progress which we might have expected to make had we not fixed
our eyes upon so perfect a model. A highly intellectual
being, exempt from the infirm calls of hunger or sleep, is
undoubtedly a much more perfect existence than man, but were man
to attempt to copy such a model, he would not only fail in making
any advances towards it; but by unwisely straining to imitate
what was inimitable, he would probably destroy the little
intellect which he was endeavouring to improve.

The form and structure of society which Mr Godwin describes
is as essentially distinct from any forms of society which have
hitherto prevailed in the world as a being that can live without
food or sleep is from a man. By improving society in its present
form, we are making no more advances towards such a state of
things as he pictures than we should make approaches towards a
line, with regard to which we were walking parallel. The
question, therefore, is whether, by looking to such a form of
society as our polar star, we are likely to advance or retard the
improvement of the human species? Mr Godwin appears to me to have
decided this question against himself in his essay on 'Avarice
and Profusion' in the Enquirer.

Dr Adam Smith has very justly observed that nations as well
as individuals grow rich by parsimony and poor by profusion, and
that, therefore, every frugal man was a friend and every
spendthrift an enemy to his country. The reason he gives is that
what is saved from revenue is always added to stock, and is
therefore taken from the maintenance of labour that is generally
unproductive and employed in the maintenance of labour that
realizes itself in valuable commodities. No observation can be