"Do these evils proceed from some moral perversity in the people? Is there some natural barrier in England against the effects of capital, industry, science, and religion; or is it not that ignorance of the laws that regulate and harmonize social existence, and of those that govern the human mind, has hitherto been extensively prevalent, and is still resisting the remedies of riper experience? "But the poor and ignorant cannot educate themselves; it must be the upper classes who give them the means of improvement. In the natural laws of society, the use of a class who are independent of labour for subsistence, is, that a certain part of the community should have leisure to acquire that general knowledge which is the parent of wise institutions and pure morals. That they should have such affluence as to give weight to their example and authority, is also desirable. Government, as has already been observed, cannot act effectively against a very great preponderance of error and prejudice, but must legislate in the spirit of truths that are generally known, and in the service of interests that excite general sympathy. "The object of this work is not to advocate particular measures, nor even to assume that every thing that is wrong is so through culpable neglect; but it is to call attention to the grievous evils, that neither legislation nor zeal and charity can counteract with effect, till the increased education of all classes assists their efforts. Something must be wanting, when such unrivalled knowledge and wealth are accompanied by such various and wide-spread evils. It is not benevolence that is deficient, for nowhere can we turn without meeting it in private, struggling against miseries too great for its power, and in public devoting abilities of the first order to the cause of humanity. "It is the wider diffusion of knowledge we require: more heads and hands still are wanted, qualified for acting in concert, or at least acting generally on right principles. Too many persons capable of generous feeling are absorbed and corrupted by luxury and frivolity; too many waste their efforts from shallow, mistaken, and contradictory views." Then follows a splendid description of scientific energy, the gratification which it affords, and the noble objects to which it points the way. "In examining the prodigious resources at the command of the upper classes of English society, it is finely remarked, that 'the fine arts are the materials by which our physical and animal sensations are converted into moral perceptions.'