rs of many united hands, is not to be looked for
where the people live apart, and are destitute of any knowledge of the
interests and desires of the community at large.

* * * * *

Whether the society is divided into Two Classes, or whether there is a
Gradation, is another important consideration. Where there are only two,
proprietors and labourers, the Idea of Liberty is deficient or absent.
The proprietory class can have no other desires on the subject than to
repress the encroachments of the sovereign above them, or of the servile
class below them: and in the servile class the conception of liberty is
yet unformed. Only in barbarous countries, in countries where slavery
subsists, and in some few strongholds of feudalism, is this decided
division of society into two classes now to be found. Everywhere else
there is more or less gradation; and in the most advanced countries the
classes are least distinguishable. Below those members who, in European
societies, are distinguished by birth, there is class beneath class of
capitalists, though it is usual to comprehend them all, for convenience
of speech, under the name of the middle class. Thus society in Great
Britain, France, and Germany is commonly spoken of as consisting of
three classes; while the divisions of the middle class are, in fact,
very numerous. The small shopkeeper is not of the same class with the
landowner, or wealthy banker, or professional man; while their views of
life, their political principles, and their social aspirations, are as
different as those of the peer and the mechanic.

There are two pledges of the advancement of the idea of liberty in a
community:--the one is the mingling of the functions of proprietor and
labourer throughout the whole of a society ruled by a representative
government; the other is the graduation of ranks by some other principle
than hereditary succession.

In ancient times most men were proprietors and labourers too; but under
despotic rule. Societies which have once come under the representative
principle are not likely to retrograde to this state; while there are
influences ever at work to exalt the function of labour, and to extend
that of proprietorship. Wherever this mixture of functions has gone the
furthest,--wherever the mechanic classes are becoming capitalists, and
proprietors are liable to sink down from their ancient honour, unless
they can secure respect by personal qualifica