ever personally degrading, they are comparatively innoxious. Economy, order, and punctuality, are cardinal virtues in the industrious; in the wealthy they are of secondary consideration: they are vices in all, but poverty and destruction to some.

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It is not necessary to run into an ethical disquisition, for there is no dearth of moral teachers: most men know the obligations of virtue, only they want fortitude to practise them. This can only be acquired by the formation of good habits, and a firm resolution not to incur great permanent evils for slight momentary enjoyments, and these again must be the result of sound education.

The third and last consideration is the influence of MANNERS on social happiness. The usages of society have established certain forms, founded on experience of their utility, to regulate the ordinary intercourse of individuals. Though neglect of these forms is not so great an evil as a violation of the laws, or of morals, still they cannot be disregarded without mutual inconvenience and annoyance. The pleasures and occupations of the higher classes resulting chiefly from social intercourse, the rules of politeness established among them are more numerous and more scrupulously observed than among the industrious orders; but no class can disregard them with impunity. Among all a mutual deference and reciprocity of feeling are essential to enjoyment. A person rude in nature, arrogant and assuming, indifferent to the comforts and conveniences of others, must be a nuisance which every

one would be desirous to shun or abate. Those who do not sufficiently appreciate the value of the minor virtues, have only to test them by experience, and contrast the relative advantages of a neglect and observance of them in society: the one is all strife, contradiction, selfishness, and assumption; the other agreeableness, concord, and at least the semblance of disinterestedness-one is peace, the other war, on the domestic hearth.

In manners, as other things, extremes are to be avoided. The object of politeness, as well as laws and morals, is utility. Useless restraints then are to be shunned. Liberty is itself an enjoyment, and no restriction on it should be imposed merely for the sake of an unprofitable etiquette, but only for some compensating advantage. If men were all virtuous, laws would be unnecessary; if they were all rational and disinterested, there would be no need of forms of politeness: the obligations of the former are imposed to restrain the vicious and violent, and of the latter the selfish and low-minded.

In order to avoid running into commonplace remarks on such old-fashioned topics, I shall conclude with two observations. The first is, that though laws appear to claim the highest attention in every well-ordered community, yet they are not so vitally interesting to the bulk of society as morals and manners. Many persons, during a long life, never become obnoxious to the laws in any capacity; they never violate them, neither have they occasion to enforce them against any individual. To them

the whole apparatus of courts, magistrates, and judicial procedure are a dead letter; they benefit, it is true, from the protection they afford, but their own personal conduct is quite unaffected by their operations. Can the same be said of morals and manners? Certainly not. No one can pass through life without being gratified or annoyed by the good or ill demeanour of his neighbours, friends, and acquaintance. The relative importance then of laws, morals, and manners, must be evident; good laws are of contingent benefit to some; correct morals and manners of interest to all. The second observation applies to the different powers for enforcing the several obligations we have been considering. Laws are enforced by the state; morals and manners by individuals; a breach of one is penal, the other only disgraceful; fear upholds one, honour the other. These different species of coercion readily account for the different degrees of restraint imposed by laws and manners, on the mean and high-minded, the cultivated and uncultivated portions of mankind.

CHAP. VII.

RIGHTS OF PROPERTY.

IN the cultivation of the earth, two modes may be adopted; either it may be cultivated in common or individually; the disadvantage of the former is that it makes no distinction between the weak and strong, the idle and industrious: for superior exertion and ability there is no superior reward. Under this system, the world would not be reclaimed-men will not willingly labour for others; to stimulate exertion, rewards must in some degree be proportioned to desert. Appropriation, therefore, or the right of every one to enjoy the produce of his industry, became necessary to the effective cultivation of the earth; each man having a portion of land allotted to him in which he vested his labour, became entitled to its produce. This was probably the foundation of property in the soil. By its introduction, no man's natural rights can be said to have been extinguished or encroached upon; the earth before lay common to all, but unprofitable to all-by appropriation it has been made valuable to all. Farther than this it does not appear necessary to inquire into the origin of the rights of property; their obvious utility must have forced themselves on every people on first emerging from the barbarous state.

A state of society in which there is equality of possessions, in which each man tills his own land, and raises the food and clothing necessary to his

wants, appears at first sight very fascinating. It favours that feeling of independence so dear to the human heart. But if we reflect on the tendency of such a mode of social or rather anti-social existence, we shall find it pregnant with misery.

In the first place, the mere labour of society would be greatly augmented. As each person's means would not exceed his current necessities, they would not exceed the amount essential to the maintenance of himself and family, the idea of capitalists is precluded, and consequently no expedient for saving labour by machinery or otherwise, could be employed. All would be engaged in spade husbandry or other manual occupation. Such a disadvantageous mode of exertion would obviously be very unproductive; it would yield none of the luxuries, and barely the comforts, of life; people would hardly be better off than the cotter peasantry of Ireland, or the pauper colonists of Holland; and the whole of society would be literally brought under the primitive curse inflicted on our first parents. If the physical wants were supplied with so much difficulty, the mental ones would be totally neglected. As each would be fully occupied in providing sustenance, there would be no spare time to any for intellectual pursuits. If science, philosophy, and the arts had existed, they would speedily fall into disuse and oblivion. Ignorance and barbarism would overspread the land. Men would become unacquainted with themselves and with the natural phenomena by which they are surrounded. Their past