VII ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 335 



of Jean Jacques, in its relation to property, is a 

 very sorry affair that it is the product of an 

 untrustworthy method, applied to assumptions 

 which are devoid of foundation in fact ; and that 

 nothing can be more profoundly true than the 

 saying of the great and truly philosophical 

 English jurist, whose recent death we all deplore, 

 that speculations of this soi't are rooted in " im- 

 patience of experience and the preference of d, 

 priori to all other methods of reasoning." 



Almost all the multitudinous causes which con- 

 curred in bringing about the French Revolution 

 are happily absent in this country ; and I have not 

 the slightest fear that the preaching of any 

 amount of political fallacy will involve iis in evils 

 of the magnitude of those which accompanied that 

 great drama. But, seeing how great and manifold 

 are the inevitable sufferings of men ; how pro- 

 foundly important it is that all should give their 

 best will and devote their best intelligence to the 

 alleviation of those sufferings which can be 

 diminished, by seeking out, and, as far as lies 

 within human power, removing their causes ; it is 

 surely lamentable that they should be drawn 

 away by speculative chimseras from the attempt 

 to find that narrow path which for nations, as 

 for individual men, is the sole road to permanent 

 well-being. 



