and fishing, the two most anxious and painful occupations in
the world, are, in all countries, followed by the affluent and idle as
amusements; they want to interest the mind, and occupy themselves.
Gaming, which is attended with very painful sensations, is followed
much more frequently from propensity than from the love of gain;
and, indeed, it would appear, that a life without occupations that
interest the mind, is of all others the most insipid: it appears to be
worse, it appears to be miserable.
-=-

[end of page #83]

cessity of filling up the time in one way or another. A certain portion
of time may be spent in company; but even that, to be enjoyed, must
be spent in the society of men of the same class. The inducement,
then, to a man who has dedicated the first part of his life
advantageously to industry, to become idle, is not great, even when he
is at free liberty to follow his inclination.

It is totally different with a young man; his propensity is to idleness,
without any of those favourable circumstances that counteract that
propensity. Necessity alone can be expected to operate on him; it is in
vain to seek for any other substitute. Not that we mean, by idleness, to
signify inaction; but that sort of idleness, which resists regular labour.
There is a natural propensity to action, but then it is a propensity that
operates irregularly, unless under the influence of necessity. It is a
continued and regular exertion, directed to a proper object, that is
wanted to obtain wealth; to procure this, it is well to imitate nature,
and create necessity.

But, in proportion as a nation grows wealthy, that necessity is done
away. It is of the art of prolonging necessity, or rather of reconciling
necessity with affluence and ease, for which we are going to search,
that we may, by that means, reconcile affluence with industry.

We must, in the first place, find what the natural operation is by which
industry leaves a country.

When a country is in a state of poverty, it maintains the same degree
of industry, from generation to generation, without any effort. The
new race is brought up in the same way that the former was before it,
and the same pressure of necessity, acting on the same desire (but no
greater desire) to shun labour, produces the same effect at one time
that it did at another. The son of a man, who has arrived at a greater
degree of affluence than that to which he was born, is generally
brought up dif