52 On the Importance of 
discouraging influence on some branches of 
agriculture ; and we formerly showed, that, 
where men are regulated by motives of luxury, 
those who aim at the enlargement of their 
fortune, by the improvement of land, will have 
equally powerful motives in the lowest, as in 
the highest state of commerce. If it is said 
that commerce improves land, by enabling 
merchants to accumulate profits which are 
often expended in agricultural improvements, 
it should be recollected that this effect of 
commerce is extremely limited; and that the 
same efiect would be produced by habits of 
virtuous parsimony, or by a regular system of 
credit, established on landed security. 
It sometimes happens that an improvement 
in the useful arts threatens to injure popula- 
tion. When new machinery is invented 
which supersedes the greater part of the labour 
employed in a particular branch of manufac- 
ture, many elderly persons, who are unable to 
change their mode of employment, are re- 
duced to indigence; and even the active 
Jabourer is unemployed for a time. ‘The latter 
however, is certain of finding employment in 
a short time im some other department. The 
reason of this is, that the article of manufac- 
ture prepared by means of the improved ma- 
chinery, is reduced in price ; and the persons 
