individuals,--they do not conduct their affairs, but are conducted by
them, and think they succeed, when the necessary business of the day
is done. This listlessness must be done away, and, though the

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{146} From the impossibility of a nation, once immersed in sloth and
luxury, returning to the tone and energy of a new people, we may
judge of the impossibility of a nation going on progressively towards
wealth, not suffering from the manner of educating children. The
leading distinction between a rising and a fallen people is the
disposition to industry and exertion, in the one, and to sloth and
negligence, in the other. It is while a nation is increasing in wealth that
this alteration gradually takes place; and, as this is the main point on
which all depends, the nation is safe when it is well attended to, even
if other things are, in some degree, neglected.
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governments of countries that are wealthy have no occasion, like Peter
the Great, or the founders of new states, to create new institutions, and
eternally try to ameliorate, they ought to be very carefully and
constantly employed in preventing those good things that they enjoy
from escaping their grasp, so far as it depends upon interior
arrangement. Exterior causes are not within their power to regulate,
therefore they should be the more attentive to those that are; and,
though exterior causes are out of their dominion, yet, sometimes, by
wise interior regulations, the evil effects of exterior ones may be
prevented. Nothing of all this can be done, however, until the
government rises above the routine business of the day, and until all