418 Of the Necessity of general Bk. iv. 



proper situations, might be very comfortable; 

 but if the system were general, and the poor saw 

 that all their children would be thus provided 

 for, every employment would presently be over- 

 stocked with hands, and the consequences need 

 not be again repeated. 



Nothing can be more clear than that it is within 

 the power of money, and of the exertions of the 

 rich, adequately to relieve a particular family, a 

 particular parish, and even a particular district. 

 But it will be equally clear, if we reflect a mo- 

 ment on the subject, that it is totally out of their 

 power to relieve the whole country in the same 

 way; at least without providing a regular vent 

 for the overflowing numbers in emigration, or 

 without the prevalence of a particular virtue among 

 the poor, which the distribution of this assistance 

 t-ends obviously to discourage. 



Even industry itself is, in this respect, not very 

 different from money. A man who possesses a 

 certain portion of it, above what is usually pos- 

 sessed by his neighbours, will, in the actual state 

 of things, be almost sure of a competent liveli- 

 hood; but if all his neighbours were to become at 

 once as industrious as himself, the absolute por- 

 tion of industry which he before possessed would 

 no longer be a security against vi^ant. Hume 

 fell into a great error, when he asserted that 

 " almost all the moral as well as natural evils of 

 " human life arise from idleness;" and for the 

 cure of these ills required only that the whole 

 species should possess naturally an equal dili- 



