328 NATURAL THEOLOaY. 



encouraged. Distiiictioiis of this sort are subjects niucn 

 more of competition than of enjoyment ; and in that compe- 

 tition their use consists. It is not, as has been rightly ob- 

 served, by what the lord mayor feels in his coach, but by 

 what the apprentice feels who gazes at him, that the public 

 is served. 



As we approach the summits of human greatness, the 

 comparison of good and evil, with respect to personal com- 

 fort, becomes still more problematical ; even allowing to am- 

 bition all its pleasures. The poet asks, " What is grandeur, 

 what is povv'er?" The philosopher answers, "Constraint 

 and plague : et in maxim qit que fortun minim m li- 

 cere.'' One very common error misleads the opinion of man- 

 kind on this head ; namely, that, universally, authority is 

 pleasant, submission painful. In the general course of hu- 

 man affairs, the very reverse of this is nearer the truth. 

 Command is anxiety, obedience ease. 



Artificial distinctions sometimes promote real equality. 

 Whether they be hereditary, or be the homage paid to office, 

 or the respect attached by public opinion to particular pro- 

 fessions, they serve to confront that grand and unavoidable 

 distinction which arises from property, and which is most 

 overbearing where there is no other. It" is of the nature of 

 property, not only to be irregularly distributed, but to run 

 into large masses. Pubhc laws should be so constructed as 

 to favor its diffusion as much as they can. But all that can 

 be done by laws, consistently with that degree of government 

 of his property which ought to be left to the subject, will 

 not be sufficient to counteract this tendency. There must 

 always, therefore, be the difference between rich and poor ; 

 and this difference will be the more grinding when no pre- 

 tension is allowed to be set up against it. 



So that the evils, if evils they must be called, which 

 spring either from the necessary subordinations of civil life, 

 or from the distinctions which have naturally, though not 

 necessarily, grown up in most societies, so long as they aro 



