweet or bitter, by comparison with other things. Now when articles plundered, (that is to say, taken away without the consent of the producers,) and consumed in secret, are said to be sweet, it must be with reference to the ordinary mode of acquiring and consuming such articles: that ordinary mode must be by means of industry in the acquisition, and security in the consumption. Such must be the meaning of the proverb to make it general, to give it currency as any thing more than a pernicious by-word for the use and the encouragement of robbers. But give it any such extension, and it is utterly false: and apply it in the only sense in which it is true, and it is most pernicious. No maxim could possibly be devised more destructive of industry, of morality, and happiness. Whether in savage, half-civilised, or civilized communities, the mere pleasure of success in plunder, could never, of itself and unattended with the gratification of want, be of much effect: for, not to speak of its being counterbalanced by apprehension, it is met by a much greater pleasure, that of successful industry, on the part of the producer. Now, to oppose to these pleasures of the plunderer, of him who forcibly abstracts the products of labor, the means of wealth and happiness, from the producer of them; what immediate pleasures has the man of industry to bring forward ? He physically consumes just like him who took away his wealth: but what are the feelings necessarily associated in his mind with the physical enjoyment ? The pleasures of successful industry, not of the effort of an hour or a day, but of a long-continued course of effort, all directed to one object and all brought to the wished-for result: the pleasure of skill, of perseverance, of success. These accumulated pleasures are brought, as it were, to a focus at the time of enjoyment: they have filled up all the moments of production, and now memory brings them forward to heighten the enjoyment. These are all included in the pleasure of employment, of having some Jixed purpose in life, which fills up all the voids of existence and keeps out the pressure of weariness and disgust. He knows moreover that his success is attended with the sympathy and gocd opinion of all the peaceable and industrious

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members of the community. All these soothing associations which the man offeree is without, are superadded, in the case of the industrious, to the mere pleasure of success; so that in this respect alone the success of industry is infinitely more pleasurable than the success of force. All natural and unavoidable associations add to the one, while they abstract in an equal degree from the other. The success of force from its uncertainty is, to be sure, at times accompanied with very noisy demonstrations : but place against these, not only the re-action when reflection comes, but the number of disappointments that bring with them vexation and fear; and then compare this noisy over-excitement with the calm, steady, and daily repeated, pleasures of success attendant on productive industry. But let all these considerations be forgotten, let the pleasure of the success of the one be supposed to be equal in intensity and extent to that of the other, the main point of distinction between their mental feelings, their associated pleasures, must be still dwelt upon. The pleasure derived from the use of the article of wealth to the industrious producer is accompanied with security, or else he could not be permanently industrious ; while the pleasure of the plunderer is necessarily poisoned by insecurity. The industrious has injured, has excited the ill-will, the ill offices of no one; he therefore apprehends, he fears them not: for what he enjoys he is indebted to his own exertions alone, or the voluntary exchanges of the surplus produce of his labor with others. He apprehends no resentment where he has given no cause for any. He enjoys with a consciousness that he has earned, that he has a right to, his enjoyments, and therefore enjoys undisturbed with any alarm, at least with any permanent or necessarily connected source of alarm: he is liable to none that are not extrinsic and accidental. The consumer, on the contrary, of wealth plundered from an industrious producer, knows that the very act of his acquisition has necessarily excited indignation, resentment, desire of retaliation on the part of him from whom he has taken. Nay more, as his only pretension is force, he must know that any stronger than he, will be as little inclined to respect his possession and use of an article, as he was to respect that of the producer. Enjoying by force alone, his very title contains in itself an invitation to those who are stronger, a justification to those from whom he has taken, to ravish from him his unjust acquisition. This is no casual accidental circumstance attending his enjoyment, but the necessary inevitable effect, always resulting from every

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acquisition by force. While the organisation of man is constituted as it is, insecurity palpably perceived, and not relieved bv any notions of justice, must give birth to alarm; and that alarm must, in proportion to its intensity, lessen or annihilate the enjoyment. Secrecy and fraud are the necessary resources of insecurity, and plainly indicate their origin. Every intruding eye is feared as that of an enemy : every breeze is laden with apprehension. Truth is shunned as leading to exposure, for it is not the interest of the plunderer that truth should be known. We will enlarge then no more on the comparison between the states of mind, the pleasures of consumption, of the producer, and of him who takes by force the produce of another's labor. A sense of injustice, of remorse, of fear, must trouble the enjoyment of the one; while a sense of justice, of peace, and of' requited effort must enhance the pleasure of the other. The one is insecure in his enjoyment, fearing loss on every side; the other, injuring no one, is undisturbed by the dread of privation; the one naturally resorts to secrecy, silence and fraud to protect him; the other needs not the aid of such treacherous allies. Dismissing, then, the immediate feelings of the industrious, and the seizer by force, let us proceed to the second head of comparison, and point out the future consequences, as to the production of wealth or other desirable objects, of permitting the products of industry to remain for use in the hands of the producer, or permitting any part of them to be forcibly abstracted from him for the use of another. It is here that the balance turns with the weight of infinity to one, against the man who takes by force the produce of another's labor. Were there even no difference whatever in the enjoyment of the two; were the enjoyment of force even allowed to be greater than the enjoyment of industry; still would the overwhelming evil of the consequences of the one, compared with those of the other, be so great as utterly to obliterate the pleasure of immediate feeling, if ever so superior, on the part of the seizer by force. What are the consequences to the laborer ? what are the consequences to him who takes by force the produce of another's labor ? In both cases the extinction of the motives that lead to productive labor, and of course the discontinuance of that labor itself, where it has been previously active, or its early and immediate withering, where it is only showing its first efforts, or its utter disregard from the chance of acquiring the means of enjoyment without labor. The productive laborer has toiled, and the fruit of his labor

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is taken from him. Why should he work again ? His sole object in laboring was to procure for himself some object of utility ; that is to say, of remote or of immediate gratification. At the moment that his labor, guided by foresight, had produced the object which was to constitute his reward, that reward is forcibly abstracted from his grasp, and he finds that he has labored in vain. What is the consequence? The springs of his industry are relaxed; he can no longer securely rely on procuring by means of labor those comforts or enjoyments, the prospect of which supported him in his toil. The first time that the produce of his labor is taken from him, lie is alarmed and has less reliance on industry as a means of procuring enjoyment; the next time, he is still more alarmed and his reliance is still further weakened ; till by degrees, from the frequent repetition of such forcible seizures, his inclination to industry is rooted out, from his experience of the utter unproductiveness of his toils. What now is the amount of this evil, the loss of the spirit of industry to the industrious man ? Is it the loss merely of the article or of the one or two or five or ten articles, the produce of his labor, which had been forcibly abstracted from him? By no means. These losses, grievous as they are, are nothing to the real and absolute future losses of the productive laborer. He loses with his industrious habits, all those comforts, renewed through his life, which perseverance in industrious pursuits would, with security, have given him. Were the pleasure then of the spoiler ten times as great in the enjoyment of the articles abstracted as that of the productive laborer in the enjoyment of the same article, and were twelve spoliations requisite to banish the spirit of industry; still from the discontinuance of the production of these articles on the part of the industrious, his monthly, weekly, or daily enjoyment of them would through his whole life be lost. Here then is a balance of evil: as the pleasures of a life of enjoyment, in any particular line, derived from any particular article, are to the pleasures of a few hours enjoyment derived from the same article ; so are the pleasures of the industrious to those of the plunderer. Such is the superiority of the good effects of protecting from forced abstraction the products of labor. Mark too, every instance of success on the part of him who forcibly seizes, renders less probable his future supply by discouraging production ; while every enjoyment, every instance of success in productive labor, confirms the habits of the industrious, gives a new stimulus to his exertions, and renders more probable his future supply. But it may be said that it is an extreme and improbable

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case to suppose the forced abstraction of the whole of the produce of the labor of the industrious, that in fact it is but a part, but what he can spare, over and above his necessities, that lie generally loses, and that this partial abstraction will not materially affect his industry. In the first place, every abstraction operates injuriously as far as it goes : the alarm excited by the abstraction of a part extends to every atom left, and makes the whole insecure; and if the whole have not been abstracted, 'tis most probable that the want of opportunity or of power, not of inclination, saved the remainder. The explanation however lies deeper. So urgent are the motives to gratify hunger and to support life, that no attacks on the products of labor can exterminate that portion of exertion which is requisite to allay such imperious wants. But for mere existence, without comfort, what is requisite? The casual labor of the savage, of the wretched husbandman of Syria or Egypt as described by Vrlney in his admirable Travels, fearful lest he should over-supply his wants and feed his plunderer. Were there no produce of industry left from the frequency of rapine, so strong are the cravings of appetite that men would, like rats, on the failure of food, kill each other for the chance of surviving. 'Tis allowed therefore that the forced abstraction of the products of labor will not annihilate the desire of existing or rather of shunning the miseries of want. But is this industry ? are such the hopes, the rewards of productive labor ? Destroy production to this extent, and population and happiness will decrease where they now exist, till busy towns and valleys become as the abode of the savage; and under such circumstances the uncivilized will never assume the comforts of industry. Are not these effects dreadful enough ? but must the race of man absolutely cease to exist? The relaxation of industry however will do no more: it will do no more than bring men down to this level. Industry therefore consists not in the production of what is merely necessary for the support of the lowest animal existence, but in supplying as many additional sources of physical enjoyment as possible, superadded to these mere means of existence. The cravings of want alone are sufficient to urge every animal to provide for its gratification; but the cravings of want will do no more, and nothing less energetic than these cravings is sufficient to make head against the abasement caused by the forcible abstraction of any part of the products of labor. Until labor becomes voluntary and excited by motives of less urgency than the necessities of existence, it is not called industry. Every thing that comes under the name of industry, or of voluntary labor with

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the view of increasing our enjoyments, is evidently incompatible with the forcing away from the laborer that article, greater or less, which he had produced with the sole view of enjoying it. If, in order to avoid this result, and to lessen the alarm, it be proposed that one article only, and that of small value, shall be forcibly taken, the result evidently would be, that the production of that particular article would cease altogether; so that such a proposition could never be carried into effect, the publication of the endangered article necessarily annihilating its production and forcing industry into secure channels. Forcible abstraction must therefore be general, or must be altogether relinquished ; if it may fall on any article, the alarm is universal, the depression of industry proportioned to the amount and the frequency, till perseverance annihilates industrious exertion altogether; if it be confined, it is useless even to those who seize, and must be relinquished from want of food to prey upon. So overwhelming therefore is the balance of enjoyment ravished from the productive laborer over and above that gained by the employer of force, that our proposition might be safely rested here: for has it not been shown, how " the forced abstraction of the products of labor from any individual, causes more loss of happiness to him than increase of happiness to the person acquiring?" Though not necessary to our argument, it may not be improper to advance here a step further, and to show that even this evil, immense as it is and preponderating over any pretended enjoyments of the spoiler, is absolutely lost when compared with the greater evils inflicted on the whole community of productive laborers by the forced abstraction of wealth, the product of labor, from any individuals. For the caprice or the momentary enjoyment of the spoiler, the product, of the labor of the industrious is taken from him. Does this industrious man live in solitude, or is he surrounded with other individuals industrious like himself? We have seen that without voluntary exchanges industry could not exist, and that industry implies co-operation and society. The force committed on the one, is therefore known to all around him. In whatever way force has been employed to take from him, it may be employed to take away from them the products of their industry, the same reason that leads him to fear a repetition of the attac!: upon him, must lead them to fear its introduction to themselves. The alarm, instead of being confined to the individual despoiled, is shared with him by all those in a similar situation with himself, by all those whose industry has given them any thing to lose. They fear that

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The forced abstractions of small portions of wealth from any given number of individuals, will lessen the whole quantity of happiness more than it can be increased by the additional pleasures conferred on any one or more individuals enjoying those united small forced masses, WE have already seen that the happiness gained to the spoiler by the forced abstraction of the matter of wealth, the product of industry, is as nothing compared with the happiness lost in consequence of the same operation. To diminish the evil to the sufferer, an expedient has been put forth and very generally acted upon,—the expedient of dividing the shares of loss into as many and as small lots as possible, so that they may ultimately become almost imperceptible and afford no contrast of privation to the glare of enjoyment exhibited by the one, or small number, who use the things seized. In this case, the enjoyment of those who forcibly take, remains a fixed quantity: the object is not to increase their enjoyment, but to lessen the pressure on those who are forced to contribute. Our inquiry is, therefore, Does it produce this effect ? Does it, by dividing the loss into small shares and spreading it over a comparatively large surface, diminish the whole mass of suffering or discomfort ? Are the small losses of money less productive of evil than those conjoined losses borne by one ? Or, whether less or greater, are they so modified as to bear no proportion to the increase of happiness gained by the forcible consumers ? Were there not some fundamental error in this ingenious notion of annihilating distress by diminishing and diffusing it, the principle of spoliation might be carried to any extent by means of the principle of division and diffusion. But a fundamental error has been made on this subject; and that is overlooking the most important feature of these losses, of these abstractions, whether large or small, the consideration in all cases, whether they are voluntary or forced. A forced abstraction of the matter of wealth, be its amount what it may, is liable to the charge of injustice, is followed by all the evils of insecurity. The principle of security, of voluntary exchanges, once trenched upon, who shall set bounds to its extension ? What is to restrain it ? what but the prudence of the forcible consumers, tempted by immediate interest, by the desire of immediate enjoyment, to press the contributions till

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their amount becomes diminished, that is to say, till the springs of industry are dried up? Where the forced abstraction of wealth, the product of in-dustrv, is made in one heap from one, the loss of the absolute material is certainly to that one, just a thousand times as "•real as it would be if shared amongst one thousand in lots of one each. Here, in the , absolute material, there is neither loss nor fain: the same amount is raised in both cases. We must look therefore for any differences, for any points of comparison, beyond the thing seized to the feelings produced bv the seizure in the minds of those who suffer the loss. Where the abstraction, represented by 1000, being all taken from one, causes the absolute ruin of that one, exposes him to the pressure of hunger, the dread of starvation and cold, there can be little doubt of the wisdom or benevolence of the policy that changes this excess of intense wretchedness for the surrender of a thousand small portions of pleasure. But this is a case that in practice almost never occurs. Why so ? Because, in order to have an opportunity of abstracting largely, large masses of wealth (the products of industry) are naturally sought out; and from him who has comparatively to spare, much is taken. In such a state of things, it seems certain that the abstraction represented by a thousand, say 1000 shillings, causes a greater loss of happiness on the whole, than if the whole thousand were taken from the wealthier individual. To be sure, the loss is not so apparent; it makes no exhibition when divided; but is it not as certainly .felt, because it affords no exhibition or contrast ? The smaller contributions must, from the nature of things, be levied from those who have comparatively little, and to whom the loss of small part of that little must be more severely felt than an ab-Jlutely larger mass by those that possess more. It is not said every poor industrious man losing a shilling is as much ised thereby as the wealthier from whom die 1000 shillings MI, and who has more left after the 1000 are removed, ie poor after losing the one. Suppose that the loser of •snffers but the tenth part as much—and this is surely .mple: concession—as the loser of the thousand, the loss : whole will be as 100 to one. There will be in this case dred times the loss of happiness by diffusing the loss • small portions, that there would be by abstract-once from one individual; because, though every in-the poorer thousand suffers but the tenth part of him whole in a mass, yet as there are 1000 of these tenths added together will make 100 whole parts, each equal to the suffer-

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ing of him from whom the whole was taken in one mass. If it be alleged that the feelings of the poor, from whom these numerous smaller portions are necessarily taken, are reconciled by the habit of privation and suffering to the loss, it may he equally alleged that the feelings of the rich who make the abstractions are equally blunted by habit to enjoyment. Habit, operating equally in both ways, at both ends of the scale, diminishing equally enjoyment and suffering, must therefore be left out of the question. There seems little use in analysing the casein which the forced abstraction or loss is divided amongst 1000 persons equally wealthy, instead of being taken from one of them, because our object is practical, and in practice such cases seldom occur. The suffering on the whole would certainly not be diminished by this operation; for though each individual contributor of the 1000 only suffered the one thousandth part of the pain of the one losing all, yet these 1000 decimal parts of suffering added together evidently make up the same aggregate quantity of suffering on the whole; so that no diminution would be effected thereby ; while the pain of the loss more intimately felt by every individual when he himself suffers than when he merely hears of another's suffering, though to a larger extent, would seem to carry the balance against the system of division, and to make it probable that the mass of suffering is even in this case increased by diffusing and subdividing it. No doubt there are powerful motives, altogether independent of the greater or smaller portion of suffering produced by division or concentration, which urge those who forcibly abstract, to prefer the system of diffusion and subdividing the shares of loss. The injustice is not so flagrant; it is not attended with so much eclat, it does not produce so strong a sensation, it does not lead to such rough inquiries; the right is not so likely to be disputed, when but a very little is taken from a great many. Next, when the seizure is from a great number in small lots, the injustice of the operation seems to be forgotten in its equality. An equal distribution of injustice is apt to be regarded as a species of justice, the principle of the measure being forgotten in the consideration of its mode of opera/ion: whereas nothing is more evident than that the mode of operating the most iniquitous measure may be impartial and just. By confusing these two positions, such an advantage is taken as to divert the mind from the nature of the abstraction itself, from its effects on individual or social happiness: and the illusion is assisted by the small quantity in each case demanded. The object of those who forcibly abstract is their own enjoyment: indifferent

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to them how die suffering is diffused, provided their object h accomplished: that mode of abstraction which the most certainly and securely accomplishes the seizure, is the best for them, in contempt of the feelings of those from' whom it is taken. Those very reasons, however, which make it prudent or wise on the part of the spoliator to subdivide and diffuse the loss in every case amongst as many as possible, are those which would render this very diffusion undesirable to the community. It is the interest of the community that the real effects of every seizure should be known; that no operation, by which delusion might be practised, and rapine, shrouding itself under the guise of equality to ensure the better chance of' s,uc-cess, should be permitted. When an injustice is committed, it is the interest of the community that it should be seen, felt, known, and duly appreciated. When any act is done, whether just or not, it is the interest of all that its real effects should be known. Truth, that is to say, a knowledge of the real qualities and relations of things and of the real consequences of actions, must be useful to all: it seems to be pernicious to those who wish to be unjust, because they do not understand their own real interest. Therefore whatever mode of forcible seizure exhibits the nature of the operation in its Irncst colours, is most useful to the community, were even the balance of immediate suffering in favor of concealment, which it has been shown not to be. Having shown that the division of the forced loss into many shares, does not lessen, but in most cases increases, the sum total of suffering, instead of annihilating it, as in the language of political quackery; it remains now to prove, that this waste of happiness caused by the diffusion, is more than equal to die gain of happiness experienced by those amongst whom the matters abstracted are divided. It makes no difference to the question, whether the articles abstracted are divided amongst one or many. Dividing amongst many is only a repetition of a similar operation ; and the evil depends in every case on the absolute quantity of wealth taken by each as compared with the number and situation of those who are compelled to suffer the loss; the greater in each case the gain, the lesser the comparative happiness derived from it. Of 1000 portions of the matter of wealth, the first 100, suppose, are necessary to repel hunger and thirst, and support life. The use of "this first portion is as lite to to death: the value is the greatest of all human values, including tht- capacity for all other enjoyments, for which nature "r education may have adapted the individual. What is the

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effect on the same individual of the application of a second mass, say of a second hundred, of these portions of wealth ? Nothing ecstatic, no change as from life to death; simply the addition of some of the most obvious comforts of life demanded by real convenience. The effect of these second hundred in intensity of enjoyment, is so infinitely beneath that produced by the first 100, as to be incapable of any comparison. We proceed however, and to this second we adtl a third 100, and ask \\hnt is the effect of this third equal supply? Does it produce an etmal portion of happiness with cither of the two former?- With the first, it admits of no comparison; with the, second, of very little: the first was existence, life or death ; the second, real comforts; this third, what? imaginary comforts, such as the opinions and customs around us render desirable. These are acquired by the third hundred; but they are unaccompanied with the craving recommendations of want, or even of real comforts, and are recommended by public opinion alone and doubtful utility. The recommendation of public opinion, observe, was not wanting to the two first portions, while the effect of the third 100 depends on it alone: its effect in producing happiness is therefore proportionally weak, and is much less than the second, but not, .so much less than the second as the second was less than the first. To the three lots of 100 portions each, of the matter of wealth, we add a fourth lot of the same kind. The individual is already supplied in wants, in real com forts, in comforts of opinion the most approaching to utility: how shall he apply this additional, this fourth portion? He necessarily looks out for those lighter sources of enjoyment, which hold the second rank in the opinion and customs of those around him. This process of seeking out lesser gratifications is unavoidable; for, with the previous 100 the choice was open, and those enjoyments esteemed the most desirable would naturally be selected first. This fourth addition therefore gives a still'less absolute increase to happiness than the third, but the difference between its effect and that of the third is less apparent. We now give a fifth addition of the means of enjoyment in another hundred portions of the objects of wealth. How shall this fifth mass be applied ? Wants, comforts, real and unreal, secondary conveniences, are already supplied. A search must be instituted for conveniences of a still more doubtful nature; and fancy and caprice begin their empire. The fifth addition is still less productive of absolute increase of happiness than the fourth; and if, in order to add to enjoyment, we make another addition of another hundred portions of the articles of wealth, we shall find that this sixth mass is still less

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operative than the fifth. Utility having been long ago gratified, caprice begins now to display itself in the mere changes of form or quality of the articles used, or in the acquisition of the objects of mere pomp and exhibition. An addition still decreasing is made to happiness by this sixth 100 ; and if we add a seventh, the effect on happiness will be proportionally less: till the mere habit and pleasure of accumulation becomes almost the sole influential motive to the acquisition. Every hundred added is less and less productive of absolute increase of happiness to the possessor: but the difference of effect of each addition is less and less as we recede from the first portion and the first addition; till at length an addition equal in amount to that which allayed hunger and secured existence and its capacities of enjoyment, becomes a matter of mere indifference. Such is the effect on happiness of the continued addition of successive portions containing equal quantities of the matter of wealth. The effect of the first portion is great and striking; but every succeeding portion diminishes in effect, till all expectation of increase of comfort is relinquished, and the pleasure of the occupation, of mere habit, or of skill, that is, the skill of despoiling (for the skill of industry is here out of the question), supersedes the original, rational, and useful, motives to the acquisition of wealth. The effect of every succeeding portion however, though absolutely less than that of the portion immediately preceding, is constantly differing less and less from the one before it, till the absolute additions to happiness become so small, that the difference of effect between the ninety-ninth and the hundredth portions is quite imperceptible. And it must be recollected that all these consequences follow on the supposition that the character and capacities of enjoyment of the individual receiving these additional portions remain entirely unchanged by the influence of wealth and indulgence—a supposition, which will be shown hereafter to be entirely opposite to the truth. A second and overwhelming source of the diminution of happiness expected from endless accessions of wealth will be brought to light; but which being superfluous to our present argument, is not here insisted on. We have now seen what are the additional pleasures conferred on those who enjoy the united small forced masses of wealth, abstracted from numerous contributors. If the enjoyment of the first portion which the rapacious receives, suppose, from the first of the 1000 contributors, is considerable, that, from the last of the 1000 portions, will be scarcely perceived. Now it mostly happens that the person receiving

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these 1000 portions is not in the same circumstances, is not in equal want, with those who contribute the 1000 portions: and therefore even the first portion, on him, will produce a very trifling effect in the way of pleasure, compared to the pain of the loss. And, while 'the pleasure of the gain is, as we see, diminishing with every portion added; the pain of the loss remains the same to each forced contributor, be they ever so extensive. The pleasures from everv new portion are always diminishing till they become imperceptible, while the pains of loss are the same throughout, and never decrease. Here are already fearful odds against him who forcibly abstracts the products of others' labor. But all this goes on the supposition of the first portion (if given to one in circumstances similar to those of the contributors) producing an effect in happiness gained by the enjoyer equal to that lost by the producer. The fallacy of this position was demonstrated in the last section, in which it was shown that the evils of the loss, (though abstracted by the rapacious most in need,) of the industrious producer, were as almost infinity to one when compared with the pleasures of the gain to the despoiler; the pleasures of the gain being as nothing in the comparison. The steps of our argument then are as follows, and are all facts of universal notoriety. First, the evil of the loss and its consequences to the productive laborer exceed in a degree very great, though not capable of being put down in numbers, the advantages of the gain to the rapacious, though both were in equal 'want, and though one portion only of wealth lucre taken from one producer. But, second, those who forcibly sei/.e are almost never in equal want with the producers: whence a second aggravation of the evils of the loss. Third, those who forcibly seize, take more than one portion from one producer; they take other equal portions from other producers; the evil of the loss of each portion succeeding the first remaining the same, while the pleasure of the gain is diminishing to infinity; whence a third aggravation of the evil of the loss. Fourth, we shall see hereafter that, from causes inherent in the physical and intellectual constitution of man, and in the objects and circumstances surrounding him, the capacity/or enjoyment decreases with the acquisitions of excessive wealth (that wealth only being here called excessive which is procured by any other means than those of free industry and voluntary exchanges); whence a fourth aggravation of the evil of the loss. Let us now from these data attempt a rough numerical estimate of ihe evil of the loss of small, forced, masses of

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wealth, to the producers, as compared with the benefit of the gain to him who has possessed himself of the whole. Say that the balance of pleasure lost by the productive laborer is as 1000 to one compared to the pleasure gained by the despoiler: and when we reflect on the consequences to the community, as well as the immediate feelings of the individual, in the tendency to annihilate industry and social improvement over an undefined circle, we shall rather be inclined to think this number too low than too high. This 1000 to one, however, is on the supposition of the despoiler being as much in want as the producer, which not being the case either amongst barbarous or civilized despoilers (wretched common pilferers and thieves excepted), we must double at least this 1000; for few despoilers are not at least twice as wealthy as those from whom they take: the evil of the loss thus becomes 2000 to one. But every additional portion of wealth gained by the despoiler diminishes in its effect on him till that effect becomes absolutely inappreciable, while the loss from a million of producers of the same quantity is the same to the last as to the first contributor. The aggravation of ihe evil from this cause will be plainly greater or less in proportion to the number of forced contributors. Say that the addition to the pleasures of the despoiler by the last portions is as 1000 to one compared with the pleasure the first portion gave him: it may be more or may be less. We must multiply then 2000 by 1000 to estimate the evil thus increased, and we shall find the evil of the loss to be as 2,000,000, to one in ihe case of extensive forced contributions or seizures. When to all these sources of aggravation we add the fourth, to be hereafter developed, when we find the grasping despoiler, from the very circumstances inherent in his acquisitions, pining in the midst of his means of enjoyment and no longer capable of that easy excitement to pleasure existing in the industrious from whom he has taken, and once perhaps existing in himself when like them; we shall be compelled still to reduce by one half the effect in happiness produced oil him by any one of these numerous small contributions. The proportion of two millions to which the evil had augmented, we must still multiply by two, or double it; and the grand ultimate result turns oat tie be, that the pleasure lost by the contributor of the last portion of a multitude of producers is to the pleasure gained by the forcible enjoyer of it, as four millions to one. In the use of even the jptst portion taken, his enjoyment was seen to be diminished as two thousand to one. The average of his enjoyment will therefore be the ;an between 2000 and four millions, or as 1,999,000 to a single unit. The unit is the average magnitude of the pleasure

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gained by the user of a multitude of small forced masses by each small contribution; the 999,000 is the comparative magnitude of the pleasure lost by each of the forced contributors. Our argument is no way concerned with the numerical exactness of this calculation. It is given merely to illustrate the principles advanced, which are altogether independent of any such calculation. Let these proportions of enjoyment to the productive laborer and the extensive despoiler, be reduced a thousand fold, and they will be as 1,999 to one against taking many small portions of wealth from many to gratify one. Let the proportion be still reduced a hundred fold, and the balance will still be nearly as 20 to one against the despoiler. Continue the operation and divide still these twenty by whatever number caprice may suggest, there will still always remain some product, some decimal of mischief, against him who forcibly takes: and it has been already shown that justice requires that the greater sum of happiness should be always preferred. But wherefore such concessions to injustice? The universal experience and feelings of all the thinking part of mankind, confirm abundantly the principle of our calculations to their fullest extent. Be the sum large or small, let it be a pound or a penny, of which a million are taken from a million of unconsenting productive laborers to gratify one. Does each penny or does pound give as much pleasure to the en-joyer of the whole as it would have bestowed on the industrious man, if suffered to remain with him to reward and encourage his labor ? Does the single penny or the single pound five the tenth or the hundredth part of the pleasure to the older of the million that it would have given to the producer and owner of the one? Who with human feelings and of good faith will not exclaim, " A thousand to one is the importance of such a sum to the industrious producer." But if the comparative pleasure in each case of the industrious be so very different, recollect that there are, by the supposition, one million of such cases to counterbalance the one consuming them all. It is then as ten, or as 100, or 1000, multiplied by a million of contributors, that we must estimate the loss of happiness by transferring these small portions of wealth from the million to the one. The deduction to be made for the increase of happiness by the union of the million in one hand and around one system of perceptions, is trifling, not as ten, certainly not as 100 to one: that is to say, the holder of the million does not derive ten times the happiness from the whole million that the owner of the one does from that one. Whether the involuntary contribution is a penny or a pound,

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signifies not: the principle—the comparative loss of happiness is the same. A pound will supply a considerable mass of substantial comfort, or shield off want from the productive laborer. Will a pound produce the 10th, or the 100th, or the 1000th part of this benefit to the holder of the million, that it does to the industrious, despoiled of the one. A penny will purchase a little luxury of enjoyment, fruit, sugar, &c. vividly felt bv the industrious producer. Will this penny produce the JOth, the 100th, or the 1000th part of this vivid pleasure to die holder of the million pennies ? The principle then remains the same whatever be the amount of the sum abstracted from the producers of wealth. The evil may be truly said to be as millions, almost as infinity to one. No doubt if a million of pounds, taken from the industrious, instead of being consumed by one despoiler, were shared amongst ten, or a hundred, or amongst a thousand, each having .£1000, the enjoyment arising from the abstraction—the whole amount remaining the same—would be increased the more in proportion to the division. The evil of the suffering however would remain exactly the same. The mass of enjoyment on the part of the whole of the despoilers, will be increased till their number is extended to that of the despoiled, one gaming exactly what the other loses—the case illustrated in the last section. In point of fact, a large sum never is or can be levied from one individual,—the injustice would be too palpable and flagrant; while on the other hand a very small sum cannot be divided amongst many, being limited by the trouble and expense of the collection. The smallest sum must be so large as to be worth gathering, to be felt as a gain by the user of it, while of course it is in a greater ratio felt as a loss by the producer losing it. There is no gain ever so small, worth the trouble of receiving, by the abstraction of which an indefinitely greater quantity of happiness is not lost by the loser than can be gained by the acquirer: for, let the forced object be in itself absolutely worthless, the pain of invohtntariness remains without compensation to the loser, with all the evils of, " insecurity," resulting from it. But, such vexation not being worth the risk and the expense, some substantial value is always superadded to the abstraction. It appears then that our position is entirely established. The lightening of the pressure of forced abstraction, by means of division and diffusion is a mere delusion. Where the desire with the power of forcible abstraction exists, the process !« diffused as the producers increase, and the largest quantity tnat can with prudence be withdrawn from each and every one

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of them, is the only limit to the demand. The principle of security, in its branch of voluntary transfer, once violated, there is no other limit to oppression than the caprice of the rapacious, whether the spoliation is supported by laws or decrees, or by them marked out for punishment.

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