the electors might change their representatives sooner than at present if they found them not fitted for the task intrusted them. But, again, it should be considered that every function must be studied and practised. A member who is not fitted for parliamentary purposes in the first or even in the second year, may acquire the necessary qualities in the course of a longer period, and then develop his hitherto unknown talents. As parliament assembled at the end of the mournful year 1847, the result of their very long session was very little. In the present session, more active spirit has been developed, and praiseworthy attempts for the general welfare made. If such men were longer in function, the golden time of British parliaments might return with Percivals, Wilberforces, Burdetts, &c.; but if they are altered after a year's time, it will really be a pity for such eminent talents as the above to be stifled at their birth, and a new education of members to be made. 171 and 172. Representatives should be worthy of sitting at the Rudder of Government. The time which Alfred prophecied arrived six hundred years ago; during which, the people were more or less able to govern themselves, and the representatives more or less worthy of sitting at the rudder of government. Our purpose in publishing this little work is free from any self or factious interest; and it is to awaken the sacred original principles, and remind the representatives by warnings, to be at all times "worthy to sit at the rudder of government;" for Montesquieu, who bestows the greatest praise upon the British constitution, concludes thus:"Comme toute les choses humaines ont une fin, l'état dont nous parlons perdra sa liberté, il périra. Rome, Lacédémone et Carthage ont bien péri. Il périra lorsque la puissance législative sera plus corrompue que l'éxécutrice." The same opinion is expressed by Sir. T. Mortimer in the following words:-"If ministerial influence in parliament should prevail so far as constantly to assure a majority in the House of Commons in favour of every measure indiscriminately, which the reigning administration thinks proper to adopt and to persist in, then farewell to the political preeminence of the British empire! for glory dwells not with slaves, but increases or diminishes with the liberty of the people." 338 BOOK VI. 173. Othar's Voyages. Haller has joined to Othar's real voyages those to the shores of East Greenland and Spitzbergen, which were effected by Wulfstan. Both are positively authentic, although he pretends not to have taken them from Othar's own description, Whether Alfred's work was the source wherefrom he derived his knowledge, or whether there are other authentic works on Othar's voyages, may be explained better by those learned in the Anglo-Saxon history, which we do not pretend to be. 174. Othar's success in obtaining Ships for his Voyages. Othar was animated by his prophetical ideas, like Columbus in a similar circumstance. We cannot suppose him to have been gifted with more eloquence than the genial and instructed Columbus, and must therefore attribute to Alfred's enlightened mind that Othar had not to apply to all the different sovereigns in Europe before he succeeded in obtaining a few ships for his great undertaking. 175 & 176. Sociality in a State of Nature. In a former note we have already explained the state o society in that of nature. Here, however, we see that of sociality and equality practised in its original purity; but we doubt whether such a kind of social living, produced rather by bestiality than by philosophy, might be transferred to more populous countries and warmer climates, where passion prevails over stoicity. 177. Cruelty practised towards Children. This custom, as cruel as it is, is even surpassed by the Chinese, who kill a number of their children when they cannot bring them up. The latter cannot be excused, as their country is far more civilized than that of these savages, and because they are enlightened by wholesome laws. The shadow of justification for such cruelty, which lies in the scarcity of food in these overpopulated dominions, cannot be admitted as a sufficient reason for such cruelty; for, were we to do so, how could we, with justice, condemn similar actions in European countries. 66 178. Marriages and Filial Piety. Marriages are just as constant and harmonizing as with other nations." That depends upon what other nations Haller meant. Probably not the French or Italians; but the German and English. We do not, however, know whether the soft sounding word, "harmony," can at all be applied to married life, and whether "unity" would not be more appropriate, as so many disonancies in married life prevent the effection of any complete harmony. The reason why unfertility is despised is very well explained. The "Sacred Edict" says: "Bring up a child, and then you will know the kindness of a father and mother." "Filial pity is [founded on] the unalterable statutes of heaven, the corresponding operation of earth, and the common obligations of all people. Have those who are void of filial piety never reflected on the natural affection of parents to their children ?" "The son of man that would recompense one in ten thousand of the favours of his parents, should at home exhaust his whole heart, abroad exert his whole strength." 179. Origin of Property. แ Superfluity forms there the only difference which raises one man above another." The superfluity alluded to is pecuniary; and whoever contests that right to superfluity also contests the right to property. A celebrated French political author lately wrote a treatise on property, wherein he does not reach Locke, who speaks on this subject as follows: "God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life and convenience. The earth, and all that is therein, is given to men for the support and comfort of their being. And though all the fruits it naturally produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are produced by the spontaneous hand of nature; and nobody has originally a private dominion, exclusive of the rest of mankind, in any of them, as they are thus in their natural state: yet being given for the use of men, there must of necessity be a means to appropriate them some way or other before they can be of any use, or at all beneficial to any pacticular man. The fruit, or venison, which nourishes the wild Indian, who knows no inclosure, and is still a tenant in common, must be his, and so his, i. e. a part of him, that another can no longer have any right to it, before it can do him any good for the support of his life. "Though the earth, and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men. For this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others. “He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself. Nobody can deny but the nourishment is his. I ask then, When did they begin to be his? When he digested? Or when he ate? Or when he boiled? Or when he brought them home? Or when he picked them up? And it is plain, if the first gathering made them not his, nothing else could. That labour put a distinction between them and common. That added something to them more than nature, the common mother of all, had done; and so they became his private right. And will any one say he had no right to those acorns or apples he thus appropriated, because he had not the consent of all mankind to make them his? Was it a robbery thus to assume to himself what belonged to all in common? If such a consent as that was necessary, man had starved, notwithstanding the plenty God had given him. We see in commons, which remain so by compact, that it is the taking any part of what is common, and removing it out of the state nature leaves it in, which begins the property; without which the common is of no use. And the taking of this or that part, does not depend on the express consent of all the commoners. Thus the grass my horse has bit; the turfs my servant has cut; and the ore I have digged in any place, where I have a right to them in common with others, become my property, without the assignation or consent of anybody. The labour that was mine, removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them. 66 By making an explicit consent of every commoner, necessary to any one's appropriating to himself any part of what is given in common, children or servants could not cut the meat which their father or master had provided for them in common, without assigning to every one his peculiar part. Though the water running in the fountain be every one's, yet who can doubt but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it out? His labour hath taken it out of the hands of nature where it was common, and hath thereby appropriated it to himself" 180. History of Five Robinson Crusoes. This history of a steersman (whose name is said to have been Himkoff) and his companions, is quite authentic. 181. Infancy of Man. "Children," says Locke, are not born in the full state of equality [of men] though they are born to it. Their parents have a sort of rule and jurisdiction over them when they come into the world, and for some time after, but it is but a temporary one. The bonds of this subjection are like the swaddling clothes they are wrapped up in, and supported by in the weakness of their infancy. Age and reason as they grow up, loosen them till at length they drop quite off, and leave a man at his own own free disposal. 66 66 Adam," continues Locke, as a tradition of the holy scriptures, was created as a perfect man. His body and mind in full possession of their strength and reason, and so was capable from the first instant of his being to provide for his own support and preservation, and govern his actions according to the dictates of the law of reason God had implanted in him. From him the world is peopled with his descendants, who are all born infants, weak and helpless, without knowledge or understanding. But to supply the defects of this imperfect state, till the improvement of growth and age hath improved them, Adam and Eve, and after them all parents were by the law of nature under an obligation to preserve, nourish, and educate the children they had begotten, not as their own workmanship, but the |