Also read Chris Daughtry Ways Of Thinking CHAP. I. Of the Interior Causes of Decline, arising from the Possession of Wealth.--Its general Operation on the Habits of Life, Manners, Education, and Ways of thinking and acting of the Inhabitants of a Country. As necessity was the first cause of industry and invention, from which wealth and power arise, it is natural that, when the action of that necessity becomes less urgent, those exertions to which it gave rise will gradually fall away. Though habit may sometimes counteract this tendency, in the individual, yet, taken upon a general scale, and from generation to generation, it must inevitably take place. In this case, an individual who has obtained wealth enjoys an advantage, which no nation ever can expect. With only common prudence, he may cease from exertion or industry, and remain in affluence. If he has property in land, he may let it, and live on the rent; if in money, he may lend it, and live on the interest; but one nation cannot let its lands, or lend its capital to another. It must, by its own industry, render them productive. The great bulk of every nation, then, must be industrious, however wealthy it may be; otherwise, the wealth will soon be dissipated and disappear. The people of Flanders cannot, for example, cultivate the fields of the French, and live in Flanders; and, if the agriculture of a country is neglected, that country must soon become poor and miserable. We have seen what became of the Romans, when the tribute paid by other nations enabled them to live in idleness. The influx of wealth from America produced nearly the same effect on Spain: though it lasted for a very short time, yet it ruined the country. It is not absolutely necessary, then, for an individual to conciliate affluence with industry, or, which is the same thing, to preserve one of the effects of necessity, after the necessity has ceased to exist. But if it were possible for a sum of money, or property of any sort, to be given to each individual in a nation, which would be sufficient, in the midst of an industrious people, to enable him to live in perfect idleness, the whole nation could not become idle. Such a case never can exist, as that of all the individuals in a country becoming sufficiently rich to live without labour. But something approaching towards that state of things actually does take place, when, by the general increase of wealth, the necessity for labour is diminished. The number of idle people is constantly augmenting; and even those who continue to labour do it less intensely than when the operation of necessity was more severe. When a cause is diminished, the effect must in time fall off in proportion. With individuals, nature has given very powerful auxiliaries to necessity, which strengthen and prolong its operation, but which do not operate equally on nations. Habit or custom is the one auxiliary, and ambition or avarice is the other. Habit, in all cases, diminishes the reluctance to labour, which is inherent in the most part of mankind, and sometimes entirely overcomes it. Ambition, which appears under many different forms, renders labour absolutely an enjoyment. Sometimes ambition is merely a desire of amassing property, an avaricious disposition: sometimes it is a desire to create a family; and even, sometimes, the vain and delusive idea of retiring from business, and becoming happy in a state of total idleness, spurs a man on to labour. It is a very curious, but well-known fact, that, after necessity has entirely ceased to promote industry, the love of complete idleness, and the hope of enjoying it at some distant date, leads the wealthy man on, to his last hour, in a train of augmented industry. Thus has nature most wisely counteracted the disposition of man to idleness; by making the very propensity to it, after a certain time, active in promoting industry.