dant subsistence; and when he has more than he can consume, it
is much easier for him to give to others, and to practice the actions
useful to society.

Q. Do you look upon opulence as a virtue?

A. No; but still less as a vice: it is the use alone of wealth that
can be called virtuous or vicious, according as it is serviceable or
prejudicial to man and to society. Wealth is an instrument, the use and
employment alone of which determine its virtue or vice.

CHAPTER IX.

ON CLEANLINESS.

Q. Why is cleanliness included among the virtues?

A. Because it is, in reality, one of the most important among them, on
account of its powerful influence over the health and preservation of
the body. Cleanliness, as well in dress as in residence, obviates
the pernicious effects of the humidity, baneful odors, and contagious
exhalations, proceeding from all things abandoned to putrefaction.
Cleanliness, maintains free transpiration; it renews the air, refreshes
the blood, and disposes even the mind to cheerfulness.

From this it appears that persons attentive to the cleanliness of their
bodies and habitations are, in general, more healthy, and less subject
to disease, than those who live in filth and nastiness; and it is
further remarked, that cleanliness carries with it, throughout all the
branches of domestic administration, habits of order and arrangement,
which are the chief means and first elements of happiness.

Q. Uncleanliness or filthiness is, then, a real vice?

A. Yes, as real a one as drunkenness, or as idleness, from which in a
great measure it is derived. Uncleanliness is the second, and often the
first, cause of many inconveniences, and even of grievous disorders; it
is a fact in medicine, that it brings on the itch, the scurf, tetters,
leprosies, as much as the use of tainted or sour aliments; that it
favors the contagious influence of the plague and malignant fevers,
that it even produces them in hospitals and prisons; that it occasions
rheumatisms, by incrusting the skin with dirt, and thereby preventing
transpiration; without reckoning the shameful inconvenience of being
devoured by vermin--the foul appendage of misery and depravity.

Most ancient legislators, therefore, considered cleanliness, which they
called purity, as one of the essential dogmas of their religions. It
was for this reason that they expelled from society, and even punished
corporeally those who were infected with distempers produce