the far greater part of labouring
people will endure only just as much of this pain as is absolutely
necessary to the supply of their _daily wants_. Experience says that
this has always been, and reason and nature tell us, that this must
always be. Therefore, when ailments, when losses, when untoward
circumstances of any sort, stop or diminish the daily supply, _want
comes_; and every just government will provide, from the general stock,
the means to satisfy this want.

343. Nor is the deepest poverty without its _useful effects_ in society.
To the practice of the virtues of abstinence, sobriety, care, frugality,
industry, and even honesty and amiable manners and acquirement of
talent, the two great motives are, to get upwards in riches or fame, and
_to avoid going downwards to poverty_, the last of which is the most
powerful of the two. It is, therefore, not with contempt, but with
compassion, that we should look on those, whose state is one of the
decrees of nature, from whose sad example we profit, and to whom, in
return, we ought to make compensation by every indulgent and kind act in
our power, and particularly by a defence of their rights. To those who
labour, we, who labour not with our hands, owe all that we eat, drink
and wear; all that shades us by day and that shelters us by night; all
the means of enjoying health and pleasure; and, therefore, if we possess
talent for the task, we are ungrateful or cowardly, or both, if we omit
any effort within our power to prevent them from being _slaves_; and,
disguise the matter how we may, _a slave_, a _real slave_, every man is,
who has no share in making the laws which he is compelled to obey.

344. _What is a slave_? For, let us not be amused by _a name_; but look
well into the matter. A slave is, in the first place, a man who has _no
property_; and property means something that he _has_, and that nobody
can take from him without his leave, or consent. Whatever man, no matter
what he may call himself or any body else may call him, can have his
money or his goods taken from him _by force_, by virtue of an order, or
ordinance, or law, which he has had no hand in making, and to which he
has not given his assent, has _no property_, and is merely a depositary
of the goods of his master. A slave has _no property in his labour_; and
any man who is compelled to give up the fruit of his labour to another,
at the arbitrary will of that other, has no property in his labour, and