would tend greatly to
establish friendly relations in society; because, first, the good
contemplated is such, that the success of one in seeking, facilitates
the success of all. Secondly, it would abate the strife for
luxuries,--amassing without producing, and cultivating artificial
wants,--most fertile sources of discord. And, thirdly, it would
establish between physicians and their employers, relations the most
agreeable.

Another most unmanageable misconception of life's good, makes one of
its choicest items to be, the possession of power and superiority.
To what depths of degradation will man depress his fellows, just to
contemplate the distance between his might and their weakness! If this
ambition seems less general than the desire of accumulating, or of
substituting contrivance for productiveness, it may be, because the
necessity of the case more limits the number who can bear rule;
otherwise, the passion for power might find as ready an entrance to as
many hearts as are taken by the love of gain, or the dislike to labor.
We may find in this thought a partial explanation of the fact, that the
thrift of the non-slaveholding States contrasted with the stagnation at
the South, is so powerless an argument addressed to the slaveholders
there; for you have not only to satisfy avarice of the superior
profitableness of free labor; you have still to contend with the lust
of dominion--the passion for power and superiority. To manage this
passion is the heaviest charge of policy--to provide that the offices
which must be intrusted to human hands, be filled peaceably and
worthily.

Philosophy explodes this notion of good (as claiming to be eminently
such), in that it cannot stand the general test: It is a good, which a
few must share by detracting so much from the happiness of others.

And further, to the love of power is submitted the consideration, that
knowledge is power. It may be feared, this maxim oft suggests scarce
other sense, that that deeper insight into the tricks of trade or
politics enables the possessor to outwit competitors for riches or
honors in the game. It is still a low understanding, that knowledge of
nature's laws multiplies the means of physical enjoyment. Knowledge is
power in a higher sense, in that it empowers the possessor to call
forth stores of enjoyment form objects, which seem to vulgar
apprehension most barren of utility. But knowledge--taken for the
round of mental cultivation--