shonest _acquisition_, has
many branches, and is involved among honest arts of acquisition, so
that it is difficult to repress the one without restraining the other.

Observe, first, large fortunes cannot honestly be made by the work of
any _one_ man's hands, or head. If his work benefits multitudes, and
involves position of high trust, it may be (I do not say that it _is_)
expedient to reward him with great wealth or estate; but fortune of
this kind is freely given in gratitude for benefit, not as repayment
for labor. Also, men of peculiar genius in any art, if the public can
enjoy the product of their genius, may set it at almost any price they
choose; but this, I will show you when I come to speak of art, is
unlawful on their part and ruinous to their own powers. Genius must
not be sold; the sale of it involves, in a transcendental, but
perfectly true, sense, the guilt both of simony and prostitution. Your
labor only may be sold; your soul must not.

82. Now, by fair pay for fair labor, according to the rank of it, a
man can obtain means of comfortable, or if he needs it, refined life.
But he cannot obtain large fortune. Such fortunes as are now the
prizes of commerce can be made only in one of three ways:--

(1.) By obtaining command over the labor of multitudes of other men
and taxing it for our own profit.

(2.) By treasure-trove,--as of mines, useful vegetable products, and
the like,--in circumstances putting them under our own exclusive
control.

(3.) By speculation, (commercial gambling).

The first two of these means of obtaining riches are, in some forms
and within certain limits, lawful, and advantageous to the State. The
third is entirely detrimental to it; for in all cases of profit
derived from speculation, at best, what one man gains another loses;
and the net results to the State is zero, (pecuniarily,) with the loss
of the time and ingenuity spent in the transaction; besides the
disadvantage involved in the discouragement of the losing party, and
the corrupted moral natures of both. This is the result of speculation
at its best. At its worst, not only B loses what A gains (having taken
his fair risk of such loss for his fair chance of gain), but C and D,
who never had any chance at all, are drawn in by B's fall, and the
final result is that A sets up his carriage on the collected sum
which was once the means of living to a dozen families.

83. Nor is this all. For while real commerce is founded