prone
to pay a superior deference to those who wear better clothes, live in
larger houses, and command superior accommodations to those which fall
to the lot of the majority.

One of the main sources of wealth in civilised nations is the possession
of land. Those who have a considerable allotment of land in property,
for the most part let it out in farms on lease or otherwise to persons
of an inferior rank, by whom it is cultivated. In this case a reciprocal
relation is created between the landlord and the tenant: and, if the
landlord conducts himself towards his tenant agreeably to the principles
of honour and liberality, it is impossible that the tenant should not
feel disposed to gratify his landlord, so far as shall be compatible
with his own notions of moral rectitude, or the paramount interests of
the society of which he is a member.

If the proprietor of any extensive allotment of land does not let it out
in farms, but retains it under his own direction, he must employ a great
number of husbandmen and labourers; and over them he must be expected
to exercise the same sort of influence, as under the former statement we
supposed him to exercise over his tenants.

The same principle will still operate wherever any one man in society is
engaged in the expenditure of a considerable capital. The manufacturer
will possess the same influence over his workmen, as the landed
proprietor over his tenants or labourers. Even the person who possesses
considerable opulence, and has no intention to engage in the pursuits of
profit or accumulation, will have an ample retinue, and will be
enabled to use the same species of influence over his retainers and
trades-people, as the landlord exercises over his tenants and labourers,
and the manufacturer over his workmen.

A certain degree of this species of influence in society, is perhaps not
to be excepted against. The possessor of opulence in whatever form, may
be expected to have received a superior education, and, being placed at
a certain distance from the minuter details and the lesser wheels in the
machine of society, to have larger and more expansive views as to
the interests of the whole. It is good that men in different ranks of
society should be brought into intercourse with each other; it will
subtract something from the prejudices of both, and enable each to
obtain some of the advantages of the other. The division of rank is too
much calculated to split society into part