362 NATUIIAL AXD POLITICAL RIGHTS vm 



sustained, the sooner the foundations of cur 

 present polity are broken up and replaced by 

 something less open to objection, the better. But 

 even Mr. George, I imagine, will admit that the 

 enterprise is grave, and by no means to be under- 

 taken with a light heart, still less with that 

 superficial intellectual apprehension which cmrs 

 of a light head. The political philosopher who 

 uses his a priori lever, knowing that it may stir 

 up social discord, without the most conclusive 

 justification, to my mind comes perilously near 

 the boundary which divides blunders from 

 crimes. 



The several elements of the proposition which 

 I have quoted under I. might have been taken 

 almost verbatim from the writings of the 

 Rousseauites and the Physiocrats. But it is 

 one of the most interesting features of a 

 speculation, that different philosophers, starting 

 from verbally identical propositions, arrive at 

 contradictory conclusions. And the Physiocrats 

 deduced the right and the necessity of maintain- 

 ing several ownership of land from the principles 

 common to them and Mr. George, as confidently 

 as, and, in my judgment, with much better r 

 than, Mr. George deduces its hideous wron-fulncss 

 and the paramount necessity of abolishing it. The 

 equality of men question has already been suffici- 

 ently discussed. If, as I maintain, there is no such 

 thing as natural equality among men, then of 





