in the race of
civilisation, many individuals must be expected to be excused from any
portion of manual labour. It is not desirable that any community should
be contented to supply itself with necessaries only. There are many
refinements in life, and many advances in literature and the arts, which
indispensibly conduce to the rendering man in society a nobler and more
exalted creature than he could otherwise be; and these ought not to be
consigned to neglect.

(18) Political Justice, Book VIII, Chap. VI.

On the other hand however it is certain, that much of the ostentation
and a multitude of the luxuries which subsist in European and Asiatic
society are just topics of regret, and that, if ever those improvements
in civilisation take place which philosophy has essayed to delineate,
there would be a great abridgment of the manual labour that we now see
around us, and the humbler classes of the community would enter into the
inheritance of a more considerable portion of leisure than at present
falls to their lot.

But it has been much the habit, for persons not belonging to the humbler
classes of the community, and who profess to speculate upon the genuine
interests of human society, to suppose, however certain intervals
of leisure may conduce to the benefit of men whose tastes have been
cultivated and refined, and who from education have many resources of
literature and reflection at all times at their beck, yet that leisure
might prove rather pernicious than otherwise to the uneducated and
the ignorant. Let us enquire then how these persons would be likely to
employ the remainder of their time, if they had a greater portion of
leisure than they at present enjoy.--I would add, that the individuals
of the humbler classes of the community need not for ever to merit the
appellation of the uneducated and ignorant.

In the first place, they would engage, like the schoolboy, in active
sports, thereby giving to their limbs, which, in rural occupation and
mechanical labour, are somewhat too monotonously employed, and contract
the stiffness and experience the waste of a premature old age, the
activity and freedom of an athlete, a cricketer, or a hunter. Nor do
these occupations only conduce to the health of the body, they also
impart a spirit and a juvenile earnestness to the mind.

In the next place, they may be expected to devote a part of the day,
more than they do at present, to their wives and families, cultivati