APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 19 



No slavery can be abolished without a double 



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emancipation, and the master will benefit by freedom 

 than the freed-man. 



Compare the average artisan and the average 

 country squire, and it may be doubted if you will find 

 a pin to choose between the two in point of ignorance, 

 class feeling, or prejudice. It is true that the 

 ignorance is of a different sort that the class feeling 

 is in favour of a different class and that the prejudice 

 has a distinct savour of wrong-headedness in each 

 case but it is questionable if the one is either a bit 

 better, or a bit worse, than the other. The old 

 protectionist theory is the doctrine of trades unions as 

 applied by the squires, and the modern trades unionism 

 is the doctrine of the squires applied by the artisans. 

 Why should we be worse off under one regime than 

 under the other ? 



The life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one 

 of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected 

 with us, do depend upon our knowing something 

 of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and 

 complicated than chess. It is a game which has been 

 played for untold ages, every man and woman of us 

 being one of the two players in a game of his or her 

 own. The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the 

 phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are 

 what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the 

 other side is hidden from us. We know that his play 

 is always fair, just and patient. But also we know, to 

 our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes 

 the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man 

 who plays well, the highest stakes are paid, with 



