previous one. Take the Railway Clearing-House for an example. Hence it is not too much to expect that under the pressure of social necessity, and the stimulus of self-interest, satisfactory modes of meeting all such difficulties would be discovered.

However, any doubts which may still be entertained on the point do not militate against our general principle. It is clear that the restriction put upon the liberty of trade, by forbidding private letter-carrying establishments, is a breach of State-duty. It is also clear that were that restriction abolished, a natural postal system would eventually grow up, could it surpass in efficiency our existing one. And it is further clear that if it could not surpass it, the existing system might rightly continue; for, as at first said, the fulfilment of postal functions by the State is not intrinsically at variance with the fulfilment of its essential function.

The execution by Government of what are commonly called public works, as lighthouses, harbours of refuge, &c., implying, as it does, the imposition of taxes for other purposes than maintaining men's rights against foreign and domestic foes, is as much forbidden by our definition of State-duty as is a system of national education, or a religious establishment. Nor is this unavoidable inference really an inconvenient one; however much it may at first seem so. The agency by which these minor wants of society are now satisfied, is not the only agency competent to satisfy them. Wherever there exists a want, there will also exist an impulse to get it fulfiled; and this impulse is sure, eventually, to produce action. In the present case, as in others, that which is beneficial to the community as a whole, it will become the private interest of some part of the community to accomplish. And as this private interest has been so efficient a provider of roads, canals, and railways, there is no reason why it should not be an equally efficient provider of harbours of refuge, Kighthouses, and all analogous appliances. Even were there

no classes whose private interests would be obviously subserved by executing such works, this inference might still be defended. But there are such classes. Ship-owners and merchants have a direct and ever-waking motive to diminish the dangers of navigation; and were they not taught by custom to look for State-aid, would themselves quickly unite to establish safeguards. Or, possibly, they would be anticipated by a combination of Marine Insurance Offices (themselves protective institutions originated by self-interest). But inevitably, in some way or other, the numerousness of the parties concerned and the largeness of the capital at stake, would guarantee the taking of all requisite precautions. That enterprize which built the docks of London, Liverpool, and Birkenhead-which is enclosing the Wash-which so lately bridged the Atlantic by steam-and which is now laying down the electric telegraph across the Channel-might safely be trusted to provide against the contingencies of coast-navigation.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.

SOCIAL philosophy may be aptly divided (as political economy has been) into statics and dynamics; the first treating of the equilibrium of a perfect society, the second of the forces by which society is advanced towards perfection.* To determine what laws we must obey for the obtainment of complete happiness is the object of the one; while that of the other is to analyze the influences which are making us competent to obey these laws. Hitherto we have concerned ourselves chiefly with the statics, touching on the dynamics only occasionally for purposes of elucidation. Now, however, the dynamics claim special attention. Some of the phenomena of progress already referred to need further explanation, and many others associated with them remain to be noticed. There are also sundry general considerations not admissible into foregoing chapters, which may here be fitly included.

And first let us mark that the course of civilization could not have been other than it has been. Given an unsubdued Earth; given the being-Man, fitted to overspread and

occupy

I had seen this division of Political Economy in the work of Mr. J. S. Mill, where he refers to it as having been made by some one-a political economist I supposed. In the above sentence I assumed that I was giving the division a wider application; whereas it appears that I was simply giving to it the original application made by M. Comte. But at that time Comte was to me only a name.

it; given the laws of life what they are; and no other series of changes than that which has taken place, could have taken place.

Each member of a race fulfilling the conditions to greatest happiness, must be so constituted that he may obtain full satisfaction for every desire without diminishing the power of others to obtain like satisfactions: nay, must derive pleasure from seeing pleasure in others. Now, for such beings to multiply in a world tenanted by inferior creaturescreatures which must be dispossessed to make room—is a manifest impossibility. By the definition, such beings would lack all desire to exterminate the races they are to supplant. They would, indeed, have a repugnance to exterminating them; for the ability to derive pleasure from seeing pleasure, involves the liability to derive pain from seeing pain. Evidently, therefore, these hypothetical beings, instead of subjugating and overspreading the Earth, would themselves become the prey of pre-existing creatures, in which destructive desires predominated. Hence the aboriginal man must have a character fitting him to clear it of races endangering his life, and races occupying the space required by mankind. He must have a desire to kill; for it is the law of animal life that to every needful act must attach a gratification, the desire for which may serve as a stimulus. In other words, he must be what we call a savage; and must be left to acquire fitness for social life as fast as the conquest of the Earth renders social life possible.

Whoever thinks that men might have full sympathy with their fellows, while lacking all sympathy with inferior creatures, will discover his error on looking at the facts. The Indian whose life is spent in the chase, delights in torturing his brother man as much as in killing game. His sons are schooled into fortitude by long days of torment, and his squaw made prematurely old by hard treatment. Among partially-civilized nations the two characteristics have ever borne the same relationship. Thus the spectators in the

Roman amphitheatres were as much delighted by the slaying of gladiators as by the death-struggles of wild beasts. The ages during which Europe was thinly peopled, and hunting a chief occupation, were also the ages of feudal violence, universal brigandage, dungeons, tortures. Here in England a whole province depopulated to make game a preserve, and a law sentencing to death the serf who killed a stag, show that great activity of the predatory instinct and utter indifference to human happiness coexisted. In later days, when bull-baiting and cock-fighting were common pastimes, the penal code was far more severe than now; prisons were full of horrors; men put in the pillory were maltreated by the populace; and the inmates of lunatic asylums, chained naked to the wall, were exhibited for money, and tormented for the amusement. of visitors. Conversely, among ourselves a desire to diminish human misery is accompanied by a desire to ameliorate the condition of inferior creatures. While the kindlier feeling of men is seen in all varieties of philanthropic effort-in charitable societies, in associations for improving the dwellings of the labouring classes, in anxiety for popular education, in attempts to abolish capital punishment, in zeal for temperance reform, in ragged schools, in endeavours to protect climbing boys, in inquiries concerning "labour and the poor," in emigration funds, in the milder treatment of children, and so on-it also shows itself in societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, in Acts of Parliament to put down the use of dogs for purposes of draught, in the condemnation of battues, in the late inquiry why the pursuers of a stag should not be punished as much as the carter who maltreats his horse, and lastly, in vegetarianism. Moreover, to make the evidence complete, we have the fact that men partially adapted to the social state, retrograde on being placed in circumstances which call forth the old propensities. The barbarizing of colonists, who live under aboriginal conditions, is universally remarked. The back settlers of America, among whom unpunished murders, rifle duels,