perfection which marked the commencement of

its career.

The first step in the acquisition of wealth is a recognition of the rights of property. These rights are not factitious; they do not exist by virtue of any social compact; they are inherent in our nature, and all they ask from us is a recognition of their validity. No doctrine in the compass of social science is more important than this. It is the key-stone of the arch which conducts us across the foaming abyss of chaos, and lands us on the rock of order. Deny these rights, and society falls to pieces; admit them, and little more than their consistent application is required to raise it to the highest state of material well-being.

A recognition of the rights of property tends to the acquisition of wealth, by insuring to every man the fruits of his own labour. Selfinterest is the mainspring of social life. The mechanic, the merchant, the capitalist all agree in this, each consults his own welfare, each asks, "What will be most profitable to myself?" and this determines the fate of every transaction. All the exchanges at this moment taking place in the various marts of Europe, have been arranged in the full confidence that they will prove advantageous to both the parties concerned, and a reasonable doubt of this on either side would have prevented them from being made. In contemplating the movements of selfinterest, we stand in the engine-house of the world, and behold the power which moves a

large portion of the machinery of human affairs. It is not our object now to vindicate this principle; we believe it, as we have before said, when regulated by Christian principle, to be legitimate and most beneficent: but let us simply look to facts. What merchant would sit up early and late in his counting-house if he knew that at the year's end he was not to have the disposal of the fruits of his toil? What operative would rise cheerfully at the sound of the factory bell, stint his meal hours, and perhaps work on till near midnight, if he had no hope of receiving proportionably higher wages? What prudent farmer would spend all his capital in improving his land, if he knew he should be deprived of it at the next rent-day? Such conduct would, under ordinary circumstances, be in the highest degree unreasonable.

Since the chief motive to labour arises from the prospect of owning its results, whatever • tends to promote the security of property may be regarded as a source of wealth. The stronger the guarantee afforded that whoever expends his labour in any enterprise shall reap its fruits, the likelier is it that society will grow richer. To the superior stability of every species of right in free states may we ascribe the commercial eminence they have generally attained. Enterprise shrinks into inactivity beneath the touch of despotic power. Naboth's vineyard was lost when it attracted the cupidity of Ahab; and it is mentioned as a rare instance of mag

nanimity in an absolute sovereign that Frederic the Great of Prussia permitted a windmill to stand within sight of the royal palace, out of deference to the owner. The peasantry of Wallachia are said to exist in a state of the most abject wretchedness, and yet it is believed that most of them have a hoard of gold in the vicinity of their dwellings. They are driven to wear this show of poverty by the extortionate conduct of their governors, whose tenure of office depends upon the amount of money they are able to wring from the people. It is instructive to reflect that, while money is thus suffered to lie unproductive beneath the soil, the Danube, which flows in the immediate neighbourhood, is almost unnavigable for want of capital. But it is not political corruption alone which, by rendering property insecure, prevents the acquisition of wealth; faction, revolutions, wars, crime, will produce the same effect. So also will those social arrangements which prevent the outlay of capital, by withholding proper security for its remuneration.

After the rights o. property have been recognised, the next step in the acquisition of wealth is the appropriation of the soil. It has been found that wherever the land is held in common, no considerable improvement takes place in the condition of the people. Tribes who depend for their subsistence upon the earth's raw produce, retain the same savage character for ages; while those who settle upon and cultivate some one spot soon become civi

lized. The New Englander enjoyed no advantage over the aboriginal tribes of North America; the climate and geographical peculiarities of the country were the same to all. yet while our Anglo-Saxon brethren have grown in two centuries to the proportions of a great nation, the native population has become all but extinct. One reason of this is obvious. The Saxon proceeded at once to a division of the land, giving every man a fixed portion to possess and cultivate, while the Indian still retains the nomadic habits of his ancestors. A country whose inhabitants subsist on its spontaneous produce, must be very thinly peopled. This single fact is full of gloomy inferences. Scarcely any intercourse can take place among such a people; the very law of their existence is separation, the presence of any considerable number at the same spot being absolutely forbidden by the capacities of the soil. Thus forcibly held asunder, they soon become positively hostile to each other; strangers to the cementing influence of fellowship in productive industry, they resemble two beasts of prey contending for the same heap of offal. But these evils are not the worst; we discover a truly tragic depth of misery in the necessity which exists for a constant curtailment of the population, so as to keep it within the limits fixed by a scarcity of food, for it is well remarked by Adam Smith, that although poverty tends, in the first instance, to multiply rather than diminish the human species, yet it is extremely

unfavourable to the rearing of them to maturity. The thinness of the population in a poor country proves, not that fewer in proportion are born, but that a greater number die.

The importance of the appropriation of the soil, considered as a step in social progress, springs from the fact that all our wealth is derived ultimately from this source. The most necessary articles of subsistence, such as wheat, rice, and potatoes, are the immediate fruits of agriculture. Good pasturage is necessary to supply us with milk, cheese, and the various kinds of animal food. We should soon have no skins, no leather, no woollen clothing, no beasts of burden, if there were no vegetable produce. Flax, cotton, tea, coffee, are derived from the same source, and without the mulberry-tree the silkworm would soon perish. The most splendid furniture with which our drawingrooms are adorned, may be traced to its home in the forest or the mine; our fairest crystals once lay hid in the obscurity of sand and rock. Even the treasures of genius, themselves drawn from a higher source, must be unhoarded by earthen instruments. The poet's pen was once a goose's quill, the artist's pencil is drawn from the camel's hide; and the very material to whose care the painter consigns his imperishable productions once waved in the cotton-fields of Georgia, or gambolled on a sheep's back among sunshine and flowers. Imagine these varied gifts of the earth withdrawn, and how wretched would our condition