nt myself with viewing it at a distance. Such vast piles are not
uncommon in and near London; yet how great and certain must be the
profits of a commodity to warrant the expenditure of such large
capitals before there can be any return! It might seem too that a man
possessed of sixty thousand pounds, or of as much as, at the present
value of money, would purchase for ever the constant labour of from
above sixty to eighty men, would have avoided the hazards of
trade.--Yet in England it is not so--the avaricious spirit of commerce
despises all mediocrity--care is preferred to enjoyment--and the ends
of life are sacrificed to the means! It has always been the foible of
man not to be contented with the good he possesses, but to look
forward to happiness in the anticipation of something which he hopes
to attain. Thus, few congratulate themselves on the comforts they
enjoy, or consider the consequences of losing them; but, neglectful of
blessings in hand, rush forward in quest of others which they may
never be able to obtain, and which, when possessed, are again as
little enjoyed.

Poets, divines, and moralists, have asserted this important truth in
all ages; but have failed to cure the delusion, though it is at once
the cause of the greater part of the miseries of individuals, and of
the mischievous errors of governments. Moses guarded against it by new
subdivisions of property in every year of jubilee; but the fraternal
regulations of the family of Abraham are not conceived to be
applicable to the whole family of man, as blended in modern nations;
and statesmen and economists now think it better that endless
competitions should be encouraged, and indefinite accumulations
tolerated, than that industry should be checked by any regard to the
personal happiness which might result from moderated and bounded
wealth. Hence, he that has health and strength to labour for his own
subsistence is not contented unless he can accumulate enough to
purchase the labour of others--and he who has enough to purchase the
labours of fifty, is miserable if another can purchase the labours of
sixty--while he who can purchase the labours of a thousand is still
wretched if some other can purchase the labours of two thousand. In
the wilds of Africa and America, men suffer every species of misery
for want of the impulse created by the reward of labour; whereas the
suffering is little less, though varied in kind, from the gradations
created in long-es