equality which is the theme of so much panegyric is explained to us by writers of less equal and more laborious communities; to whose unfettered activity alone it is owing, that the once important names of Crete and Lacedæmon are not as completely obscured and blotted out by time, as the ruins of Carthage or Babylon.*

Peru offers us an example of the equal division of property, but not of equality of condition.† The distinction of ranks was there fully established. "A great body of the inhabitants, under the denomination of Yanaconas, were held in a state of servitude. Their garb

* Cicero (Brutus, 1. 13) remarks that Sparta had never even produced an orator; which is most extraordinary in a country where there was so much liberty. Tyrtæus was an Athenian, though he wrote (or sung) at Lacedæmon. In Crete, the names of Thales, who was sent to Lacedæmon to soften the Spartan manners by his lyric poetry, and of Chrysothemis, who gained the musical prize at the Olympic games, have been recorded.

+ The account of this division, and the mode of cultivation, as given by Robertson, is highly interesting, and seems the groundwork of Mr. Godwin's ideal system.

and houses were of a form different from those

of freemen. Like the Tamenes of Mexico, they were employed in carrying burdens, and in performing every work of drudgery. Next to

them in rank were such of the people as were free, but distinguished by no official or hereditary honours. Above them were raised what the Spaniards denominated Orejones. They formed what may be called the order of nobles, and in peace, as well as war, held every office of power or trust. At the head of all were the Children of the Sun, who, by their high descent and peculiar privileges, were as much exalted above the Orejones, as these were elevated above the people."* These different orders must necessarily have infused a spirit into the general body, and have prevented that stagnation which results from total equality. The arts of industry and refinement, unknown in Sparta, were here carried to some perfection. But it is remarkable, that the peculiarity of their administration of property gives a prac

* Robertson's America, vol. iii. p. 339.

tical illustration of the very evils which I originally alluded to, as universally accompanying the equalization of fortunes. "In the towns of the Mexican empire, stated markets were held, and whatever could supply any want or desire of man was an object of commerce. But in Peru, from the singular mode of dividing property, and the manner in which the people were settled, there was hardly any species of commerce carried on between different provinces; and the community was little acquainted with that active intercourse, which is at once a bond of union and an incentive to improvement." A recent intelligent traveller makes the same conclusion: "If we examine," he says, "the mechanism of the Peruvian government under the Yncas, generally too much exalted in Europe, we shall find, that wherever the people are divided into castes, of which each can only follow a certain species of labour, and wherever the inhabitants possess no particular property, the people, preserving for thousands of years the same appearance of external comfort, make

almost no advances in moral cultivation."* Nor did these institutions, which denied to the Peruvians the advantages of refinment arising from industrious communication, compensate the loss, as with the Spartans and Cretans of old, by that public spirit and love of freedom which is the just object of admiration. "There is not

an instance in history, of any people so little advanced in refinement, so totally destitute of military enterprise. Peru was subdued at once, and almost without resistance; and the most favourable opportunities of regaining their freedom, and of crushing their oppressors, were lost through the timidity of the people."+

This review of those few countries which have, by artificial means, kept down the natural tendency of property to run into large and unequal masses, and have retained any degree of equality together with civilization, abundantly proves to us that the distribution of fortunes,

* Humboldt, vol. i. p. 162.

Robertson, vol. iii. p. 355. + Robertson, vol. iii. p. 356.

which nature has rendered inevitable, is in fact the only one conducive to general improvement. The most insuperable objection, however, still remains to be brought forward. "When labour should be rendered in the strictest sense voluntary, when it should cease to interfere with our improvement, and rather become a part of it, or, at worst, be converted into a source of amusement and variety,"* who would undertake those employments which form the largest, and not the least necessary part of the labour of the community, which no variety could render satisfactory, no perversion of taste amusing? to which, in short, nothing could reconcile the mind, but the necessity of working for subsistence, and the constant and presiding influence of gain? When the “quantity of exertion is to be so light, as rather to assume the guise of agreeable relaxation and gentle exercise, than of labour," what shall preserve all the roads, the mines, the canals, of the community?

* Polit. Just. vol. ii. p. 494.

+ Pol. Just. ii. 482.