in civilized countries the most favourable
that can be conceived for the education and development of the mass
of mankind? Can 'the spectator of all time and all existence' be quite
convinced that one or two thousand years hence, great changes will not
have taken place in the rights of property, or even that the very notion
of property, beyond what is necessary for personal maintenance, may not
have disappeared? This was a distinction familiar to Aristotle, though
likely to be laughed at among ourselves. Such a change would not be
greater than some other changes through which the world has passed
in the transition from ancient to modern society, for example, the
emancipation of the serfs in Russia, or the abolition of slavery in
America and the West Indies; and not so great as the difference which
separates the Eastern village community from the Western world. To
accomplish such a revolution in the course of a few centuries, would
imply a rate of progress not more rapid than has actually taken place
during the last fifty or sixty years. The kingdom of Japan underwent
more change in five or six years than Europe in five or six hundred.
Many opinions and beliefs which have been cherished among ourselves
quite as strongly as the sacredness of property have passed away; and
the most untenable propositions respecting the right of bequests or
entail have been maintained with as much fervour as the most moderate.
Some one will be heard to ask whether a state of society can be final in
which the interests of thousands are perilled on the life or character
of a single person. And many will indulge the hope that our present
condition may, after all, be only transitional, and may conduct to a
higher, in which property, besides ministering to the enjoyment of the
few, may also furnish the means of the highest culture to all, and will
be a greater benefit to the public generally, and also more under the
control of public authority. There may come a time when the saying,
'Have I not a right to do what I will with my own?' will appear to be a
barbarous relic of individualism;--when the possession of a part may be
a greater blessing to each and all than the possession of the whole is
now to any one.

Such reflections appear visionary to the eye of the practical statesman,
but they are within the range of possibility to the philosopher. He can
imagine that in some distant age or clime, and through the influence of
some individual, the n