them from agriculture, it
encourages their taste for commerce and manufactures. *a

[Footnote a: It has often been remarked that manufacturers and
mercantile men are inordinately addicted to physical gratifications, and
this has been attributed to commerce and manufactures; but that is,
I apprehend, to take the effect for the cause. The taste for physical
gratifications is not imparted to men by commerce or manufactures,
but it is rather this taste which leads men to embark in commerce and
manufactures, as a means by which they hope to satisfy themselves more
promptly and more completely. If commerce and manufactures increase the
desire of well-being, it is because every passion gathers strength in
proportion as it is cultivated, and is increased by all the efforts made
to satiate it. All the causes which make the love of worldly welfare
predominate in the heart of man are favorable to the growth of commerce
and manufactures. Equality of conditions is one of those causes; it
encourages trade, not directly by giving men a taste for business, but
indirectly by strengthening and expanding in their minds a taste for
prosperity.]

This spirit may be observed even amongst the richest members of the
community. In democratic countries, however opulent a man is supposed to
be, he is almost always discontented with his fortune, because he finds
that he is less rich than his father was, and he fears that his sons
will be less rich than himself. Most rich men in democracies are
therefore constantly haunted by the desire of obtaining wealth, and they
naturally turn their attention to trade and manufactures, which appear
to offer the readiest and most powerful means of success. In this
respect they share the instincts of the poor, without feeling the
same necessities; say rather, they feel the most imperious of all
necessities, that of not sinking in the world.

In aristocracies the rich are at the same time those who govern. The
attention which they unceasingly devote to important public affairs
diverts them from the lesser cares which trade and manufactures
demand. If the will of an individual happens, nevertheless, to turn his
attention to business, the will of the body to which he belongs will
immediately debar him from pursuing it; for however men may declaim
against the rule of numbers, they cannot wholly escape their sway; and
even amongst those aristocratic bodies which most obstinately refuse to
acknowledge the rights of