suffer quite as much from
plethora as from inanition. Too much blood is as unwholesome as too
little, notwithstanding of any extraneous means to work it off. "Slow
and sure," is their motto--"Carpe diem," essentially that of their
antagonists. And yet in one thing, we believe, most individuals
holding these opposite opinions will be found to concur. They all
speculate. Heraclitus signs his contract with a shudder, and trembles
as he places his realized premium in the bank. Democritus laughingly
subscribes his name to thousands, and chuckles as he beholds his
favourite stock ascending in the thermometer of the share-market.
Heraclitus sells--Democritus holds; and thus the great point of wisdom
at issue between them, is reduced to a mere question of time.

But it is with their opinions, not their practice, that we have to
deal. As usual, truth will be found to lie somewhere between two
opposite extremes. We neither entertain the timid fear of the one
writer, nor the fearless enthusiasm of the other. The present state of
matters presents, in a double sense, a vast field of speculation,
through which we think it necessary to see our way a little more
clearly. Rash interference may be as dangerous as the principle of
"_laissez faire_," which in fact is no principle at all, but a blind
abandonment to chance. Let us, therefore, endeavour to borrow some
light from the experience of the past.

The desire of growing rapidly rich is a very old epidemic in this
country. It is a disease which infests the nation whenever capital, in
consequence of the success of trade and prosperous harvests, becomes
abundant; nor can it, in the nature of things, be otherwise. Capital
will not remain unemployed. If no natural channel is presented, the
accumulated weight of riches is sure to make an outlet for itself; and
the wisdom or folly of the irruption depends solely upon the course
which the stream may take. Of false channels which have conducted our
British Pactolus directly to a Dead Sea, from which there is no
return--we or our fathers have witnessed many. For example, there were
the South American and Mexican mining companies, founded on the most
absurd reports, and miserably mismanaged, in which many millions of
the capital of this country were sunk. Again, Mr Porter writes so late
as 1843--"A very large amount of capital belonging to individuals in
this country, the result of their savings, has of late years sought
profitable investment