vided among many has not the same operation. Its defensive power is
weakened as it is diffused. In this diffusion each man's portion is less
than what, in the eagerness of his desires, he may flatter himself to
obtain by dissipating the accumulations of others. The plunder of the
few would, indeed, give but a share inconceivably small in the
distribution to the many. But the many are not capable of making this
calculation; and those who lead them to rapine never intend this
distribution.

The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the
most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that
which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself. It makes our
weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts benevolence even upon
avarice. The possessors of family wealth, and of the distinction which
attends hereditary possession, (as most concerned in it,) are the
natural securities for this transmission. With us the House of Peers is
formed upon this principle. It is wholly composed of hereditary
property and hereditary distinction, and made, therefore, the third of
the legislature, and, in the last event, the sole judge of all property
in all its subdivisions. The House of Commons, too, though not
necessarily, yet in fact, is always so composed, in the far greater
part. Let those large proprietors be what they will, (and they have
their chance of being amongst the best,) they are, at the very worst,
the ballast in the vessel of the commonwealth. For though hereditary
wealth, and the rank which goes with it, are too much idolized by
creeping sycophants, and the blind, abject admirers of power, they are
too rashly slighted in shallow speculations of the petulant, assuming,
short-sighted coxcombs of philosophy. Some decent, regulated
preeminence, some preference (not exclusive appropriation) given to
birth, is neither unnatural, nor unjust, nor impolitic.

It is said that twenty-four millions ought to prevail over two hundred
thousand. True; if the constitution of a kingdom be a problem of
arithmetic. This sort of discourse does well enough with the lamp-post
for its second: to men who _may_ reason calmly it is ridiculous The will
of the many, and their interest, must very often differ; and great will
be the difference when they make an evil choice. A government of five
hundred country attorneys and obscure curates is not good for
twenty-four millions of men, though it were chosen by ei