he Roman republic, and was the cause that
brought it to an end, and prepared the people for submitting to be
ruled by the emperors. The human character was as much degraded
under them, when the citizens were rich, as it ever had been exalted
under their consular government, when the people were indigent. [end
of page #90]

The various effects of this change in manners will be considered under
different heads, but it is too deeply rooted in human nature ever to be
entirely counteracted, much less entirely done away. It is firmly
connected with the first principles of action in man, and can no more
be removed than his entire nature can be altered. What is in the
extreme, if dangerous, may be diminished; and that is all that it would
be any way useful to attempt: it may be rendered less formidable in its
operation, and that is all that can be expected.

The degradation of moral character; the loss of attention to the first
principles to which a society owes its prosperity and safety, both of
which accompany wealth, are most powerful agents in the decline of
nations. We have seen that the Romans, the greatest of all nations,
were ruined, chiefly, by degradation of character, by effeminacy, by
ignorance; for we generally find that idleness degenerates, at last, into
sloth and inaction. To a love of justice, and a power of overcoming
danger, or of preventing it, listlessness and a total want of energy
succeed: at length, the mind becomes estranged from hope, and the
body incapable of exertion. This is the case with those who have for a
time enjoyed luxury when they begin to decline; their fall is then
inevitable. The Eastern empire, as well as the Western, fell by this
means; and it may be said to have been the ordinary course in the
decline of nations that have fallen gradually.

The Turks, {80} the Spaniards, and the Portuguese, all owe part of
their present feebleness to this cause; and the government of France
certainly, in a great measure, owed its downfal =sic= to the same.
There the courtiers had sunk in character, and it was become
impossible even for the energy, the activity, and intelligence of the
nation at large, to counteract the baneful effect of the change that had
taken place amongst those who regulated its affairs.

In history we have seen scarcely any thing similar to this, for it was
the effect operating on the rulers of the nation only; the strength of the
great body of the nation, on which it did not