not only more simple in their
nature than the interior ones, but, being less silent and gradual in their
progress have been more noticed by historians.

Even the ambitious rapacity of the Romans was first directed [end of
page #186] against Carthage, on account of its pride and injustice in
attacking other states; and, in the history of the nations of the world,
there is scarcely a single example of national prosperity being
unattended with some degree of pride, arrogance, and injustice; nor
can it easily be otherwise, for, notwithstanding all the boasted law of
nations, power seems amongst them to be one of the principal claims
on which right is founded, though, in the moral nature of things,
power and right have not the most distant connection.

It is then an object for those who govern nations, in the first place, to
counteract as much as possible the internal tendency to decline,
arising from the causes that have been enumerated; and, after having
done that, to regulate their conduct with regard to other nations, so as
to protect themselves from those external causes of decline, on the
existence of which they have no direct influence, but which are not
capable of producing any great effect, unless favoured by the internal
state of the country, and by the unwise conduct of those by whom it is
governed.

========

_Digression concerning the Importance of Public Revenue_.

No state, what ever its wealth may be, can possess power, unless a
certain portion of that wealth is applicable to public purposes. As the
want of revenue has not been a very common cause of weakness, we
shall give, as an example, the almost solitary, but very strong, case of
Poland. Its feebleness, in repelling the attacks of its enemies, was
occasioned, in a great measure, by want of revenue. It was with far
superior population, with more fertile soil, and a people no way
inferior in bravery, greatly inferior in actual exertion to Prussia.
When, at last, the Poles, seeing their danger, united together, and were
willing to make every personal exertion and sacrifice, to preserve their
country, they had no means of executing their good intentions. They
had not kept up an army when it was not wanted, and they could not,
on the emergency, create one when it was become necessary. [end of
page #187]

The definition given of power makes it a relative thing, and, therefore,
the revenue necessary to maintain that power or force must be relative
also