chances, when ascertained, constitute the science | be any longer postponed, ruin spreads itself around. of probabilities. As applied to human life, found- This ruin is not confined to the prodigal himself; ed on tables of mortality, it serves as the founda- his family and immediate dependants share it with tion of societies, which, for certain annual premiums, varied according to age, undertake to pay certain sums to the heirs of the party, whose life is thereby insured for that sum.

PROCONSUL. A Roman magistrate, sent to govern a province with consular authority. The proconsuls were appointed out of the body of the senate; and usually as the year of any one's consulate expired, he was sent proconsul into some province. The proconsuls decided cases of equity and justice, either privately in their pretorium or palace, where they received petitions, heard complaints, granted writs under their seal, and the like; or else publicly, in the common hall, with the usual formalities observed in the court of judicature at Rome. They had, besides, by virtue of their edicts the power of ordering all things relating to the tribunes, taxes, contributions, and provisions of corn and money.

PROCRUSTES. A celebrated robber of Attica, who had two bedsteads, one short and the other long. The monster placed his short guests in the long bed, and then, under pretence of fitting the bed to the occupant, stretched the latter till he died. If his guest was tall, Procrustes placed him in the short bed, and reduced him to the proper dimensions by cutting and clipping. Theseus finally served him as he had served others.

him. They are by his means precipitated from a station of comfort and respectability to a state of indigence and obscurity. After having defrauded tradesmen of their property, by withholding from them payment of their labor, or their goods,after having borrowed without possessing the pow er, or perhaps the intention to pay,—after having injured, if not involved in deep calamity, all whom by deceit he had induced to support his extravagance, he is deserted by those who had profited by his criminality, excluded from the confidence of society, deprived of influence and usefulness, and doomed to suffer the bitter reflection, that he has been faithless to his stewardship, and has brought accumulated distresses on himself and on others.

In this situation, and even before he had reached it, how numerous are the temptations to which he is exposed! He has been long faithless to his engagements, just because his own conduct rendered it impossible for him to fulfil them. His promises which, at first, were broken with self crimination have been so often violated, that they are of no value with others, while their breach scarcely gives pain to himself. He now has recourse to direct and deliberate falsehood,-to obtain by deceit and swindling what, but for himself, he might have obtained by the most honorable means. Detected, repulsed, despised,-under the influence of painful recollections, of mortified pride, and almost of despair, he has recourse to strong drink for relief from his distresses. The repetition of the stimulus strengthens the habit,-till at length the career is completed in frequent drunkenness, and perhaps terminated in self destruction.

PRODIGALITY. Prodigality is a means of sinfully wasting property. It is somewhat difficult to define, since it has a relation to the circumstances in which we are placed, and to our capability of spending, without encroaching on the rights of justice, and the duties of charity. Mere waste, without relation to circumstances, must be wrong in itself; though the criminality is doubtless aggravated, when it is a direct dissipation of that to which our families are entitled to look for comfort and respectability, and our creditors for pay-cy, the important talents with which Providence ment of their just claims.

The guilt and misery of such a course are incalculable. If the person who runs it has been born to affluence, to power, and to be the instru ment of putting the means of virtue and of happiness within the reach of thousands, how much has he lost in wasting, in prodigality and profliga

had intrusted him? Enjoying by inheritance, A man may be termed prodigal when he is in- perhaps, the name of a family that had weight over considerate and injudicious in the management of the land, and the possession of which placed him his affairs; when he parts with his property without on vantage ground far above his fellows,-with a a fair equivalent; and when he so profusely squan- fortune adequate to sustain it in stimulating indusders what is his own, that he soon will have re-try, in relieving distress, in patronising merit, and course to what belongs to others. The feelings in diffusing blessings, he has criminally thrown and habits in which this vice takes its rise, though away his superior advantages, has destroyed the different in different individuals, are such as ought not to be indulged. They are chiefly vanity and pride under various modifications, awakening the love of display, and the desire for expensive gratifications. The prodigal having entered on his career of folly, is stimulated in the pursuit by competitors alike foolish as himself, who are all eager to outstrip each other in show, in extravagance, in the idle and criminal consumption of property.

respectability with which the honors of many generations had surrounded him, and has subjected himself, in the state into which he has fallen, to many mortifications.

In the ordinary ranks of life, the evils occasioned by continued prodigality are far greater than, without a minute examination, we are apt to be aware of. Besides those which terminate in the prodigal himself, he becomes the source of misery and disWhat are the consequences to which this vice grace to all who are connected with him. As the leads, and in which it usually terminates? There head of a family, he has brought want and wretchis of course a rapid decline of property- a re-edness on his wife and children. After having course to all the shifts and artifices which inge-long neglected their moral and religious interests, nuity can devise to elude creditors, and to keep up and lived before them without prayer and without appearances; till at length, when the evil cannot God; after having allowed his offspring (if he has

not directly encouraged them) to form notions and PROLOGUE. In dramatic poetry, a discourse, habits, from their observing his profuse expendi- in verse, addressed to the audience before the comture, which are quite unsuited to their real circum-mencement of a play; usually made to consist of stances; they are awakened to the sad survey of an apology or intercession for the poet, with some calamities for which their previous training had advertisement of the subject of his performance. but ill prepared them, and which the vices of a parent have heaped upon them.

PROPHETS. Among the Hebrews, inspired

We could not fail of forming the most vivid im-teachers sent by God to declare his purposes to his pression of the odiousness of these vices, did we people. The Jews distinguish the authors of the personally witness the poverty and distress which sacred books into the older and later prophets. follow, a mother whose heart has been already The former are the authors of the books of Joshua, broken, sighing over miseries which she had partly Judges, Samuel, Kings and Chronicles; the latter foreseen, but which she could not prevent,―chil- are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor dren about to separate under circumstances far prophets. David and Daniel they do not call prodifferent from those which they had anticipated; phets, because they did not live in solitude. Moses and who, if they meet not with relief in the com- they do not include in this classification, but rank passion of friends, are sent very helplessly to him apart by himself. Samuel, the last of the encounter the snares and temptations of the judges, founded the school of the prophets, in world. which young men of all the tribes were instructed in the law and sacred poetry. From these schools proceeded the preachers mentioned in the Old Testament, who purified and exalted the religious and moral system of their nation, defended the Mosaic theocracy against the encroachments of the kings and the laxness of the priests, (who were occupied merely with religious rites,) and foretold the fate of states, with warnings, denunciations, and consolatory prophecies.

PRODUCE. What any country yields from labor and growth, which may serve either for the use of the inhabitants, or be exported to foreign countries. The crops of grain, &c., are the produce of the fields.

PRODUCTION. A work either of nature or art, as the productions of the field, or the productions of the press.

PROFILE. In general, the view of an object from one of its chief sides, at which more or less of the other side is hidden from the eye; in particular, the contour of the human face, viewed from one side. The traits of character are often expressed with peculiar strength in the profile. A face which, when seen directly in front, attracts us by its rounded outline, blooming color, and lovely smile, is often divested of its charm, when seen in profile, and strikes only as far as it has an intellectual expression. On the other hand, it is often the eye alone which expresses the character strongly. It requires practice to judge accurately in viewing a profile, in which the marked often strikes too strongly, the soft too slightly. Only where great symmetry exists, connected with the preponderance of the intellectual over the sensual, will the profile appear finer than the front face.

PROFIT AND LOSS. In Commerce, the profit or loss arising from goods bought and sold; the former of which, in book keeping, is placed on the creditor's side, the latter on the debtor's side.

PROJECTILE FORCE. The force of explosion or projection with which a common ball or missile is thrown, which imparted force being gradually parted with to the air, and counteracted by the constant downward force, occasions the body to describe a curve line. And as the planets move in curve lines, Newton taught that these also were moved by a projectile force, and that a central force, like bodies on the earth, draws them into orbits; the projectile force being the almighty power with which they were hurled into space when first created; and the central force the attraction of the sun.

The deep sense and religious fire of these men, so far before their age, present a phenomenon that can be explained only by the special action of divine influences. They appear, therefore, as messengers of God, divinely inspired seers; and their preachings and songs were preserved by the Hebrews as the word of God, and among them were rendered more impressive by their connexion with poetry and music. Their constant object was the preservation of the doctrines of revelation in their purity. The originality, richness and sublimity of their writings still awaken the admiration even of those who deny them the character of prophecies. The writing of the prophets form one of the three canonical divisions of the Old Testament, and consist of sixteen books,

PROPERTY. We are required by the law written on the heart, not less than by the law which was written on tables of stone, to refrain from injuring the property of others. "Thou shalt not steal,' is the authoritative command of heaven, which evidently requires the lawful procuring and furthering the wealth and outward estate of ourselves and others; and forbids whatsoever doth or may unjustly hinder our own or our neighbor's wealth, or outward estate. To take our neighbor's property, therefore, and to turn it to our own use, without his consent, is unjust and sinful.

We can much more easily trace the origin and progress of property than satisfy ourselves, at least in some cases, of the justice or expediency of the tenure by which it is held. That one man should retain possession of what is more than adequate for the maintenance of a thousand, while there are many around him who are scarcely able to procure a subsistence, is an order of things which at first view seems as little consonant to our reason as it is to our feelings. You see the ninety-nine toiling and scraping together a heap of superfluities for

one,—and this one, too, oftentimes the feeblest and the worst of the whole set,--a child, a madman, or a fool;- -getting nothing for themselves all the while, but a little of the coarsest of the provision which their own industry produces; looking quietly on, while they see the fruits of all their labors spent or spoiled; and if one of the number take or touch a particle of the hoard, the others joining against him, and hanging him for the theft."

It surely is necessary that reasons, ample and sufficient, should be assigned to justify this seemingly harsh inequality. Such reasons do exist, and their sufficiency will presently be made to appear. Every man, doubtless, has a right to the fruits of his own labor. To deprive him of any part of this without an equivalent is unjust. For if it were allowable to take away a share of the fruit of his industry, without an equivalent, the order and designs of human society would be frustrated;-men would rob from others that to which they have no good claim-property, being wasted by the idle and the profligate, would soon disappear, and the most fertile parts of the earth would become a barren wilderness. The authority of the Supreme Legislator and Proprietor decides the question; and gives to every man the exclusive right to that which he has acquired by his ingenuity or labor.

But without a reasonable degree of security in the enjoyment of property, who would undergo the toil and the trouble necessary to its attainment? Who would relinquish that indolence which is so natural to man, and steadily pursue a course of industrious exertion? The history of society shows that the prospect of wealth is not of itself a motive sufficiently powerful, unaccompanied with the security which law and regular government afford. Hence the necessity as well as the origin of laws for securing to the rightful owner the undisturbed possession of his property. In proportion as such laws are impartially enforced will industry and all its fruits increase and multiply. In confirmation of this remark many illustrations might be given from the history of every civilized people,-proving that in the most fertile countries the inhabitants may be poor and indolent and wretched, while on a less genial soil, they may be active, and rich, and happy.

under the most abject poverty, and with a pale and wan visage starves in the midst of plenty. It is liberty alone that works this standing miracle. Under her plastic hands the mountains sink, the lakes are drained, and these rocks, these marshes, these woods.'

We shall only adduce another illustration, from Dr. Clarke's Travels, to show how much the human character is degraded, and the design of society frustrated by the insecurity of property, wheth er it arise from the weakness or from the oppres sion of the government. In Circassia,' he observes, that the sower scattering the seed, or the reaper who gathers the sheaves, are constantly liable to an assault; and the implements of husbandry are not more essential to the harvest than the carbine, the pistol, and the sabre.' Of the isle of Cyprus, he says, 'the soil every where exhibited a white marly clay, said to be exceedingly rich in its nature, although neglected. The Greeks are so oppressed by their Turkish masters, that they dare not cultivate the land; the harvest would instantly be taken away from them if they did. Their whole aim seems to be, to scrape together barely sufficient, in the course of the year, to pay their tax to the governor. The omission of this is punished by torture or by death: and in case of their inability to supply the impost, the inhabitants fly from the island. So many emigrations of this sort happen during the year, that the population of Cyprus rarely exceeds 60,000 persons, a number formerly insufficient to have peopled one of its towns.'

These remarks, suggested by a survey of the actual condition of European nations, show that unless property is secured to the rightful ownersthat is, to the persons by whose industry and labor it is acquired, mankind would remain inactive and degraded. It is not so much wealth, as the secure possession of it, that forms the incentive to persevering exertion and enterprise.

It was observed, that it was labor originally that constitutes the right of property. Though in an early stage of society all the members of the community possessed all things in common, it would soon be found that all would be more active, and, consequently, that there would be a much greater Perhaps there is no part of Europe,' says a abundance acquired, if each were allowed to have distinguished traveller, more fruitful than the an exclusive property in the fruits of his own inValteline, and yet there is no country in which the dustry. The hunter, the fisher, the herdsman peasants are more wretched. The first and princi- would become more careful and dexterous, when pal cause is the form of government.' 'What a they found that their subsistence depended on their contrast,' says Brydone, an intelligent traveller, 'is success; and their industry would be stimulated, there between this (Sicily) and the little uncouth not merely by the prospect of food, but by the country of Switzerland. To be sure the dreadful consequence which they would gradually assume consequences of oppression can never be set in a in the community, from their power of procuring more striking opposition to the blessings and a greater supply of the necessaries of life. This charms of liberty. Switzerland, the very excrescence of Europe, where nature seems to have thrown out all her cold and stagnating humors; full of lakes, marshes, and woods, and surrounded by immense rocks, and everlasting mountains of ice, the barren but sacred ramparts of liberty :— Switzerland enjoying every blessing where every blessing seems to have been denied; while Sicily, covered by the most luxuriant hand of nature, where heaven seems to have showered down its richest blessings with the utmost prodigality, groans

would introduce a degree of inequality in circumstances; and this inequality, from the operation of the same cause being gradually on the increase, would render it necessary to appropriate the houses and land which at first were enjoyed in common. On general grounds it would seem that in this division he would have the best right to a field by whom it was first cleared and cultivated; and he who built a house would have an exclusive right to possess it. But the circumstances in which the children of such parents came into the world were

very different from those in which their fathers were placed; and this change of circumstances would give rise to a new set of laws regulating the succession of property. The parents had labored, and the accumulation of their property was the result of their labor; but to whom should this property descend, but to those whom Providence has rendered so entirely dependent on their protection? The principles of equity, then, as well as the most comprehensive views of general expediency, would allot the field which the father by his labor had made fertile to the son.

the absolute master of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages.'

If there had been no appropriation of property, all men must have continued to till the ground, that they might procure a scanty and insecure subsistence: there could have been no part of the produce of the earth reserved for mere intellectual laborers; and thus the poets, philosophers, and legislators, who have exalted our common nature, would not have had the opportunity of transmitting to succeeding generations the lights of genius and of science.

If the institution of property has produced

Many are the advantages which arise from the institution of property, and even from that in-effects so numerous and valuable, we must believe equality which it occasions; and though the num- that its existence is owing, not to casual circumber of inconveniences may be unnecessarily aug- stances, but to the will of God; and it would, mented among a people who have arrived at a high therefore, be surprising, if, in a revelation of his degree of civilisation, the benefits which, on the will, there should be no mention of an ordinance whole, accompany this order of things, are essen- so essential to the moral improvement and happitial to the progressive improvement and happiness ness of man. Of the ten commandments of the of mankind. Without the institution of proper-law, one has an exclusive reference to the right of ty,property; and enjoins the duty of refraining from I. None could ever enjoy abundance. This appropriating to ourselves the property of our were true if our earth were as fertile as paradise. neighbors. From other parts of the sacred volume For, on the supposition that there were no exclu- we learn, that there is much implied in the persive and individual right, the fruit would be gath-formance of this duty,-that we are bound to shun ered before it came to maturity, and animals killed fraud in all its forms,-and every art by which we before they were fit for food: for, who would pro- might injure either directly or indirectly the proptect what was not his own: or, who would econo-erty of others. The precept obviously prohibits mise, when all the stores of nature were open to the detention in whole or in part of the hire of the him? There would be a strange mixture of laborer, the acquisition of gain by base and unlawplenty, waste, and famine. Paley illustrates this, ful means, and the reception of bribes in the disby remarking, that in England, where the only charge of important trusts. Among the offences common property consists in hedge nuts and black-which exclude from the kingdom of heaven, the berries, they are seldom allowed to ripen.

But in truth, our earth produces comparatively little without cultivation. And who would labor to make it fruitful unless they were assured of being allowed to share in its fruits? What husbandman would sow if he were deprived of the hope that he should also reap? And what would be the consequence of such an order of things, but that the scanty and miserable population would be reduced to the most extreme want?

unrepented commission of injustice in relation to the property of others is enumerated; 'Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?'

However painfully the inequalities arising out of the institution of property may press on some individuals, there are obvious considerations, besides its being the declared will of God, to induce them cheerfully to acquiesce, and steadfastly to practice the things that are just and honest. II. Without the institution of property, the Though they have nothing to depend on but their fruits and conveniences of industry, which are so industry, while many around them have been born essential to the improvement of the species, could to fortunes, they surely cannot fare worse than if have had no existence. The division of labor, these fortunes had not been made by the savings which has tended to elevate man as a moral and of successive generations. Would they have been intellectual being, is but one of these fruits; and better fed or more comfortably clothed if mankind yet, how many comforts does this put within the had possessed all things in common;-and if in reach of the poorest inhabitant of a civilized coun-place of having moved onwards to the habits and try. The accommodation of those in the lowest the accommodations of civilized life, they had ranks of life, as is forcibly observed by Dr. Adam continued to nestle in the cavern, and to cover Smith, is the product of the united industry of themselves in the skins of animals? Do they many people. Without the assistance and coop-complain that they have nothing, while others by eration of many thousands, the very meanest per- their superabundance are elevated above manual son in a civilized country could not be provided, labor? Let them remember that but for the instieven according to what we very falsely imagine tution of property, and that consequent inequality the easy and simple manner in which he is com- of circumstances which necessarily accompanies monly accommodated. Compared, indeed, with it, this surplus could never have existence ;-there the more extravagant luxury of the great, his ac- could, therefore, have been no fund for rewarding commodation must no doubt, appear extremely industry; all would be on the same level of penury simple and easy and yet it may be true, perhaps, and wretchedness; all would often be in want, and that the accommodation of an European prince none would have permanent plenty; all would be does not always so much exceed that of an indus-poor, and none could possibly become rich. The trious and frugal peasant as the accommodation poorest among us would be poorer than they now of the latter exceeds that of many an African king, are, with the additional inconvenience of finding

their industry of little use to them, while all around them presented a scene of misery.

inseparably mixes his labor with it; by which means it afterwards becomes his own, as it cannot be taken from him without depriving him, at the same time, of something which is indisputably his. To distinguish this right from that of possession, he would call it the right of labor. This, as Paley observes, is a fair ground, where the value of the labor bears a considerable proportion to the value of the thing; or, where the thing derives its chief use and value from the labor. Thus, game and fish, though they be common while at large in the woods or water, instantly become the property of the person that catches them; because an animal, when caught, is much more valuable than when at liberty; and this increase of value, which is inseparable from, and makes a great part of, the whole value, is strictly the property of the fowler or fisherman, being the produce of his personal labor.

A third opinion on this subject is, that as God has provided liberally for the wants of all his creatures, he has given leave to each to take what his necessities may require; and that by virtue of this grant a man may appropriate what he needs with

The children of the poorest parents in a civilized country are born to no inconsiderable inheritance; -to an inheritance of far greater value than that of an African prince-the absolute master of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages. How superior is their habitation, their food, their clothing, and their attendance, from what they could have had if the rights of property had never existed. In such a country as our own, where the blessings of an elementary education are within the reach of all, and where the restrictions on trade are slender and few, every man has the fair prospect of obtaining. as the reward of his industry, a sufficiency for himself and his family. He who has health to labor, and who has the opportunity of selling his labor to the best advantage, has it in his power to place himself above indigence. Nor will it be doubted, that he who obtains this blessing as the reward of his labor, has much greater happiness in its acquisition, than he whose fortune has been accumulated by others;-so that in place of repining at what he might otherwise regard as an un-out asking or waiting for the consent of others. equal distribution of Providence, he has much This opinion is just only in cases in which the ground for thankfulness that the preponderance of things that we want are unappropriated. For, substantial enjoyment is so decidedly in his favor. though the God of nature has provided an ample The duty of acting with honesty towards the feast for all his children, we cannot sit down and property of others, and of cultivating a contented eat, if it has been already appropriated before we state of mind, may, on these grounds alone, became into the world, unless we can offer the posenforced. But revelation suggests many other sessors what they will consider as an equivalent. views to reconcile us to the practice of this duty. It teaches us that the providence of God, which ruleth over all, makes man the special object of its care; that He who feeds the raven when he cries, and clothes with beauty the grass of the field, will support him under necessities and distresses, and supply the means for their removal; and that the trials and sufferings of the present state are overruled, for promoting his real and everlasting good. It teaches us to look for our chief happiness to higher sources of enjoyment than this world can afford; while it presents to the contemplation of our faith a new heaven and a new earth, where there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither any more pain; the former things having passed away.

Different solutions have been given of the question, In what does the right of property consist? and they all appear to contain a portion of truth. That principle, doubtless, affords the just solution which unites these together, and to which, as a general law, they are referable.

Some moralists are of opinion, that the right of property consists in what may be called the general consent of mankind;—that when a particular person was allowed to occupy a piece of ground, others, by tacit consent, relinquished their right to it ;-that as the piece of ground belonged to mankind collectively, they, when they permitted the first peaceable occupier to remain on it, ceased to have any claim on it. This opinion resolves itself into the right of possession; a right, which, for the greater part, it is expedient to consider as valid in a civilized country.

Others are of opinion, and of this number is Locke; that each man's labor is his own exclusively that by occupying a piece of ground, a man

:

Admitting that these opinions afforded a perfect solution of the question, In what is the right of property founded?' they would be of little use in vindicating our present claims of property in land, unless it were more probable than it is, that our estates were actually acquired at first in some of the ways which these accounts suppose; and that a regular regard had been paid to justice in every succeeding transmission of them since.

Without any further analysis of this subject, we are prepared, by the different views that have been taken of it, to give our assent to the general position, that all right is founded on the will of God, and that this will, in relation to property, is in general expressed by the law of the land. If we have shown that the intentions of God with regard to the fruits of the earth could not be fulfilled in any other way than by establishing the right of property, we have in reality shown that it is his will that it should be established; and if we have succeeded in proving that the efforts and the feelings to which property gives rise are essentially connected with the progress of reason, and the happiness of mankind, there can be no doubt, that it is the will of God that this right should be universally recognised.

If these principles be just, it follows, that the right to an estate does not at all depend on the manner or justice of the original acquisition, nor upon the justice of each subsequent change of possession. The law of the land, which is the ordinance of God not less than the institution of property, must be regarded as in this case the rule of right.

PROPOSITION. In Mathematics, is either some truth advanced and shown to be such by