No More Learning

Labour is required for physical, and leisure for moral improvement: from
the former of these advantages the rich, and from the latter the poor,
by the inevitable conditions of their respective situations, are
precluded. A state which should combine the advantages of both would be
subjected to the evils of neither. He that is deficient in firm health,
or vigorous intellect, is but half a man: hence it follows that to
subject the labouring classes to unnecessary labour is wantonly
depriving them of any opportunities of intellectual improvement; and
that the rich are heaping up for their own mischief the disease,
lassitude, and ennui by which their existence is rendered an intolerable
burthen.

English reformers exclaim against sinecures,--but the true pension list
is the rent-roll of the landed proprietors: wealth is a power usurped by
the few, to compel the many to labour for their benefit. The laws which
support this system derive their force from the ignorance and credulity
of its victims: they are the result of a conspiracy of the few against
the many, who are themselves obliged to purchase this pre-eminence by
the loss of all real comfort.

'The commodities that substantially contribute to the subsistence of the
human species form a very short catalogue: they demand from us but a
slender portion of industry. If these only were produced, and
sufficiently produced, the species of man would be continued. If the
labour necessarily required to produce them were equitably divided among
the poor, and, still more, if it were equitably divided among all, each
man's share of labour would be light, and his portion of leisure would
be ample. There was a time when this leisure would have been of small
comparative value: it is to be hoped that the time will come when it
will be applied to the most important purposes. Those hours which are
not required for the production of the necessaries of life may be
devoted to the cultivation of the understanding, the enlarging our stock
of knowledge, the refining our taste, and thus opening to us new and
more exquisite sources of enjoyment.

. . .

'It was perhaps necessary that a period of monopoly and oppression
should subsist, before a period of cultivated equality could subsist.
Savages perhaps would never have been excited to the discovery of truth
and the invention of art but by the narrow motives which such a period
affords.
But surely, after the savage state has ceased, and men have set
out in the glorious career of discovery and invention, monopoly and
oppression cannot be necessary to prevent them from returning to a state
of barbarism. '--Godwin's "Enquirer", Essay 2. See also "Pol. Jus. ", book
8, chapter 2.

It is a calculation of this admirable author, that all the conveniences
of civilized life might be produced, if society would divide the labour
equally among its members, by each individual being employed in labour
two hours during the day.

5. 112, 113:--

or religion
Drives his wife raving mad.

I am acquainted with a lady of considerable accomplishments, and the
mother of a numerous family, whom the Christian religion has goaded to
incurable insanity. A parallel case is, I believe, within the experience
of every physician.

Nam iam saepe homines patriam, carosquo parentes
Prodiderunt, vitare Acherusia templa petentes. --Lucretius.

5. 189:--

Even love is sold.

Not even the intercourse of the sexes is exempt from the despotism of
positive institution. Law pretends even to govern the indisciplinable
wanderings of passion, to put fetters on the clearest deductions of
reason, and, by appeals to the will, to subdue the involuntary
affections of our nature.