tes, though they may be increased by habit, by
knowledge, and fancy, are independent of the mind in its first state.

{17} The necessity, no doubt, continues to preserve what they have;
and, therefore, tends to keep them in a permanent state. Some
individuals again, in less affluence than others, endeavour to equal
them; by which means some progress is still making in the nation that
possesses the greatest share of wealth and power; but it is only partial
and feeble. Those who live in the nation that is the most advanced are
contented and have all they wish; they possess every thing of which
they know, they can have no particular desire for any thing they have
not got, that will produce great energy and exertion. A man may wish
for wings, or for perpetual youth; but, as he can scarcely expect to
obtain either, he will make little exertion. With things really
attainable, but not known, the case is less productive of energy still.
The people of Asia found silk a natural produce of their country; till
the Europeans saw it, they never attempted to produce so rich a
material; but no pains has since been spared to try to produce it, in
almost every country, where there was the least chance of success. We
imitated the silk mills of Italy, and the Italians (as well as many other
nations) are now imitating our cotton mills. In the case of a nation that
follows others, it always knows what it wants, and may judge whether
it can obtain it; but the nation the most advanced, gropes in the dark.
-=-

[end of page #15]

Thus it is, that necessity acts but in a very inferior degree on the
nation that is the farthest advanced; while it operates in a very
powerful way on those that are in arrear; and this single reason,
without the intervention of wars or any sort of contest or robbery,
would, in the process of time, bring nations to a sort of equality in
wealth and refinement; that is, it would bring them all into possession
of the means of gratifying their wants.

War, excited by the violent and vile passions,--by the overbearing
pride and insolence of one, and the envy and villainy of another,
derange this natural and smooth operation, which, nevertheless,
continues to act in silence at all times, and in every circumstance, and
which, indeed, is in general the chief cause of those very disorders by
which its operations are sometimes facilitated; sometimes apparently
interrupted; sometimes, their effect for a moment reversed; but t