labour or
attention, are an exception. Nations resemble the families that acquire
enough to be affluent, but not enough to retire from business. A nation
can never retire; it must always be industrious. The inference is clear
and cannot be mistaken; neither can the fact stated be denied.

{79} The number of bankruptcies have been considered as signs of
wealth; and their increase is a sign most undoubtedly of more trade;
but this is a barometer, of which it requires some skill to understand
the real index.
-=-

[end of page #89]

give poor nations an advantage over rich ones; or, at least, tend to
raise the one and draw down the other. Though we find, from the
history of the various revolutions that have taken place in different
countries, that they arose from a variety of causes, some peculiar to
one nation, and some to another; yet we have found a change of
manners and ways of thinking and acting, more or less operating in all
of them.

Amongst the interior causes of the decline of wealthy nations, arising
from the wealth itself, we must set this down as one of a very general
and natural operation. We must be particularly careful to remove this,
as far as possible, if we mean to avert those evils which hitherto have
arisen from a superior degree of wealth and power in every nation.

We are now going to examine other internal causes; but though they
are separate from this, yet this is at the root of all, this is perpetually
operating, we meet with it in every corner and at every turning. It is
what Mr. Pope says, speaking of the master-passion in individuals:

"The great disease that must destroy at length,

Grows with our growth, and strengthens with our strength."

This radical case of decline is augmented by an ill conceived vanity in
the parents, as well as by necessity ceasing to act on the children.
Each is following a very natural inclination; the one to indulge, the
other to be indulged. It is the duty and the interest of the state to
counteract this tendency, and the manner how that it is to be done will
be inquired into in the first chapter of the third book of this work. =sic
--there is none.=

But it is not merely a neglect of industry and the means of rising in
society, or keeping one's place in it that is hurtful; the general way of
thinking and acting becomes different, and, by degrees, the character
of a nation is entirely altered. This change was the most rapid, and the
most observable in t