The methods of producing and distributing wealth must, therefore, necessarily vary. The interval of growth between the Esquimaux bartering his skins, and the Englishman exporting machinery is great. Even the objects and definition of wealth change with race and epoch. There can be no such thing as finality in the applications of human knowledge, because the law of progress--progress of individuals and of races--is stamped on our nature. Political economy, as every other subject of knowledge, must be revised, extended, and re-adapted from age to age. Although the methods of producing and distributing wealth may vary, the creative Divine laws which determine the welfare of the human race cannot vary. Below the changing phenomenon of epoch, country, and race are fixed principles on which trade (which may be designated human) must be based. The search for these necessary or fixed laws, and their discrimination from temporary arrangements or adaptations, is not only a legitimate but an indispensable subject of inquiry. It affects not only the foundation, but also the whole edifice of life, which is built upon it in every stage of its construction, helping or injuring each individual of the community, as well as that collective mass of individuals which we vaguely style the nation. No religious teacher, any more than the (technically styled) social reformer, can afford to ignore this great subject of political economy. A knowledge of its objects, and of the laws which must govern industry, in its march to the promised land of human welfare, constitute a Divine revelation. It is a revelation gradually made through the honest use of our intellectual faculties, and constantly grows from imperfect beginnings, to clearer guidance under an earnest search for truth. A distinct recognition of the different kinds of wealth must precede any wise or efficient regulation of trade and commerce; for the same method of production and distribution cannot be applied to all. We can neither produce air nor sunshine, nor legitimately attempt to make them the subject of trade, as, being essential to life, they are necessarily supplied free to all. Neither can we produce earth, which (as far as it is essential to life) cannot be made a subject of trade on exactly the same methods, as products which can be indefinitely multiplied. Neither can strength, energy, or character, which constitute a valuable part of a nation’s wealth, be grown in a similar way to corn, or thrown off by machinery like calico. Education is a different process from printing, and if reduced to the mechanism of manufacture, or converted into a system of money-getting, is self-destructive, frustrating the object of education--viz., the drawing out of the infinitely varied human faculties.