"On the contrary," says Mr M'Culloch, "we are well convinced that much of the industry and of the superior wealth and civilisation of modern Europe, may be ascribed to the influence of the custom of primogeniture in determining the succession to estates; and that, were it abolished, or superseded by the opposite custom of equally dividing landed property among all the children, or even among all the sons, they would suffer universally by the change, the youngest as well as the oldest; while it would most seriously compromise the interests of every other class."--P. 28. The truth is, that the right of primogeniture is rather to be regarded as having for its object the benefit of the community, than the interest of the particular family. If a man has £50,000 a-year and five sons, it may appear, at first sight, decidedly more conducive to "the greatest possible happiness of the greatest possible number," that each of these five sons should have £10,000 a-year, than that one should possess the whole, or bulk, of the paternal property, and the other four be left to buffet their way through the world. But it is for the interest of the nation that its aristocracy should be founded in old families, fortified and graced by historical associations; and these are only to be kept up by a devolution of their lands according to the feudal rule. But, as regards the interest of the particular family, it will appear on consideration that, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, this also is most effectually promoted by the law of primogeniture. By means of this law, the main stock of the family is left in its full strength as a nucleus round which the younger branches are united, and from which their members derive alike a great portion of their status in society, and inducement to advance themselves in their respective pursuits; and, on the other hand, the professions of the country are exalted and dignified by the infusion into their ranks of men of birth and education, who are, at the same time, dependent on those professions for their advancement. Sir Matthew Hale, as quoted by Mr M'Culloch, forcibly describes the results of the opposite system. "This equal division of inheritance," he says, speaking of the old times of Saxon gavelkind, "did by degrees bring the inhabitants to a low kind of country living; and families were broken; and the younger sons which, had they not had these little parcels of land to apply themselves to, would have betaken themselves to trades, or to military, or civil, or ecclesiastical employments, neglecting those opportunities, wholly applied themselves to those small divisions of land; whereby they neglected the opportunities of greater advantage of enriching themselves and the kingdom." And if it should be urged that Sir Matthew Hale could do little more than form an _à priori_ judgment of the social condition of England in the days of the Confessor, it should be