or be, exactly what suits him best, without regard to the legal or moral rights of others. He takes with him, wherever he goes, a notion of liberty which is associated with duty and justice; and this is the secret of his success as a civilising agent. I cannot close my fragmentary remarks more fittingly than by quoting some words of Hegel: "The material existence of England is based on commerce and industry, and the English have undertaken the weighty responsibility of being the missionaries of civilisation to the world: for their commercial spirit urges them to traverse every sea and land, to form connexions with barbarous peoples, to create wants and stimulate industry, and first and foremost to establish among them the conditions necessary to commerce, vis., the relinquishment of a life of lawless violence, respect for property and civility to strangers".
These words were written in 1820; nothing has since occurred to diminish their force. I have been showing you how England has been fitted for that high destiny, and for a due sense of the responsibilities which are inseparable from it.
