viii PREFACE. 



not fludicd in Siberia, or under a Nero. If 

 fevere morality would at any time expe6t to 

 eitabiilh a thorough reformation, I fear it 

 mufl chufe inhofpitabale climates, and abolifli 

 all latitude from the laws. A corporation 

 of merchants would never have kept their 

 oaths to Lycurgus of obf^rving his ftatutes 

 'till he returned. A good government, that 

 indulges its fubje6ls in the exercife of their 

 own thoughts, will fee a thoufand inven- 

 tions fpringing up, refinements will follow, 

 and much pleafure and fatisfaction will be 

 produced at leafl before that excefs arrives, 

 which is fo juftly faid to be the forerunner 

 of ruin. But all this is in the common 

 courle of things, which tend to perfection, 

 and then degenerate. He would be a very 

 abfurd legiHator, who fhould pretend to ftt 

 bounds to his country's welfare, left it 

 fhould periili by knov/ing no bounds. Po- 

 verty will ftint itfelf; riches muft be left 

 to their own difcretion j they depend upon 

 trade, and to circumfcribe trade is to an-: 

 nihilate it. It is not rigid nor Roman to 

 fiiy it, bur a people had better be unhappy 

 by their own fault, than by that of their go- 

 vernment. A Cjnfor morum is not a much 

 greater blefTing than an Arbiter degantiarurd. 



The 



