when, in reality, the latter are paying taxes that otherwise could not be paid, and employing labourers who must otherwise starve. Men continually strain every nerve to obtain money, and as they obtain they expend it, principally, for the benefit of others. Rank restrains them in every division from hoarding too much, and from becoming inordinately sensual; it compels them to use property as they acquire it, for the benefit of the community. Nothing else could do it.
In the third place, to this endless multiplicity of ranks, general liberty owes its existence. As a free community never can be unanimous, it ought to be so far divided into bodies that no one may outweigh all the rest. Were this nation to be only divided into three or four bodies, the balance could not be maintained, and the powerful one would be the tyrant of the others. If the rich men, the masters, and the servants, were to form unanimous, indivisible bodies, nothing would be seen but animosity, convulsion, and tyranny. Nature abhors immense, ungovernable bodies, and, if she be not completely overpowered, never suffers them to exist; she is eternally occupied in endeavours to form small, weak ones, and to destroy great, potent ones. Those whom interest, or political and religious feeling combines, she divides by means of rank. Rank keeps the labouring classes from combining into a whole; it operates, in the same way, on the masters, and the rich and great; and, of course, it protects the state from the tremendous evils that would flow from their combinations; it forms a bulwark against those ills which community of interest and feeling would otherwise produce. The nation is thus divided and subdivided, until it is composed of an almost endless multitude of bodies, of which no one possesses mischievous power. These are not rivals and enemies, as a small number would be; the mass of them are, from similarity of interest and feeling, friends, although lukewarm and jealous ones. The subdivisions made by rank fill up the chasms that are left in society by the divisions made by other things; and, from the lowest of the democracy, to the highest of the aristocracy, ranks rise in beautiful order and connexion, and bind society together as a whole. It is scarcely possible to discover where the democracy ends, and the aristocracy begins—where the point of meeting is between the poor and the rich. Several of the higher classes of servants even rank above several of the lower classes of masters; and thus connect the great divisions, of which they form parts. Each body is thus kept from tyrannizing, and therefore every set of rulers is kept from tyrannizing. Ministers reach office by qualification, and retain it by good conduct. The bodies govern each other; attempts to oppress dare not be made from any quarter, and the greatest share of general liberty is enjoyed.
Now, with all this before him, how would the philosopher fashion his government? Instead of vainly arraying himself against nature, he would be her ally. He would form laws, not to prevent her from creating her ranks, but to assist her—not to undo her work, but to protect it. He would endeavour, not to shorten her chain of ranks, but to lengthen it; and he would make every addition to her labours in his power. Such, it might be expected, would be the answer of every one—of even the most inveterate theorist that ever plagued the universe.
Our republican philosophers, however, do exactly the reverse. With the name of Nature eternally in their mouths, with her praise constantly on their lips, they make it their study to thwart and trample upon her to the utmost. They detest everything that has been erected by herself, or from her suggestions; and love only what she hates and seeks to destroy. Instead of taking her for their guide in what they pull down and raise up, they follow only that blind and brainless art which is her implacable enemy. They cannot bear the idea of difference of rank; their nation must form a mob of equals; with them, everything that a community needs must flow from equality.
In the midst of the outcry which these sages keep up in favour of equality, let us ascertain what equality they really establish. They form one of names; no one must be called, My Lord, or Sir William; all must be plain Johns and Roberts, or, at the least, plain Misters. Does then inequality consist merely in difference of name? Would our nobles be less rich and proud? Would they possess
