INTERNATIONAL  TRADE  165

that  stony  kind  from  which  public  sentiment
recoiled  :—“  The  economical  advantages  of
commerce  are  surpassed  in  importance  by  those
of  its  effects,  which  are  intellectual  and  moral.
It  is  hardly  possible  to  over-rate  the  value,
in  the  present  low  state  of  human  improvement, ­
  of  placing  human  beings  in  contact  with
persons  dissimilar  to  themselves,  and  with
modes  of  thought  and  action  unlike  those
with  which  they  are  familiar.  Commerce  is
now  what  war  once  was,  the  principal  source  of
this  contact.  Commercial  adventurers  from
more  civilized  countries  have  generally  been
the  first  civilizers  of  barbarians.  And  commerce ­
  is  the  purpose  of  the  far  greater  part  of
the  communication  which  takes  place  between
civilized  nations.  Such  communication  has
always  been,  and  is  peculiarly  in  the  present
age,  one  of  the  primary  sources  of  progress.
To  human  beings,  who,  as  hitherto  educated,
can  scarcely  cultivate  even  a  good  quality
without  running  it  into  a  fault,  it  is  indispensable ­
  to  be  perpetually  comparing  their  own
notions  and  customs  with  the  experience
and  example  of  persons  in  different  circumstances ­
  from  themselves  ;  and  there  is  no
nation  which  does  not  need  to  borrow  from
others,  not  merely  particular  arts  or  practices,
but  essential  points  of  character  in  which  its