any former period. No provision was then made for the population as it now exists. No man thought of that, or could think of it. The appropriation was made to suit the purposes of the conquerors then. Even if not vicious in its origin, it is vicious in relation to the present condition of the population of Europe. Far from having been made with a view to the present condition of Europe, or allowed to conform to it, one great object of European legislation has always been, to maintain the old aristocratic appropriation of the soil in spite of the necessities of an increasing population; and thus to subordinate the living principle of society to an old rule of violence. All the interests and wants of the population have been made by the State, so far as it could make them subservient to aristocratic grandeur. For that, even the number of the population has been limited, by a law to forbid commerce, and especially the importation of food. The old appropriation of the soil has been treated by the State as if it were a sacred principle, and all attempts to change it as equivalent to a violation of the command Thou shalt not steal. That has been the corner-stone of its policy, and to that every other interest has been moulded and fitted. Political society then is built on a principle which is probably erroneous; and though religion, looking at the consequences of this aristocratic appropriation, informs us, as our reason informs us, that it, and the legislation consequent on it, are wrong, yet, a priori, religion supplies no means of detecting the error, nor does she inform us, what appropriation would be correct and proper.

Even if the appropriation of the soil were not the offspring of rapacity rather than wisdom, we should find it hard to believe, that a rule established in the fifth or tenth century, when population was not a sixth of its present amount, when there was little or no division of labour, no trade, no banking, no credit, can be now suitable to society. Were such an appropriation of the soil now proposed for the first time it would be instantly and universally scouted. Can any man conceive, if England, Ireland, and Scotland, were held in common, the hubbub, the resistance, the war which would ensue, were it seriously proposed to divide the whole as at present amongst a comparatively few dukes, marquises, lords, and squires? So opposed is such a scheme to reason and the course of nature, that legislation, continually directed to maintain the whole soil in the hands of a few, though it have been obeyed, has been inadequate to that end. Subsequent to the Norman conquest, when whole counties were appropriated by the conqueror's chief followers, England has been gradually divided, in comparatively smaller portions, amongst a greater number of persons. The most rigid entails have been

unable to prevent it. Invariably the great proprietors have, at some time or other, dissipated and dispersed their original possessions, or the accumulated possessions that have fallen to the heir of several families. The Buckingham property is not the only one that has been distributed under the hammer of the auctioneer. Nature abhors aristocratic appropriation, and sets it aside. To allow some freedom of action, and give effect to that natural course by which great estates are broken up, was the object of a much praised act of the last session of parliament. After a stubborn resistance on the part of a few landlords, and many doleful prognostics of the Irish lawyers interested in maintaining abuses, the Encumbered Estates Ireland Bill was carried through both Houses, and will enable and compel the nominal lords of numerous acres to share them with others, who are already the real owners of their value.

In all that concerns the appropriation of land, and the conditions which determine a right of property, though of fundamental importance to the good government and welfare of society, we have no other guide than instinct, experience, and reason. It is our decided purpose to abstain at present from saying anything against the existing right of property; we urge nothing at this moment against the appropriation of land as it now prevails; we confine ourselves to the fact, that neither the right of property, nor the appropriation of the soil, is defined, settled, or regulated by religion, or morality; and that, in judging of them, we can only appeal to reason, expediency, and experience. To propose new rules for the distribution of property, as is the case in France, is not necessarily, therefore, in opposition to religion, or the violation of a moral law. But the existing right of property, and the existing appropriation of the soil, are precisely the questions at issue between the few and the many,the aristocracy and the democracy in the greater part of Europe, between the masses and those who claim to be their masters, chiefly on account of their ability to settle rights, and prescribe duties not otherwise provided for; and, precisely, on these interesting and absorbing questions, religion, apart from experience, utters no voice and sheds no light.

On other social questions of great importance we are equally left to the exclusive guidance of our senses. Population is said to be redundant in places, and the evils of society are attributed to that, but religion is silent, too, on this subject. She supplies no rules for adjusting population to territory. The lawgiver and the people are alike uninstructed on this point, the foundation of all society. That is a great secret we must learn by observation, as we learn the flow and ebb of the tide, and the distance of the planets. It may even be broadly said,

that many of the rules which religion prescribes for the conduct of individuals would be regarded as ruinous by many statesmen. She prescribes forbearance, charity, and love between man and man; she impresses on us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked; but for statesmen to practise forbearance, is to give impunity to crime, or a premium on injustice; for them to be guided by charity and love, and attempt to supply the wants of the people is to encourage idleness, to increase beggary, to augment a dependent and pauperised population, and increase all the social evils therewith connected. Wages are now miserably low owing to the excess of people in relation to capital seeking employment. Twopence halfpenny is paid for making a shirt, and from fourpence to eightpence for a day's labour in Ireland. Religion Religion teaches us to give the labourer his hire, but leaves the amount of that to be settled by the higgling of the market. She prescribes freedom, equality, justice, but is satisfied with twopence halfpenny a day for making a shirt, if that be the result of a free and fair competition. She may whisper to a man to be kind and generous, but if he pay beyond the market price, the chances are that he will be ruined himself. These are merely specimens of most important social relations, which are at this moment the subject of continual, and sometimes of fierce and bloody controversy, and which we are imperatively required to settle and arrange by reason, judging by expediency, for religion gives us neither help nor guid

ance.

Religion enjoins us also to give unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, but as to what things properly belong to Cæsar, the point now in dispute, it leaves us in the dark. What power should a government possess, what taxes should it levy? We require less now to know who should be Cæsar, than what things should be his. So we are commanded to obey those in authority, but the unenfranchised, the Chartists, contend that the existing authority is illegitimate. Men do not dispute about the propriety of obedience so much, as about what should be commanded. The crime of the Irish, according to Lord John Russell's speech, on July 22, was an attempt to overthrow the government they were bound to obey. They declared they were not bound to obey it, that its laws were bad; and they were compelled to submit. From custom the aristocracy claim the power of governing; the democracy, from a perception that the aristocracy have acted unjustly, and used the power entrusted to them for the common good, to promote their own selfish purposes, deny the justice of their claim, and demand political power, as they possess physical and moral power, for themselves. Between the two, there is no umpire but reason. Prin

ciples of natural justice and logical conclusions drawn from the fundamental principles of the social union, whatever theory may be adopted of its origin, may suggest what is due to the people; and the principles of religion enforcing on us the love of justice and of charity may enlighten our logic; but, generally speaking, religion takes for granted the existence of a governing power, or a Cæsar, of a settlement and agreement amongst men as to what things belong to him, and throws no light on what ought to be his, and what authority he should exercise. These, however, are the subjects that now chafe society into angry commotion.

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If ever political topics fell within the domain of religion, as under the Jewish dispensation, which prescribed a complete code of civil ordinances, those which now agitate the world have passed beyond it. It is characteristic of them, that they concern the fundamental principles of political (not industrial) society for we have only to do with political society, or states; and they seem to lie, except as they are indirectly impinged on, wholly beyond the bounds and scope of Christianity. There is no other broader, deeper, and more searching code, to which they can be subject, except the code that we all combine to frame, and that every generation helps to complete, of the laws of nature. In that code, in which alone we can find directions, a new book appears to have recently been opened. The evils complained of are the proofs that nature condemns some of our proceedings; they are her admonitions, her voice warning us against the cause of them; but though she warn us against the evils, she too leaves society to the tentative projects of expediency to find out the good. There is but one right road, while the ways of error are innumerable, and we must, perhaps, tread all the latter before we reach the right. The true path has not yet been discovered. This generation may, perchance, avoid the errors of its predecessors, but, with the best intentions and the greatest knowledge extant, it will be sure, in avoiding former errors, to rush into errors of its own. Unfortunately, that is now generally the case, to a very great degree, and the exasperation felt at the long continuance of aristocratic misrule, has given birth, in most of the capitals of Europe, to democratic excesses that we all deplore.

We are accustomed, however, to look for help much more to government than religion. It is constituted theoretically for the purpose of providing for the welfare of society, and all men now demand from it, and from the means at its command, guidance and succour. The task is flattering to human ambition, and it is readily undertaken. Those who administer government, though they see no further than the most ordinary mor

tals pretend, if mankind will only obey them, that they can accomplish all that the human heart desires. They do not assume to possess any knowledge of the science of government, if such a science exist, though they have practised the art empirically time out of mind, and have made it their greatest boast to act on the limited rules and circumscribed knowledge of their predecessors. They have merely been conservative of old error and old abuse, and have always resisted the innovations of time, as at variance with the rules of their predecessors. They have run in old tracks, and have never hesitated to sacrifice the people that they might keep in the old constitutional or despotic road they had once entered. They have always tried, though in vain, to model the future of every society, however rapidly it might be growing and changing on the limited and undeveloped past; and we can only be justified in now relying on them to help society, if they have already served and saved mankind.

To answer the important question, what can government do for the salvation of society, we must inquire what it has done; and what can be done by its means in whatever hands its powers may be placed. Within a short period we have seen a multitude of reputations, that seemed freighted with rich stores of improvement and happiness to society shipwrecked. Every hope has been lost, by following the old course, and essaying, by the old instruments, the old arts, and the old means of government, to effect a social regeneration. That is the secret of the failure in France, as yet, and the confusion in Germany. Those who have upset the old systems have supposed that they could, by means of them, effect more good than those who previously administered them; and they have made themselves despised or hated by their error. A brief examination will probably satisfy the reader, though governments have ever been active, and have always appeared to direct society, that all the enduring improvements which we call civilization, have been effected without their help, and very often in spite of their regulations.

The press, for example, is in nowise indebted to them. Government has only tried to corrupt those who take up that portion of social labour, and has either terrified or bribed them to support an untrue system. Its patronage has been more pestiferous, than its avowed opposition and hatred. The latter excited resistance and could be subdued, the former insinuated into the system an intoxicating poison which corrupted the whole. By providing for literary men, it has given a bounty on their business, and it has degraded the class and the calling, by promoting excessive competition. It has made the press subserve the cause of existing government, as if that were eternal truth, in opposition to the cause of the people. Though the