Page:The Effects of Civilisation on the People in European States.djvu/41

Rh before they give up all the advantages of rational creatures, to expect a better reason for it, than that those things always were so. They have a right to expect that so great a difference in their lot and condition should not be made, unless indicated by nature itself, and made evident by its having refused them the faculties and powers for the acquisition of knowledge.

There are two methods of acquiring knowledge: the one, by thinking or meditation—that is, by the operations of our own minds within themselves; the other, by informing ourselves of the knowledge already acquired by others, which is done by books or living masters. Both of these methods the commonalty are debarred from. One should have thought the former might have been allowed them: that is not, however, the case; for to do that requires leisure, which is refused the poor man. Leisure, in a poor man, is thought quite a different thing from what it is to a rich man, and goes by a different name. In the poor, it is called idleness, the cause of all mischief. If it is so, why is it so? Because they have been, by this cruel system, deprived of opportunities of acquiring such rudiments as would qualify them for further attainments; that is to say, they are not to have leisure, because they have never had any to fit them to improve by such leisure. Most