similar fund, should give assistance to women and children who
lose their husbands, or fathers, and afford a capital to those
who were of an age to found a new family, sufficient for the
proper development of their industry. These establishments, he
observes, might be made in the name and under the protection of
the society. Going still further, he says that, by the just
application of calculations, means might be found of more
completely preserving a state of equality, by preventing credit
from being the exclusive privilege of great fortunes, and yet
giving it a basis equally solid, and by rendering the progress of
industry, and the activity of commerce, less dependent on great
capitalists.

Such establishments and calculations may appear very
promising upon paper, but when applied to real life they will be
found to be absolutely nugatory. Mr Condorcet allows that a class
of people which maintains itself entirely by industry is
necessary to every state. Why does he allow this? No other reason
can well be assigned than that he conceives that the labour
necessary to procure subsistence for an extended population will
not be performed without the goad of necessity. If by
establishments of this kind of spur to industry be removed, if
the idle and the negligent are placed upon the same footing with
regard to their credit, and the future support of their wives and
families, as the active and industrious, can we expect to see men
exert that animated activity in bettering their condition which
now forms the master spring of public prosperity? If an
inquisition were to be established to examine the claims of each
individual and to determine whether he had or had not exerted
himself to the utmost, and to grant or refuse assistance