m. Gold
can never be hardened into saws or axes; it can neither furnish
instruments of manufacture, utensils of agriculture, nor weapons of
defence; its only quality is to shine, and the value of its lustre
arises from its scarcity.

Throughout the whole circle, both of natural and moral life, necessaries
are as iron, and superfluities as gold. What we really need we may
readily obtain; so readily, that far the greater part of mankind has, in
the wantonness of abundance, confounded natural with artificial desires,
and invented necessities for the sake of employment, because the mind is
impatient of inaction, and life is sustained with so little labour, that
the tediousness of idle time cannot otherwise be supported.

Thus plenty is the original cause of many of our needs; and even the
poverty, which is so frequent and distressful in civilized nations,
proceeds often from that change of manners which opulence has produced.
Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries; but custom gives the
name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

When Socrates passed through shops of toys and ornaments, he cried out,
"How many things are here which I do not need!" And the same exclamation
may every man make who surveys the common accommodations of life.

Superfluity and difficulty begin together. To dress food for the stomach
is easy, the art is to irritate the palate when the stomach is sufficed.
A rude hand may build walls, form roofs, and lay floors, and provide all
that warmth and security require; we only call the nicer artificers to
carve the cornice, or to paint the ceilings. Such dress as may enable
the body to endure the different seasons, the most unenlightened nations
have been able to procure; but the work of science begins in the
ambition of distinction, in variations of fashion, and emulation of
elegance. Corn grows with easy culture; the gardener's experiments are
only employed to exalt the flavours of fruits, and brighten the colours
of flowers.

Even of knowledge, those parts are most easy which are generally
necessary. The intercourse of society is maintained without the
elegancies of language. Figures, criticisms, and refinements, are the
work of those whom idleness makes weary of themselves. The commerce of
the world is carried on by easy methods of computation. Subtilty and
study are required only when questions are invented merely to puzzle,
and calculations are extended to show the skill of the calc