would produce no difference whatever in
the ultimate result.

Quitting, then, these considerations, let us arrive at the important
point. Is there any probability of a different disposition of property
in England--a disposition of property which, by producing a very general
similarity of condition, would throw the government of the country into
the hands of any individuals whom popular esteem or fancy might select?

It appears to me that this question can only be decided by ascertaining
the genius of the English nation. What is the prime characteristic
of the English mind? I apprehend I may safely decide upon its being
industry. Taking a general but not a superficial survey of the English
character since the Reformation, a thousand circumstances convince me
that the salient point in our national psychology is the passion for
accumulating wealth, of which industry is the chief instrument. We
value our freedom principally because it leaves us unrestricted in our
pursuits; and that reverence for law and for all that is established,
which also eminently distinguishes the English nation, is occasioned
by the conviction that, next to liberty, order is the most efficacious
assistant of industry.

And thus we see that those great revolutions which must occur in the
history of all nations when they happen here produce no permanent
effects upon our social state. Our revolutions are brought about by
the passions of creative minds taking advantage, for their own
aggrandisement, of peculiar circumstances in our national progress.
They are never called for by the great body of the nation. Churches are
plundered, long rebellions maintained, dynasties changed, parliaments
abolished; but when the storm is passed, the features of the social
landscape remain unimpaired; there are no traces of the hurricane, the
earthquake, or the volcano; it has been but a tumult of the atmosphere,
that has neither toppled down our old spires and palaces nor swallowed
up our cities and seats of learning, nor blasted our ancient woods, nor
swept away our ports and harbours. The English nation ever recurs to its
ancient institutions--the institutions that have alike secured freedom
and order; and after all their ebullitions, we find them, when the
sky is clear, again at work, and toiling on at their eternal task of
accumulation.

There is this difference between the revolutions of England and the
revolutions of the Continent--the European revolution is