368 THE REIGN OF LAW. 



ancient and of modern policy. The great object 

 of the ancient policy, says Dugald Stewart, " was 

 to counteract the love of money and a taste for 

 luxury by positive institutions, and to maintain in 

 the great body of the people habits of frugality 

 and a severity of manners. The decline of States 

 is uniformly ascribed by philosophers and his- 

 torians, both of Greece and Rome, to the influ- 

 ence of riches on national character ; and the 

 laws of Lycurgus, which, during a course of 

 ages, banished the precious metals from Sparta, 

 are proposed by many of them as the most 

 perfect model of legislation devised by human 

 wisdom. How opposite to this is the doctrine 

 of modern politicians ! Far from considering 

 poverty as an advantage to a State, their great 

 aim is to open new sources of national opulence, 

 and to animate the activity of all classes of the 

 people by a taste for the comforts and accom- 

 modations of life." * This is true, and has been 

 true more or less of all the modern nations of 

 the world. But although they never held the 



* Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, by Dugald 

 Stewart.— Collected Works of Dugald Stewart, vol. x., p. 57. 



