energy in
attempting to obtain, that is not to be found in those who are only
exerting themselves to keep, of which it is difficult to explain the
cause, but of which the existence is very certain.

Where natural strength, and the struggle with want is great, as is the
case with nations who have made but little progress in acquiring
wealth, the contest with a people more enervated by ease, and less
inured to toil is very unequal, and does more than compensate those
artificial aids which are derived from the possession of property. {20}
From this cause, the triumph of poorer over more wealthy nations has
generally arisen, and, in most cases, has occasioned the contest to end
in favour of the more hardy and poorer people.

Of the revolutions that took place in the ancient world; whether
operated by degrees or by violence and suddenly, those may be ge-

---
{19} Doctor Garth, in his admirable poem of the Dispensary, says;--

"_Even health for want of change becomes disease_."

This is the case with nations sunk in prosperity.

{20} Why men should have been less tenacious to keep that which is
fairly theirs, than rapaciously to obtain that which is not, is a strange
thing; but nothing is more certain; and the effects of that propensity
are very great, and its existence very general. In the ruin of nations, it
is a most active and powerful cause.
-=-

[end of page #17]

nerally traced as the causes. In those ancient nations any considerable
degree of luxury and military success were incompatible with each
other; but, in the present age, the case is greatly altered. Military
discipline is not near so severe as formerly, and bodily strength has
but little effect, while the engines of war can only be procured by
those resources which wealth affords; by this means, the decline of
nations is, at least, now become a less natural and slower progress
than formerly; the operations of war have now a quite different
tendency from what they formerly had, and this effect is produced by
the introduction of cannon, and a different mode of attack and
defence; to carry on which, a very considerable degree of wealth is
necessary. {21}

In former times, the character and situation of the people, the object
they had in view, their bravery and the skill of their leaders, did every
thing; but now the skill of leaders and the command of money are the
chief objects; for there is not sufficient difference between any two
nations in Euro