er
read places in a strong point of view the danger to which that mind is
exposed which is entrusted with constant power.

In the present state of things, and particularly when labour is in
request, the man who does a day's work for me confers full as great an
obligation upon me as I do upon him. I possess what he wants, he
possesses what I want. We make an amicable exchange. The poor man walks
erect in conscious independence; and the mind of his employer is not
vitiated by a sense of power.

Three or four hundred years ago there was undoubtedly much less labour
in England, in proportion to the population, than at present, but there
was much more dependence, and we probably should not now enjoy our
present degree of civil liberty if the poor, by the introduction of
manufactures, had not been enabled to give something in exchange for
the provisions of the great Lords, instead of being dependent upon
their bounty. Even the greatest enemies of trade and manufactures, and
I do not reckon myself a very determined friend to them, must allow
that when they were introduced into England, liberty came in their
train.

Nothing that has been said tends in the most remote degree to
undervalue the principle of benevolence. It is one of the noblest and
most godlike qualities of the human heart, generated, perhaps, slowly
and gradually from self-love, and afterwards intended to act as a
general law, whose kind office it should be, to soften the partial
deformities, to correct the asperities, and to smooth the wrinkles of
its parent: and this seems to be the analog of all nature. Perhaps
there is no one general law of nature that will not appear, to us at
least, to produce partial evil; and we frequently observe at the same
time, some bountiful provision which, acting as another general law,
corrects the inequalities of the first.

The proper office of benevolence is to soften the partial evils arising
from self-love, but it can never be substituted in its place. If no man
were to allow himself to act till he had completely determined that the
action he was about to perform was more conducive than any other to the
general good, the most enlightened minds would hesitate in perplexity
and amazement; and the unenlightened would be continually committing
the grossest mistakes.

As Mr Godwin, therefore, has not laid down any practical principle
according to which the necessary labours of agriculture might be
amicably shared among the