money. On this point, I have already
remarked at length, and will only repeat here the injunction of St.
Paul; 'Owe no man any thing;' although the fashion of the whole world
should be against you.

Should you regard the advice of this section, the counsels of the next
will be of less consequence; for you will have removed one of the
strongest inducements to speculation, as well as to overtrading.

[8] I should be sorry to be understood as affirming that a
majority of suicidal acts are the result of intemperance;--by no
means. My own opinion is, that if there be a single vice more
fruitful of this horrid crime than any other, it is gross
sensuality. The records of insane hospitals, even in this country
will show, that this is not mere conjecture. As it happens,
however, that the latter vice is usually accompanied by
intemperance in eating and drinking, by gambling, &c., the blame
is commonly thrown, not on the principal agent concerned in the
crime, but on the accomplices.

SECTION XVI. _On Speculation._

Young men are apt to be fond of _speculation_. This propensity is very
early developed--first in the family--and afterwards at the school. By
_speculation_, I mean the purchasing of something which you do not want
for use, solely with a view to sell it again at a large profit; but on
the sale of which there is a hazard.

When purchases of this sort are made with the person's own cash, they
are not so unreasonable, but when they are made by one who is deeply
indebted to his fellow beings, or with money borrowed for the purpose,
it is not a whit better than gambling, let the practice be defended by
whom it may: and has been in every country, especially in this, a
fruitful source of poverty, misery, and suicide. Grant that this
species of gambling has arisen from the facility of obtaining the
fictitious means of making the purchase, still it is not the less
necessary that I beseech you not to practise it, and if engaged in it
already, to disentangle yourself as soon as you can. Your life, while
thus engaged, is that of a gamester--call it by what smoother name you
may. It is a life of constant anxiety, desire to overreach, and general
gloom; enlivened now and then, by a gleam of hope or of success. Even
that success is sure to lead to farther adventures; till at last, a
thousand to one, that your fate is that of 'the pitcher to the well.'

The great tem