Chapter 6 - Page 2

society; and property, or a vested
interest in that society, is the best pledge of our
disinterestedness and justice, and the best qualification for its
proper control. It follows as a legitimate corollary that a
multiplication of those interests will increase the stake, and
render us more and more worthy of the trust by elevating us as near
as may be to the pure and ethereal condition of the angels. One of
those happy accidents which sometimes make men emperors and kings,
had made me, perhaps, the richest subject of Europe. With this polar
star of theory shining before my eyes, and with practical means so
ample, it would have been clearly my own fault had I not steered my
bark into the right haven. If he who had the heaviest investments
was the most likely to love his fellows, there could be no great
difficulty for one in my situation to take the lead in philanthropy.
It is true that with superficial observers the instance of my own
immediate ancestor might be supposed to form an exception, or rather
an objection, to the theory. So far from this being the case,
however, it proves the very reverse. My father in a great measure
had concentrated all his investments in the national debt! Now,
beyond all cavil, he loved the funds intensely; grew violent when
they were assailed; cried out for bayonets when the mass declaimed
against taxation; eulogized the gallows when there were menaces of
revolt, and in a hundred other ways prove that "where the treasure
is, there will the heart be also." The instance of my father,
therefore, like all exceptions, only went to prove the excellence of
the rule. He had merely fallen into the error of contraction, when
the only safe course was that of expansion. I resolved to expand; to
do that which probably no political economist had ever yet thought
of doing--in short, to carry out the principle of the social stake
in such a way as should cause me to love all things, and
consequently to become worthy of being intrusted with the care of
all things.

On reaching town my earliest visit was one of thanks to my Lord
Pledge. At first I had felt some doubts whether the baronetcy would
or would not aid the system of philanthropy; for by raising me above
a large portion of my kind, it was in so much at least a removal
from philanthropical sympathies; but by the time the patent was
received and the fees were paid, I found that it might fairly be
considered a pecuniary investment, and that it was consequently
brought within the rule I had prescribed for my own government.

The next thing was to employ suitable agents to aid in making the
purchases that were necessary to attach me to mankind. A month was
diligently occupied in this way. As ready money was not