The other class are such, as to involve no contradiction in the supposition of their becoming the common property of all. The success of a part, far from obstructing, rather facilitates the success of others; they constitute a store of wealth, from which each may take his fill; and the more he takes, the more he leaves, to satisfy the desires of all who come after.

Now, in view of the case, Philosophy inquiring for life's chief goods, cannot make them to be fortune's prizes, scattered to tempt the cupidity of all; but which a few only can catch, while their luck proves the disappointment and vexation of the many. The supposition were monstrous. We so instinctively recoil from supposing such to be the appointment of nature's Author, and so consciously grasp it for a truth clear by its own light—the conviction of a provision fully made in nature for all, whenever nature's wants are truly consulted—that we may safely reject, by this test, every notion of temporal good, which makes it consist preeminently in whatever, by the nature of the case, can be the lot of but a limited number.

Eminent above all other conceptions of temporal good, is that which makes it to consist emphatically in the possession of money, or the ability to command it by its equivalents. And because the capacities of enjoyment have never been measured, nor material wealth rationally estimated as a means of meeting those capacities, riches are prized, not as a means, but an end; and becoming themselves the end, no amount of possession lessens the desire to accumulate.

A just philosophy argues on the case, that all cannot be rich, in the common acceptation of the term, whether be considered the limits to earth's productiveness, and the possibility of increasing material wealth; or whether, rich being more a relative than an absolute term, that the supposition of all rich is self-contradictory: therefore, in a juster sense, the supposition of all rich must be admissible;—the sense, namely, that whenever riches shall be reasonably estimated simply as the means of meeting capacities of enjoyment surveyed and known, then it will be found that the earth's productiveness, and the stock of material wealth, admit each to take to the fullness of his wants, leaving enough for all who come after.

It is further the office of Philosophy to show in detail, what is thus wrought out as a conclusion from general principles; to show how much is consumed by artificial wants, and subjection to the tyranny of fashion; to show how the correction of factitious desires would leave natural and rational desires for better enjoyment than is now found, so that self-love would find not occasion for envy, or repining at a brother's prosperity.

The unceasing desire to become richer would be, however, but a mitigated evil, if men sought only wealth by production. The aggravation of the case is, that they whom the desire most impels, seek the increase of their own store, not by producing, but by contriving to turn to their own stock the avails of the industry of others. Our young men, in deplorable numbers, slide into the persuasion, that any means of living and thriving are better than productive industry. Hence the rush into trade, the professions, into speculations, where the hazards are such, that the cool calculations of pure avarice would rather incline a man to prefer the prospect of growing rich by digging the earth. So much the preference of contrivance to labor overmaster the mastering desire to become rich.

But there is a strange hankering after whatever is of the nature of a lottery. So the prizes are but splendid, no matter, if they are but few compared with the blanks. We are given to presuming each on his own good fortune. "Nothing venture, nothing have," has become a proverb. So agriculture is treated as if it had no rewards, because one ventures so little by engaging therein. And one might almost think that the conscious earth resented the indignity.

Aided by Philosophy, we shall argue on this matter thus: All cannot live by their wits; the many must produce with the hands; and, the greater the part who shuffle off the charge, the more heavily it falls on others. The first law given to man in innocency, was, to keep the garden and till it; the first after the loss of innocency, "In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread;"—so a dispensation from such law, given by Him, who best knows what is good for man, in whatever state, is not worthy to stand high among life's blessings.

More particularly we are taught in the same school, that the good thus contemplated must cost something at least on the score of that best of physical enjoyments—health. If it were duly appreciated, how high this stands among life's goods, and how much its perfection depends on freedom to the mind from the anxieties of hazardous speculation, and a goodly amount of manly labor, of which the varied occupations of agriculture are the most favorable of all; this consideration would check the prevalent ambition to make the contrivance of the brain supply the place of the labor of the hands.

Health is commended to us, not only as among the first of present goods, but as one, the security of which is placed very much in our own power; if we will but study and practise the means. It is remarkable, that, while the healing art is proverbial for its sects and uncertainties—amid the disputes of homoeopaths and allopaths, mineralists and herbalists, stimulators and depletors—there is a pretty general agreement of parties on the laws of hygiene, or the art of preserving health. We might find here a law, taught by the constitution of nature, that its Author never intended healing to hold an important place in the cause of human welfare. He meant it should be well nigh dispensed with, by the obedience men should pay to laws, which they may understand.

The full appreciation of these considerations would tend greatly to establish friendly relations in society; because, first, the good contemplated is such, that the success of one in seeking, facilitates the success of all. Secondly, it would abate the strife for luxuries,—amassing without producing, and cultivating artificial wants,—most fertile sources of discord. And, thirdly, it would establish between physicians and their employers, relations the most agreeable.

Another most unmanageable misconception of life's good, makes one of its choicest items to be, the possession of power and superiority. To what depths of degradation will man depress his fellows, just to contemplate the distance between his might and their weakness! If this ambition seems less general than the desire of accumulating, or of substituting contrivance for productiveness, it may be, because the necessity of the case more limits the number who can bear rule; otherwise, the passion for power might find as ready an entrance to as many hearts as are taken by the love of gain, or the dislike to labor. We may find in this thought a partial explanation of the fact, that the thrift of the non-slaveholding States contrasted with the stagnation at the South, is so powerless an argument addressed to the slaveholders there; for you have not only to satisfy avarice of the superior profitableness of free labor; you have still to contend with the lust of dominion—the passion for power and superiority. To manage this passion is the heaviest charge of policy—to provide that the offices which must be intrusted to human hands, be filled peaceably and worthily.

Philosophy explodes this notion of good (as claiming to be eminently such), in that it cannot stand the general test: It is a good, which a few must share by detracting so much from the happiness of others.

And further, to the love of power is submitted the consideration, that knowledge is power. It may be feared, this maxim oft suggests scarce