tingency, would become the prey of the stronger. The
comparatively weak-minded and ignorant would be constantly subject to
the frauds of the more cunning.

It is enough to look at the effects of the division of employments and
the invention of labor-saving machinery, to recognize the invaluable
results of society in the development of wealth and power. In a state of
isolation a man's entire time and strength would be needed for the
supply of his physical wants. As men advance in knowledge and wisdom the
standard of their mere physical wants is elevated. They demand more
spacious and comfortable dwellings, more delicate viands and finer
clothing.

"Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beasts'."

It is not true that men would be morally better or happier, if their
style of living were reduced to the greatest plainness consistent with
bare comfort. Our taste in this respect, as for the fine arts, as it
becomes more refined, becomes more susceptible of high enjoyment. When
large fortunes are suddenly made by gambling, or what is equivalent
thereto, then it is that baleful luxury is introduced--a style of living
beyond the means of those who adopt it, and spreading through all
classes. Taste, cultivated and enjoyed at the expense of morals,
degrades and debases instead of purifying and elevating character. Men,
who have accumulated wealth slowly by labor of mind or body, do not
spend it extravagantly. If they use it liberally, that creates no envy
in their poorer neighbor, no ruinous effort to equal what is recognized
to be the due reward of industry and economy. The luxury, which
corrupted and destroyed the republic of Rome, was the result of large
fortunes suddenly acquired by the plunder of provinces, the conquests of
unjust wars. The most fruitful source of it, in our own day, is what has
been well termed _class legislation_--laws which either directly or
indirectly are meant to favor particular classes of the community. They
are supported by popular reasons and specious arguments, yet there is
one test of the true character of such laws, an _experimentum crucis_,
of which, in general, they cannot bear the application. Legislation,
which requires or which will pay to be bored or bought, is unequal
legislation; and therefore unwise and unjust. Bentham's rule, though
false as the standard of right and wrong, is in general the true rule of
practical legislation, the greatest good of the