it is applied to the real, and not to an imaginary, state of
things.

In the last division of the work, which treats of the future
progress of man towards perfection, he says, that comparing, in
the different civilized nations of Europe, the actual population
with the extent of territory, and observing their cultivation,
their industry, their divisions of labour, and their means of
subsistence, we shall see that it would be impossible to preserve
the same means of subsistence, and, consequently, the same
population, without a number of individuals who have no other
means of supplying their wants than their industry. Having
allowed the necessity of such a class of men, and adverting
afterwards to the precarious revenue of those families that would
depend so entirely on the life and health of their chief, he
says, very justly: 'There exists then, a necessary cause of
inequality, of dependence, and even of misery, which menaces,
without ceasing, the most numerous and active class of our
societies.' (To save time and long quotations, I shall here give
the substance of some of Mr Condorcet's sentiments, and hope I
shall not misrepresent them. But I refer the reader to the work
itself, which will amuse, if it does not convince him.) The
difficulty is just and well stated, and I am afraid that the mode
by which he proposes it should be removed will be found
inefficacious. By the application of calculations to the
probabilities of life and the interest of money, he proposes that
a fund should be established which should assure to the old an
assistance, produced, in part, by their own former savings, and,
in part, by the savings of individuals who in making the same
sacrifice die before they reap the benefit of it. The same, or a