d not leave an affair of so
great influence to the management of women and fops, tailors and
vintners?
14. Qu. Whether reasonable fashions are a greater restraint on
freedom than those which are unreasonable?
15. Qu. Whether a general good taste in a people would not greatly
conduce to their thriving? And whether an uneducated gentry be not
the greatest of national evils?
16. Qu. Whether customs and fashions do not supply the place of
reason in the vulgar of all ranks? Whether, therefore, it doth not
very much import that they should be wisely framed?
17. Qu. Whether the imitating those neighbours in our fashions, to
whom we bear no likeness in our circumstances, be not one cause of
distress to this nation?
18. Qu. Whether frugal fashions in the upper rank, and comfortable
living in the lower, be not the means to multiply inhabitants?
19. Qu. Whether the bulk of our Irish natives are not kept from
thriving, by that cynical content in dirt and beggary which they
possess to a degree beyond any other people in Christendom?
20. Qu. Whether the creating of wants be not the likeliest way to
produce industry in a people? And whether, if our peasants were
accustomed to eat beef and wear shoes, they would not be more
industrious?
21. Qu. Whether other things being given, as climate, soil, etc.,
the wealth be not proportioned to the industry, and this to the
circulation of credit, be the credit circulated or transferred by
what marks or tokens soever?
22. Qu. Whether, therefore, less money swiftly circulating, be not,
in effect, equivalent to more money slowly circulating? Or, whether,
if the circulation be reciprocally as the quantity of coin, the
nation can be a loser?
23. Qu. Whether money is to be considered as having an intrinsic
value, or as being a commodity, a standard, a measure, or a pledge,
as is variously suggested by writers? And whether the true idea of
money, as such, be not altogether that of a ticket or counter?
24. Qu. Whether the value or price of things be not a compounded
proportion, directly as the demand, and reciprocally as the plenty?
25. Qu. Whether the terms crown, livre, pound sterling, etc., are
not to be considered as exponents or denominations of such
proportion? And whether gold, silver, and paper are not tickets or
counters for reckoning, recording, and transferring thereof?
26. Qu. Whether the denominations being retained, although the
bullion were gone, things migh
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