decay; {147} and so far all of them may be guided
by general rules, but as to the particular manner of applying those
rules, it must depend on the peculiar circumstances of the nation to
which they are meant to be applied.

In general, revenue has become the great object with modern nations:
and, as their rulers have not ventured to tax the necessaries of the
people to any high degree, but have laid their vices, rather than their
wants, under contribution, the revenue-system, (as it may be called,)
tends to make a government encourage expensive vice, by which it
profits, and check innocent enjoyment, by which it has nothing to
gain. This is a terrible, but it is a very prevalent system; it is immoral,
inhuman, and impolitic.

So far as this goes, a government, instead of checking, accelerates the
decline of a people; but, as this is not a natural cause of decline, as
it is not universal or necessary, it is to be considered with due

---
{147} The Chinese, and, in general, the nations of Asia have not been
considered as included in this inquiry. The Chinese, in particular, are a
people in a permanent situation: they do not increase in riches, and
they seem to have no tendency to decline. Their laws and mode of
education and living remain the same.
-=-

[end of page #173]

regard to particular circumstances. In general, we may say, that, in
place of inviting the lower classes to pass their time in drinking, by the
innumerable receptacles that there are for those who are addicted to
that vice, every impediment should be put in the way. Drinking is a
vice, the disposition to which grows with its gratification; most other
avocations (for drinking in moderation is only such) have no tendency
of the sort. Those enjoyments which have a tendency to degenerate
into vice should be kept under some check; those which have no such
tendency ought to be encouraged; for, where the main and general
mass of the population of a country is corrupted, it is impossible to
prevent its decline. If it remains uncorrupted, the matter is very easy,
or, more properly, it may be said that prosperity is the natural
consequence.

Manners will always be found of more consequence than laws, and
they depend, in a great measure, on the wise regulations of
government in every country.

Not only do most governments profit by laying the vices of the people
under contribution; but, as revenue is, by a very false rule, taken as a
criterion from whi