But the world possesses more scope for labour than it possesses hands, and the powers of mechanism by simplifying the process of manufacture also diminish the price of the article, bringing it thereby into general circulation and opening a more lucrative commerce to a nation by underselling the produce of foreign countries and so putting an end to all competition. The true principle of public economy begins to be studied in every part of Europe, and we are making a slow but certain progress in improvement. But if the rash spirit of innovation takes possession of the minds of those who govern mankind, if they will insist on bringing all things within a punctilious system of rules, they must not be surprised if their fondness for precision should terminate in a similar anarchy to that which has oppressed and ruined France. XXVII THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE The decay of letters and philosophy during the progress of the French Revolution placed the French under the necessity of establishing some measures to restore the cultivation of science and literature. Thus the National Institute was eventually formed. The old Academies had been completely destroyed, their members banished, murdered, or dispersed. [Sidenote: THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE] The National Institute is designed to remedy this evil by once more collecting together the genius, talents and industry of France, and it belongs to the whole Republic and is fixed at Paris. It is composed of _one hundred and forty-four members resident in the capital_, and 144 Associates, taken from different parts of the Republic, together with 24 learned foreigners. Every preference in this arrangement is manifestly given to Paris, at the expense of the Departments. The Departments, containing a majority of 30 to 1 compared with the metropolis, are never expected to produce more great men collectively than the latter. This is absurd, for every one knows that under the old Monarchy there were men scattered over the provinces often equal and in many instances far superior to the members of the Parisian Academies. Montesquieu[1] was a member of the Academy of Bordeaux in 1716, and it was not till the year 1728 that he was admitted into the Académie Française. Indeed, an admittance into that famous society was often no evidence of supereminent merit. Genius had to contest against cabal, intrigue and Court favour; so that the _literati_ of Europe looked for great and estimable men in other Academies of France, such as Aix, Marseilles, Lyons, Bordeaux, &c.