s some reason to think that the
degradation, which naturally follows, and which has always followed
hitherto, may be [end of page #iv] averted; whether it may be, or may
not be so, is the subject of the following Inquiry; which, if it is of
importance to any nation on earth, must be peculiarly so to England; a
nation that has risen, both in commerce and power, so high above the
natural level assigned to it by its population and extent. A nation that
rises still, but whose most earnest wish ought to be rather directed to
preservation than extension; to defending itself against adversity
rather than seeking still farther to augment its power.

With regard to the importance of the Inquiry, there cannot be two
opinions; but, concerning its utility and success, opinions may be
divided.

One of the most profound and ingenious writers of a late period, has
made the following interesting observation on the prosperity of
nations. {1}

"In all speculations upon men and human affairs, it is of no small
moment to distinguish things of accident from permanent causes, and
from effects that cannot be altered. I am not quite of the mind of those
speculators, who seem assured, that necessarily, and, by the
constitution of things, all states have the same period of infancy,
manhood, and decrepitude, that are found in the individuals who
compose them. The objects which are

---
{1} Mr Burke.
-=-

[end of page #v]

attempted to be forced into an analogy are not founded in the same
classes of existence. Individuals are physical beings, subject to laws
universal and invariable; but commonwealths are not physical, but
moral essences. They are artificial combinations, and, in their
proximate efficient cause, the arbitrary productions of the human
mind.

We are not yet acquainted with the laws which necessarily influence
that kind of work, made by that kind of agent. There is not, in the
physical order, a distinct cause by which any of those fabrics must
necessarily grow, flourish, and decay; nor, indeed, in my opinion,
does the moral world produce any thing more determinate on that
subject than what may serve as an amusement (liberal indeed, and
ingenious, but still only an amusement) for speculative men. I doubt
whether the history of mankind is yet complete enough, if ever it can
be so, to furnish grounds for a sure theory on the internal causes,
which necessarily affect the fortune of a state. I am far from denying
the operatio