The location of the vast depositories of power, upon which he draws so liberally, we are not to inquire here. We do know that the force which builds the forest, flushes the meadows with green, braids the vines into festoons, and peoples the plant-world, comes from the sun. Wherever the materials which keep the sun’s fires burning come from, they must pass up to that center before they are available for service on this globe. The stamp and superscription of the sun must be upon them before they can take the form of grass, or leaf, or bird on the earth. In this sense stand human relations between the force contained in the individual, unrelated life, and the force which takes form in the objects of civilization. The crude and inarticulate force in the individuals of the tribe, or the nomads who only touch for war or passion, must be refined through moral, political, and spiritual relations before it is ready to take the form of poem, anthem, temple, or Plato. II. We wish to determine the principle in accordance with which the production and distribution of food, shelter, and clothing are to be regulated. These forms of value are embodiments of social energy, generated through relations formed above nature by intelligence and volition. In nature, then, we are not to find the law that is to regulate them. Bees build their cells, and birds their nests, and beavers their dams, not by intelligence and will, called into existence after birth through companionship, but by what is in-wrought into the very fibers of their being irrespective of companionship. Birds, bees, and beavers have been in the world thousands of years, yet the first bird, bee, or beaver ever created had as much sense as the last. A single bee has as much sense as all the bees in the world put together. Among all lower animals each individual inherits the sense of the species. Hence the law “of the struggle for existence,” resulting in “the survival of the fittest,” said to be a regulating principle in the plant and animal kingdoms, is not severe, regarded with reference to the individuals which inhabit them. But to regard the operations of this law as beneficent upon the plane of human life, as does Mr. Spencer, is altogether to overlook the obligations men are under to one another, because of their mutual relations. The life of each man, it must be remembered, in so far as it is above that of the unrelated savage, is contained in the life of every other man. In so far as it is comfortable, intelligent, and free, it has been brought to him, and made over to him by his fellow-man. The law which is to determine the regulation of the elements of commerce, which are but expressions of the energy arising through mutual human relations, must be as elevated as the relations which commerce begets, and which in turn make commerce possible.