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elaborated opon to equal and Jionorablo comjjetition ; and to make the Bhare 

 eacli may vindicate to himself to depend, not as under the older forms of 

 civilization, on the biilh, rank, or calling of the individual, but on his personal 

 character, and personal merit — on his precise individual value in the social 

 system. 



In order to fix the destined position, the vahie, and the duties of the Agricul- 

 turist, in the economy of society, it will be needful to glance at the interior 

 mechanism of modern civilization. 



" In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread," is the Scriptural annun- 

 ciation of the great law of humanity, that Labor is necessary to the acquisition 

 and enjoyment of physical, intellectual, or moral good. 



The resulting good, however, depends on the degree of wisdom with which 

 human industry is directed. 



The earth is capable of sustaining but a sparse population, and that at a 

 low standard of physical comfort, as well as of intellectual and moral culture ; 

 where the labor of each individual is directed to the supply of precisely those 

 articles, and those only, which meet his own wants. 



In the aspects of modern civilization, on the other hand, as has been already 

 hinted, nothing is more characteristic than the very dense population which the 

 earth is able to sustain, at a vastly more exalted standard of physical comfort, 

 and a still higher standard of intellectual and moral cultivation ; and nothing is 

 more essential to the introduction of those invaluable results, than that division 

 OF LABOR AND OF EMPLOYMENTS, wliich WO obscrvc to obtain in all civilized com- 

 munities, with a minuteness and distinctness, corresponding exactly with the 

 type and the degree of the civilization which there prevails. 



In the production of material wealth, in its thousand departments. Agricul- 

 tural and Manufacturing, by confining skilled labor to its habitual and well- 

 known processes, the aggregate product of human industry destined to the 

 supply of human wants, is increased beyond calculation,, and time is saved, and 

 means furnished to the indi^•idual, for the purposes of intellectual, moral, and 

 social improvement. 



But, again; tlie division of employments in the variuus departments of the 

 Agricultual and Mechanic Arts, begets the necessity of exchange — and if each 

 producer were bound to effect his own exchanges, at home and abroad, a large 

 portion of his time and means would be consumed, and a large amount be 

 thus subti'acted from the aggregate production of the community. 



By separating, then, the business of exchanges from the business of production 

 — ^by setting up the class of mei'chants — the producer is no longer withdrawn 

 from the creation of values — ^the increase in the aggregate production of the 

 community pays, in the shape of commercial profits, for the skilled labor of 



