30 Evil effects of our undue love of money. 



This acquisition of wealth without commensurate 

 sacrifice is 'not an unqualified advantage ; it con- 

 stitutes a debt to nature^ which upon the great 

 principle of causation, and of equivalency of action 

 and reaction, must sooner or later be repaid. Judging 

 from the infallibility of the action of those laws, and 

 the signs of the times, this nation is now beginning 

 to repay in the form of emigration of trade to other 

 lands, and of relatively less rapid national advance, 

 the debt incurred by undue pecuniary success. An 

 excess of money or power obtained without equivalent 

 effort, fails to properly develop the intelligence of its 

 possessors, and nations have been hastened to ruin 

 in this way. Our great success in getting money has 

 attracted many from the pursuit of knowledge, and 

 our love of knowledge has not increased as fast as 

 our wealth. The wealth of the upper classes has, 

 by decoying from study undisciplined young men at 

 our old Universities, kept down the general standard 

 of scientific instruction throughout the country, and, 

 by leading to neglect of scientific research, is now 

 retarding our progress in arts, manufactures, com- 

 merce, and civilization. The consequent relative 

 poverty of the working classes is also producing 

 similar effects by retarding education, and contri- 

 buting towards the great deficiencv of skilled labour, 

 of which our inventors, manufacturers, and others so 

 strongly complain in the working of their scientific 

 processes. Had a just share of the great amount of 

 money, gained by the application of science to useful 



