in arts and manufactures, others acquire a taste for
what they make, and imitate them. If they excel in the art of war, they
teach their enemies to fight as well as themselves. If their territories
are large, the unprotected and far distant parts provoke attack and
plunder. They become more difficult and expensive to govern. If they
owe their superiority to climate and soil, they generally preserve it but
a short time. Necessity acts so much more powerfully on those who do
not enjoy the same advantages, that they soon come to an equality.--
In whatever the superiority exists, emulation and envy prompt to
rivalship in peace, and to frequent trials of strength in war. The
contempt and pride which accompany wealth and power, and the envy
and jealousy they excite amongst other nations, are continual causes
of change, and form the great basis of the revolutions amongst the
human race.

The wants of men increase with their knowledge of what it is good to
enjoy; and it is the desire to gratify those wants that increases
necessity, and this necessity is the spur to action.

There are a few natural wants that require no knowledge in order to be
felt; such as hunger and thirst, and the other appetites which men have
in common with all animals, and which are linked, as it [end of page
#14] were, to their existence. {16} But while nations satisfy
themselves with supplying such wants, there is neither wealth nor
power amongst them. Of consequence, it is not into the conduct of
such that we are to inquire.

Excepting, however, those wants which are inseparable from our
existence, all the others are, more or less, fictitious, and increase with
our knowledge and habits; it is, therefore, evident that the nation that
is the highest above others feels the fewest wants; or, in other words,
feels no wants. She knows nothing that she does not possess, and
therefore may be said to want nothing; or which is the same thing, not
knowing what she does want, she makes no effort to obtain it.

Thus necessity of rising higher, does not operate, on a nation that sees
none higher than itself; at least, it does only operate in a very slender
degree. {17} Whereas, in the nation that is behind hand with other
nations around, every one is led by emulation and envy, and by a
feeling of their own wants, to imitate and equal those that are farther
advanced.

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{16} A child cries for food without knowing what it is; and all the
other natural appeti