dispose of part, if not the whole, of their landed estates. In proportion as this is effected, they merge into the middle class. Accordingly, there is a constant flow from the upper and lower lake into the middle, to the increase of the latter at the expense of the two former.

In tracing the progress of civilisation, it is scarcely possible to attach too much importance to the middle class, and to its influence over public opinion. Wherever the impulse inherent in man to improve his condition has free scope, as it will have in a country blessed with liberal institutions and equality of laws, a middle class must necessarily become the most powerful in the community.

This may be considered as nearly the most perfect state of civilisation. Let us now proceed to glance at the several conditions of society in the gradual approach to this consummation.

The most debased condition in which human nature can be placed, is where man, little elevated above the brute, depends for his subsistence on the scanty means derived from the chase, from fishing, or from the produce of the earth without cultivation, which, except between the tropics, must have

been precarious: not being possessed of effective mechanical instruments, his chance of success against the beasts of the field, or produce of the sea, was always doubtful. Some of the lowest tribes of North American Indians, of the Esquimaux, the natives of New Holland, and other savages, exemplify this condition of society, and exhibit a state of the greatest possible destitution.

The first stage of improvement in the scale of civilisation, may be seen in the pastoral tribes, who, though possessed of property in cattle and flocks, had no positive ownership in the soil. These formed wandering hordes, migrating from one place to another in search of pasture or of water, and totally unacquainted with tillage. Tribes of this kind are often mentioned in Holy Writ, and are even now to be traced in parts of Asia and of Africa. Such a pastoral community must occasionally have endured privations; but, possessed of herds and flocks, and generally living in a mild climate, they had some resources. They suffered much less, had greater means of obtaining food, enjoyed more leisure, and were in a higher situation than the savages before mentioned.

Still, this state of existence is only one step from misery. "In pastoral countries the condition of the lowest rank of people is sufficiently wretched. Among manufacturers, men that have no property may have art and industry, which make them necessary, and therefore valuable. But, where flocks and corn are the only wealth, there are always more hands than work; and of that work there is little in which skill and dexterity can be much distinguished. He therefore who is born poor never can be rich. The son merely occupies the place of the father, and life knows nothing of progression or advancement."*

The next gradation in improvement is that wherein agriculture is not unknown: where the earth is, to a certain extent, cultivated so as to reward man with crops for which he has laboured, and by which he is supported. In this state, laws must be formed, and property is gained in the soil. Such seems to have been the condition of part of Europe previously to the feudal system. The custom of cultivating the earth is of high antiquity, and was theoretically and practically understood

by the ancients, as we find (see the Book of Genesis) in the primeval state of man, and subsequently in Hesiod's "Works and Days," the elder Cato's books, the Georgics of Virgil, the writings of Varro, Columella, and others. Describing the origin of agriculture, Virgil says:

state.

"The sire of gods and men, with hard decrees,
Forbids our plenty to be bought with ease;
And wills that mortal men, inur'd to toil,
Should exercise with pains the grudging soil.
Himself invented first the shining share,
And whetted human industry by care:
Himself did handicrafts and arts ordain,
Nor suffered sloth to rust his active reign.
Ere this, no peasant vex'd the peaceful ground,
Which only turfs and greens for altars found:
No fences parted fields, nor marks nor bounds
Distinguish'd acres of litigious grounds;
But all was common, and the fruitful earth
Was free to give her unexpected birth."

GEORGICS, BOOK I. DRYDEN'S TRANS.

But this, though an improvement on the former, was nevertheless a very unsatisfactory Commerce and manufacturing industry were scarcely known, and there was little or no facility of communication. Even had the cultivation of land been as well understood as at present, no demand for produce existed beyond the amount requisite to sup

ply the wants of the party in whom the cultivation originated, or the necessities of his neighbours or dependents, or else to make good a former deficiency, or to anticipate a future dearth.

Under such a state of things, how could capital be created? At the end of any given time, say one or five centuries, the relative proportion to each other of the several classes of the community would be nearly the same. Few inducements could arise to render the sale of land necessary; and still fewer were the means by which it could be acquired by others. Dr. Johnson observes:

"Where there is no commerce nor manufactures, he that is born poor can scarcely become rich; and if none are able to buy estates, he that is born to land cannot annihilate his family by selling it. This was once the state of this country. Perhaps there is no example till within a few centuries of any family whose estate was alienated otherwise than by violence or foreign aggression. Since money has become of use, many landed proprietors, like others, found the art of spending more than they receive." *

* Johnson's Hebrides.