tion scene in
the great drama of Perfectibility.

II. The principal causes of the inequality that unfortunately exists
among the people of the same community are three in number:--inequality
in wealth; inequality of condition between the man whose means of
subsistence are both assured and transmissible, and him for whom these
means depend upon the duration of his working life; thirdly, inequality
of instruction. How are we to establish a continual tendency in these
three sources of inequality to diminish in activity and power? To
lessen, though not to demolish, inequalities in wealth, it will be
necessary for all artificial restrictions and exclusive advantages to be
removed from fiscal or other legal arrangements, by which property is
either acquired or accumulated: and among social changes tending in this
direction will be the banishment by public opinion of an avaricious or
mercenary spirit from marriage. Again, inequality between permanent and
precarious incomes will be radically modified by the development of the
application of the calculation of probabilities to life. The extension
of annuities and insurance will not only benefit many individuals, but
will benefit society at large by putting an end to that periodical ruin
of a large number of families, which is such an ever-renewing source of
misery and degradation. Another means to the same end will be found in
discovering, by the same doctrine of probabilities, some other equally
solid base for credit instead of a large capital, and for rendering the
progress of industry and the activity of commerce more independent of
the existence of great capitalists. Something approaching to equality of
instruction, even for those who can only spare a few of their early
years for study, and in after times only a few hours of leisure, will
become more attainable by improved selection of subjects, and improved
methods of teaching them. The dwellers in one country will cease to be
distinguished by the use of a rude or of a refined dialect; and this, it
may be said in passing, has actually been the result of the school
system in the United States. One portion of them will no longer be
dependent upon any other for guidance in the smallest affairs. We cannot
obliterate nor ignore natural differences of capacity, but after public
instruction has been properly developed, 'the difference will be between
men of superior enlightenment, and men of an upright character who feel
the value