required by man, yet we have to discern how much has been and is now required on the part of man, in connection with it, to increase and extend its utility for purposes of food, clothing, and for many other important purposes.

On taking a survey, then, of the actual state of things that exists around us, we see, on the one hand, the immense fund of materials with which the earth abounds; and we see, on the other hand, the immense amount of change, of transposition, transformation, and modification, that man has wrought on these materials for the purpose of adapting them to his wants. There is, then, primarily, the fund provided in nature; and there is, secondarily, the fund derived from and separated from the natural fund, and made fit for the use of man. This has been done, and must continue to be done, by the Labour of man; labour, the application of man's hands, or the exercise of the faculty of his body, directed by intelligence or the application of the faculty of his mind. The whole natural fund implies an Originator, or Creator; the other, or the artificial fund, implies an Appropriator, or Proprietor, an Originator and Creator of a second degree. Man has, therefore, to learn the economy of nature, or the character and adaptability of all that fund which is especially supplied for him by the Creator; and he has to superintend and conduct the economy of art; to learn and understand the character and adaptability of that fund which is procured by him, that is, by means of the exercise of his faculties, or his labour. Now, it is obvious that the duty resting upon him who undertakes to investigate and explain the science of Social and Political Economy, is that of showing correctly and clearly the courses by which all the materials provided in nature are to be made to serve the purpose intended, this purpose being the sustenance and comfort of man, and also those improve

ments of the human condition which are ranked under the head of the superior conveniences, the elegancies, and the luxuries of life.

In investigating and explaining the science, care has to be taken that the first or chief object involved by it is not deserted and sacrificed for the sake of the second object; the first or chief object being that of realising the necessary sustenance and common comfort of all men or families; the second being that of realising the higher condition which involves the superior conveniences, the elegancies, and the luxuries of life. The true scientific course, therefore, is that of preserving diffusion or distribution, as the primary object; accumulation, as the secondary object; for he who takes the course, of sacrificing the sustenance and common comfort of some men, for the purpose of bestowing the superior conveniences, the elegancies, and the luxuries of life on other men, or who sacrifices the principle leading to distribution for that leading to accumulation, engages in the unscientific and bad course of sacrificing the lives of the many for the purpose of bestowing refinements, elegancies, and luxuries, on the few. He departs from, degrades, and attempts to falsify, the economy of Nature; he deranges and destroys the just economy of Art.

On viewing the three distinct agencies which the constitution of man comprises: namely, the material or bodily the intellectual or mental -- and the spiritual-it will be evident that each of these agencies should have its due sustainment and operation; and upon entering on the consideration of the numerous and important subjects which are included in the science of Social Economy, and which the capacities of man are designed for fulfilling, it will be apparent that these agencies must be brought into combined and continuous action; for the laws, or the courses of action,

which social science involves, are those on which an all-wise and beneficent Creator has ordained that the temporal or material condition of mankind shall depend. The great object, therefore, which is to be accomplished in that branch of scientific investigation on which I am now about to enter, is that of affording an elucidation of these laws.

In order to effect this, and by a method at once simple, clear, and accurate, I will commence by means of the smallest premises possible, that is, I will begin at the beginning and reason upwards, for then, every step, or induction, being viewed in a very narrow compass, or separately, may, with facility, be well and accurately tested; and this course, if observed, will insure that no error be admitted, the result being that a true general principle will be discovered and immovably established.

When our minds are led to reflect, in the first instance, upon the originally destitute condition of man, and upon his procreative, active, and intelligent nature; and, in the next, upon the passive nature of the matter which the world presents for his use, we perceive, that the physical portion of the subject of which I have here undertaken to treat, consists of a constantly progressive series of things. Now, of such a series, there must, of necessity, have been an origin, and this origin must have existed, or been concentred, in a principle of unity. It will be necessary, therefore, to treat, in the first place, of this origin or unity, in order that its true nature having been discovered, explained, and proved, the issues or deductions which form the series of things, may be correctly carried on throughout the numerous changes and appropriations of matter which constitute the development.

I will now proceed to treat of the subject-matter itself. Man has been placed upon the earth by his Creator without anything in possession, but with a capacity for procuring an

unlimited variety. His labour is the instrument by which all things are to be procured, as it is declared in Holy Writing, "in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." The earth, with all its materials and productions, is the field on which his labour is to be exerted. With the great and exalted power of providing or creating matter and sustaining it, man has nothing to do. The sphere assigned for him is that of acting upon, or modifying, the matter created and given. He is free within a wide and ample circle, but the bounds of this circle he cannot pass.

The first thing necessary for sustaining the bodily part of man's constitution is food, for without food he must quickly perish. His first care, therefore, must have been that of procuring food. It is evident that if God had not so arranged, that matter, adapted to appease hunger and to sustain life, had been of easy and quick acquirement, the preservation of the race of man never could have taken place; for there must, of necessity, be a limited space of time during which man can live without food. I will suppose, for the purpose of establishing the grounds of my argument, that the space of time is sixty hours. Now, in this case, it would be necessary that food be acquired within this period of time. If, by any accident, the power of acquiring it should be placed beyond, or extended to the period of sixty-one hours, life must become extinct. The fact, however, of the preservation of the species, proves that the matter adapted for sustaining life, though it may have been scantily possessed or acquired at first, must, nevertheless, have been sufficient for the purpose, and ordained not only to exist, and to precede life itself, but also to be capable of being procured within a given space of time.

If, in the state of things just described, man should have been able to procure only sufficient food for his own wants, his species could not have increased. This, however, was not

the case, as his toil must have been rewarded with more than was sufficient for his own sustenance, by which means he was enabled to administer to the wants of others. By continued application to the same sources, he must soon have procured even more than was sufficient for his own family, and thus a store was collected, by which he acquired the power of commencing an exchange, that is, traffic or barter. But as this first step from the simple state of individual animal life, to the complex state of social existence and compact, is a most important advancement, the state of facts which constitutes the fulfilment, and by which the character of social law is exhibited, requires to be most carefully and closely traced.

From what I have already advanced, this first and most important proposition is established, namely, that an increase of means must PRECEDE an increase of species; and in order to obtain and keep in view a right notion of the welfare of any society of people, and, by parity of reasoning, of all mankind, this proposition must never for a moment be lost sight of. We know, by experience, that the tendency of man's nature is that of constantly increasing his species; and we know, both by our own experience and by correct reasoning, that this increase should be preceded by a constant increase of the means of supporting it.

I desire to lay most particular stress upon the proposition by which this law of precedence is established, or that of keeping the means of sustaining population always beforehand, or ahead of population, because, although this law has been especially noticed and admitted by many writers on the science, yet when it has become necessary to proceed amidst multiplied and intricate calculations, this all-important law has been, in every instance, neglected and deserted; and hence is to be traced the intromission of a great portion of the