nd too inefficient in character to preserve it
from ruin.

The proprietors of land or money should never be so far raised above
the ordinary class of the people as to be totally ignorant of their
manner of feeling and existing, or to lose sight of the connection
between industry and prosperity; for, whenever they do, the
industrious are oppressed, and wealth vanishes. {102}

It requires not much knowledge, and little love of justice, to see that
there must be gradations in society, which, instead of diminishing,
increase the general happiness of mankind; but when we

---
{101} Invention has nearly the same effect in commerce that the
introduction of gunpowder and artillery have on the art of war. Wealth
is rendered more necessary to carry them on. Every new improvement
that is made, in either the personal strength and energy of man
becomes of less importance.

{102} Some of the greatest proprietors in this kingdom, much to their
honour, are the most exemplary men in it, with respect to their
conduct to their tenantry; but though the instances are honourable and
splendid, they are not general; nor is it in the nature of things that they
can be general. In France, matters were in general different; and the
inattention of the nobility to their duty was one cause of the
revolution; they had forgot, that, if they neglected or oppressed the
industrious, they must ruin themselves.
-=-

[end of page #126]

find that the chance of being born half an hour sooner or later makes
one man the proprietor of 50,000 acres and another little better than a
beggar; when we consider that, by means of industry, he never may be
able to purchase a garden to grow cabbages for his family, it loosens
our attachment to the order of things we see before us, it hurts our
ideas of moral equity. A man of reflection wishes the evil to be
silently counteracted, and if he is violent, and has any disposition to
try a change, it furnishes him with arguments and abettors.

When the Romans (with whose history we are tolerably well
acquainted) {103} grew rich, the division of property became very
unequal, and the attachment of the people for their government
declined, the middle classes lost their importance, and the lower
orders of free citizens became a mere rabble. When Rome was poor,
the people did not cry for bread, but when the brick buildings were
turned into marble palaces, when a lamprey was sold for fifty-six
pounds, {104} the people beca