poor, in our dictionaries, if applied in the ordinary way, and according to the best authorities, will lead us into perpetual error.
It will be recollected that it has never been a question, whether a preacher of the gospel, or a lecturer in moral philosophy who is remunerated for his instructions obtains wealth in exchange for them. The only question is, whether it would be a convenient and useful classification to consider all that was obtained by his hearers, as wealth under the absolute impossibility of appreciating it. That such knowledge has not in the ordinary language of society been called wealth, except metaphysically, must be allowed, and it is equally certain that there is no way of arriving at its amount. In estimating the usual cost of a material object, we are pretty sure of coming near to its usual price. Generally speaking, those commodities, the conditions of the supply of which have been the same, are found to have nearly the same exchangeable value, or if not, the estimate is very soon rectified by an appeal to the next market. But in regard to moral and intellectual qualities, the same expenses of production terminate in results as different as can well be imagined. Even in the learned professions of law and physic, in which the students acquire their knowledge for the express purpose of exchanging it, an attempt to estimate the skill and attainments of each person by the expenses of his education would lead to the most fallacious conclusions. And in the more general education obtained by the great mass of the higher classes of society, such an attempt would be perfectly ridiculous. Those who have paid the most for their instruction, are often those who have the least profited by it. If the products were material, and sold with a view to gain, their production would very soon come to an end; but education still goes on, and most properly so, although the inequality of possessions arising from the same outlay is known to be prodigious, while in reference to the great mass of them, there are no means of rectifying the estimate
