Page:The rise, progress, and phases of human slavery.djvu/153

 procure implements and stock for their holdings, and to subsist themselves till after they gathered in the first year's crop. And even with competent allotments of Land and Credit to stock them, the occupants' condition would be still but a very indifferent one without the aid of an efficient Currency wherewith to effect easy and equitable exchanges of their surplus agricultural produce for money or for other produce, as their wants might require. In short, each element is imperfect in itself as the means of social reform. But all, from operating conjointly and harmoniously, go to make social reform perfect. And seeing that it is just as easy to legislate upon all forms conjointly as upon each separately, it appears to us a sad waste of time and labour to agitate for any one without including the rest at the same time, the more especially as the peculiar virtues of each are only brought into full play and development by being made to operate in unison with the other three.

There is not one warrior that ever fought for king, people, or commonwealth: they have all fought for landlords and profitmongers, to whom alone they could look for pay and promotion; consequently, no good to the human race ever accrued from their conquests or victories. Nor will the millions ever gain by any war not waged by themselves on their own account, nor by any victories not won by themselves over their hereditary eternal foes, the landlords and profitmongers—over the latter especially, the more numerous, deadly, and irreclaimable of the two. Profitmongers are, indeed, perfectly irreclaimable enemies of the human race, because as such they can possess no one virtue, no one quality of head, heart, or conscience, by which they could be won over to God or humanity. In all the higher professional callings—in those associated with the arts and sciences—the pursuit of truth, and the culture of a taste for the Sublime, the Beautiful, the Chaste, the Sympathetic, form an essential part of their studies and the very foundation of success. Such is the case with engineers, architects, sculptors, painters, musicians, historians, mathematicians, physicians and surgeons, artists of every kind, orators, poets, professors of science, advocates, &c. The higher qualities of the human mind must be more or less cultivated by all those descriptions of persons, if they would excel; and it is in the very nature of their studies to generate in them some appreciation of truth, taste, sympathy, or refinement. But the profitmongering devils of society neither need nor care for such ennobling pursuits. Indeed, the less they are tinctured with them, the more fitted they are for their nefarious callings. Genius, taste, culture, are not required for buying in the cheapest markets and selling in the dearest, for lying, deceiving, adulterating goods, giving short weight, or cheating our fellow-creatures out of their substance, either by underpaying them for their work or giving them less than the value for their money. Still less are the superior moral qualities required in profitmongering pursuits; indeed, such qualities are only drawbacks and impediments in the way of success in business. Hence no clever profitmonger ever thinks of encumbering himself with them. True, mercantile men have a proverb