prospect of infants, sad fruit of such intercourse, whom they are unable
to support. If these flattering prospects be ever realised, it must be
owing to some wise and salutary regulations counteracting that
inequality among mankind which proceeds from the present _fixed_
disproportion of their possessions.

I am not an advocate for the agrarian law nor for sumptuary regulations,
but I contend that the people amongst whom the law of primogeniture
exists, and among whom corporate bodies are encouraged, and immense
salaries annexed to useless and indeed hereditary offices, is oppressed
by an inequality in the distribution of wealth which does not
necessarily attend men in a state of civil society.

Thus far we have considered inequalities inseparable from civil society.
But other arbitrary distinctions exist among mankind, either from
choice or usurpation. I allude to titles, to stars, ribbons, and
garters, and other badges of fictitious superiority. Your Lordship will
not question the grand principle on which this inquiry set out; I look
upon it, then, as my duty to try the propriety of these distinctions by
that criterion, and think it will be no difficult task to prove that
these separations among mankind are absurd, impolitic, and immoral.
Considering hereditary nobility as a reward for services rendered to the
State--and it is to my charity that you owe the permission of taking up
the question on this ground--what services can a man render to the State
adequate to such a compensation that the making of laws, upon which the
happiness of millions is to depend, shall be lodged in him and his
posterity, however depraved may be their principles, however
contemptible their understandings?

But here I may be accused of sophistry; I ought to subtract every idea