fail in obtaining them. And we thus acquire a primary measure of national happiness-independent of the aggregate amount of wealth in its possession-which cannot but be of service in the study of the domestic economy of communities.

The inference we deduce from this position is, that the first economical object with every government ought to be the securing to every individual member of the community it regulates, the means of comfortable subsistence in return for his labour, and the certainty of its continuance; and that until this is effected, no general augmentation of the national wealth-no signs of increased luxury among the higher or middle classes-no swelling of the import or export lists, or other supposed tests of national prosperity, can be depended on. The increase of wealth may add to the means of gratification of the few who have already more than they can possibly enjoy, but it may be accompanied by a falling off in the means of the many, who even now have less than the minimum necessary to save them from positive suffering.

Under such circumstances-and they are found not in this only, but, with the exception of the United States and some of our colonies, in nearly all civilized countries—the aim of the economical policy of their rulers should be, not simply to obtain the greatest possible production of wealth, but to obtain it in such a shape, and by such means, as will distribute the greatest possible share of it among the greatest number of people—so as to afford to each individual, at least, a sufficiency for his comfortable subsistence.

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How this great object is to be accomplishedwhat are the steps which should be taken to promote so desirable a state of things, can only be discovered by a study of the natural laws which determine the production and distribution of wealth, and particularly of those things which compose the necessaries of subsistence and the primary comforts of life. To this study we now proceed.

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CHAPTER III.'

Conditions of the Production of Wealth-The Institution of private Property-Labour-Land-Capital.

It appears that man has everywhere and always from the first traces we possess of his history, laboured in the production of wealth on that simple principle of appropriation, which, as we have seen, is the natural foundation of the right to property;—namely, that whatever an individual creates or redeems from a state of nature by his labour, is his, and ought to be at his sole disposal.

In some rare instances, however, this principle of private property has been exchanged for that of a community of goods between all the members of a society. But the experiment may be pronounced to have never succeeded in practice. Indeed, it will appear upon reflection to be irreconcilable with the most elementary principles of human nature. One of the strongest of these is the desire of individual appropriation. Sympathy is no doubt a very powerful sentiment; but it is provided by Nature, with a view, as we may well believe, to the preservation of the species, that the instinct of self-gratification should, for the most part, prevail over it. In the common phrase, one's-self stands as number one. In the extremity of want or danger this instinct betrays itself most conspicuously. Next to a

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man's own self, in his estimation, usually stand his children, his parents, and the wife of his bosom. These are almost a part of himself; and their gratification is nearly as strong a motive for exertion as his own. But the sentiment becomes diluted by an attempt to expand it over a wide circle. And it is certain that, as a general rule, man will not labour for others than his immediate family, or for the increase of any common fund to be shared in alike by the members of a large community, with anything like the zest and willingness, the assiduity and perseverance, with which he will toil for himself.

Even within the limits of a family circle the same rule holds good among those who have attained to an age rendering them capable of labour. History presents us with many examples, and some are yet to be found existing, of patriarchal families in which all the members, comprehending several generations, labour for one common fund. But though these instances frequently offer engaging pictures of domestic happiness, yet it is certain that such communities have been rarely, if ever, observed to make any advance in the arts of production or the accumulation of wealth, or even to increase in numbers; but are found to stagnate in a condition barely removed above want, until something occurs by which they are broken up, and the strong stimulus of individual gratification is substituted for the less cogent one of the general benefit.

An additional objection to a community of property is that it necessarily puts an end to all individual liberty of choice as to the direction

or amount of labour. Each labourer must have his specific task allotted to him by some superior power established for the purpose, which task he must be compelled to execute under pain of some forfeiture or privation. But we have already shown that to encourage the utmost productiveness of labour, as well as to render it pleasurable, the labourer must be left free to choose both the nature and quantity of his work.

It is the neglect of these principles which is even now betraying many ardent and benevolent investigators of the public happiness into signal and mischievous absurdities. The followers of Owen in this country, and of St. Simon in France, with other similar sects which are spreading through Germany and the United States of America, struck by the remarkable fact that the vast advance made of late years by civilised nations in the arts of production, though it has increased the wealth of a few, has added proportionately little to the share of enjoyment that falls to the great body of the people, whose labour is the primary instrument of all production-have hastily jumped to the conclusion that, in order to ensure the more equal distribution of the products of industry, all that is wanting is a new arrangement of society on the basis of a community of property. Now nothing can look more pleasing upon paper, or sound more enchantingly in a lecture upon social happiness, than a proposal to put an end to all the struggles of individual competition, and the painful contrast of contiguous wealth and poverty-to substitute love, friendship, and common enjoyment, for hatred, jealousy, and