LE1TERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 299 



our police-station-houses, our spunging-houses, our 

 tread-mills, our prisons, our hulks, our convict-ships, 

 and our colonies for the reception of transported 

 felons! Look at all this; and then deny, if you 

 can, that " there is something rotten in the state 

 of Denmark." 



There is one more contemplation, which must, 

 I think, carry great weight with it, in shewing how 

 clearly and immediately crime and misery result 

 from an artificial state of society. One of the first 

 and greatest essentials to a highly-civilized condition 

 of society is money : and if you reflect, for a few 

 minutes, how innumerahle have been the crimes, and 

 consequent punishments and sufferings, which are 

 traceable up to money alone as their cause, the con- 

 templation will be found to be perfectly appalling ! 



It is clear, therefore, that the present condition 

 of highly-civilized man is not conducive to happi- 

 ness,- but that, on the contrary, it is the prolific 

 parent of multitudinous misery. It is not, there- 

 fore, a condition which the right exercise of a sound 

 reason has led him to adopt, or which experience 

 has approved : THEREFORE it is not his natural 

 condition it is not in accordance .with the design 

 of Nature it is not the condition in which he was 

 intended to exist. 



