increased the value (that is, the productiveness) of his estate, has
thereby added to the stock of national capital. By all means, then, let
the right acquisition and proper use of wealth, have their due share of
admiration.

But that which we condemn as the chief cause of commercial dishonesty,
is the _indiscriminate_ admiration of wealth--an admiration that has
little or no reference to the character of the possessor. When, as very
generally happens, the external signs are reverenced, where they signify
no internal worthiness--nay, even where they cover internal
unworthiness; then does the feeling become vicious. It is this idolatry
which worships the symbol apart from the thing symbolised, that is the
root of all these evils we have been exposing. So long as men pay homage
to those social benefactors who have grown rich honestly, they give a
wholesome stimulus to industry; but when they accord a share of their
homage to those social malefactors who have grown rich dishonestly, then
do they foster corruption--then do they become accomplices in all these
frauds of commerce.

As for remedy, it manifestly follows that there is none save a purified
public opinion. When that abhorrence which society now shows to direct
theft, is shown to theft of all degrees of indirectness, then will these
mercantile vices disappear. When not only the trader who adulterates or
gives short measure, but also the merchant who over-trades, the
bank-director who countenances an exaggerated report, and the
railway-director who repudiates his guarantee, come to be regarded as of
the same genus as the pickpocket, and are treated with like disdain;
then will the morals of trade become what they should be.

We have little hope, however, that any such higher tone of public