asserting that no possible sacrifices or exertions of the
rich, in a country which had been long inhabited, could for any time
place the lower classes of the community in a situation equal, with
regard to circumstances, to the situation of the common people about
thirty years ago in the northern States of America.

The lower classes of people in Europe may at some future period be much
better instructed than they are at present; they may be taught to
employ the little spare time they have in many better ways than at the
ale-house; they may live under better and more equal laws than they
have ever hitherto done, perhaps, in any country; and I even conceive
it possible, though not probable that they may have more leisure; but
it is not in the nature of things that they can be awarded such a
quantity of money or subsistence as will allow them all to marry early,
in the full confidence that they shall be able to provide with ease for
a numerous family.

CHAPTER 15

Models too perfect may sometimes rather impede than promote
improvement--Mr Godwin's essay on 'Avarice and
Profusion'--Impossibility of dividing the necessary labour of a society
amicably among all--Invectives against labour may produce present evil,
with little or no chance of producing future good--An accession to the
mass of agricultural labour must always be an advantage to the labourer.

Mr Godwin in the preface to his Enquirer, drops a few expressions which
seem to hint at some change in his opinions since he wrote the
Political Justice; and as this is a work now of some years standing, I
should certainly think that I had been arguing against opinions which
the author had himself seen reason to alter, but that in some of the
essays of the Enquirer, Mr Godwin's peculiar mode of thinking appears
in as striking a light as ever.

It has been frequently observed that though we cannot hope to reach
perfection in any thing, yet that it must always be advantageous to us
to place before our eyes the most perfect models. This observation has
a plausible appearance, but is very far from being generally true. I
even doubt its truth in one of the most obvious exemplifications that
would occur. I doubt whether a very young painter would receive so much
benefit, from an attempt to copy a highly finished and perfect picture,
as from copying one where the outlines were more strongly marked and
the manner of laying on the colours was more easily discoverable. B