in public councils when I became a member: for I was but a bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my choice of words, hardly correct in language, and yet I generally carried my point.

In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride: disguise it, struggle with it, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and shew itself: you will see it perhaps often in this history; for even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.*

The plan contrived and practised by Franklin, and here detailed in his own words, may be followed with equal advantage, but with some modifications, to keep an account of the employment of our time and our progress in the three grand departments which we have fixed :

1. In the bodily exercises beneficial to health, which we may take up one by one for the purpose of improving ourselves in them.

2. In the moral habits and qualities, or virtues, which cannot be acquired and retained without

* Memoirs of the Life and Writings of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, edited by his grandson, W. T. FRANKLIN, Vol. I. 127---143.

serving a kind of apprenticeship to each of them.

3. In all the branches of knowledge, the whole of which at once would overwhelm the mind, but with which we may easily render ourselves familiar, by studying them progressively, and one after another.

Here we find three important applications of three of our general laws: 1. The Law of Gradation; 2. The Law of Division and Re-union, 3. The Law of Action and Re-action, which have been developed in the Introduction.

NOTE IV.

ON THE PROGRESS AND EFFECTS OF CIVILISATION.

CIVILISATION is inherent in the nature of man, one of whose distinguishing characteristics is sociability. It is compounded, like all human things, of good and evil; but the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. It is our duty to strive to meliorate it, to diminish the evils which it has produced, or which are attached to it, and to augment the benefits which it is capable of dif fusing over the whole human race.

The division and employment of men are not only the two principal effects, but in their turn

the most important causes of civilisation and its advancement.

Our civilised societies consist of two great classes. One comprehends the idlers, or those who do nothing themselves, but live by the labour and toil of others-men debased and depraved by sloth and selfishness. "In politics, as in morals," says Rousseau (in whose opinion, however, there seems to be some exaggeration), "it is a great evil not to do good; and every useless citizen may be considered as a pernicious man.” The other class is that of the labourers, or the active and industrious members of society. The latter is subdivided into two parts:-1. the persons whose labour and activity produce beneficial results:-2. those whose activity is barren and fruitless, nay often detrimental. These pernicious people are unfortunately too numerous. Even among those who are engaged in useful occupations, how many do we see not employed on that for which they are best qualified, whose industry is absolutely thrown away, or much less productive than it would be if better directed! How many others are obliged to spend their lives in occupations which I call negative, though imperatively commanded by the nature of things in society! Such are judges, priests, physicians,

soldiers, &c. who render important services, and whose functions are highly necessary, but whose number ought never to be disproportioned to the real wants of society; since they consume the produce of the labour of the other classes, without producing any thing immediately of themselves. This class should be confined within due limits, or rather care should be taken not to encourage exclusively the growth of this part of the social body, and not to give it a factitious corpulence injurious to the other members.

In our civilised societies we cannot reckon that more than one-twentieth of the persons composing them are engaged in really productive occupations. This twentieth has to feed or support by its labour the other nineteen-twentieths, composed of the useless idlers, the pernicious labourers, and the unproductive individuals.

Let us establish a new proportion beneficial to society; let us exert our skill to direct to a useful purpose that individual and general activity, which is too often ill managed and unprofitably applied; let us form an immense mass of wellcombined efforts, and augment our powers a hundred-fold by employing them better.

Instead then of calumniating civilisation, let us seize all that is good and useful in it, all the

means and resources which it offers, and earnestly endeavour to improve it by a more judicious application of those three great moral and political powers-the division of labour, the employment of time, and the employment of men.

Rousseau himself, after pourtraying, with glowing eloquence, the mischiefs and abuses which have crept into the social system, and corrupted whatever was most noble and most beautiful in the institution of societies, bears a solemn testimony to the pre-eminence of the civilised man over the savage.

In spite of the enemies of civilisation, who, nevertheless, enjoy all its benefits, and who may justly be charged with ingratitude to that society which clothes, lodges, and feeds them, which lavishes on them all its comforts, conveniencies, and luxuries, we seem to be authorised to assert, that the moral ideas are developed and expanded, matured and improved, with the progress of knowledge.

Rude and barbarous nations, who have yet attained only a certain point of the social state, are addicted to acts of cruelty, unknown in civilised countries. The history of the different ages of the world, and of the inhabitants of the various regions of the globe, ancient and modern annals,