-=-

[end of page #173]

regard to particular circumstances. In general, we may say, that, in
place of inviting the lower classes to pass their time in drinking, by the
innumerable receptacles that there are for those who are addicted to
that vice, every impediment should be put in the way. Drinking is a
vice, the disposition to which grows with its gratification; most other
avocations (for drinking in moderation is only such) have no tendency
of the sort. Those enjoyments which have a tendency to degenerate
into vice should be kept under some check; those which have no such
tendency ought to be encouraged; for, where the main and general
mass of the population of a country is corrupted, it is impossible to
prevent its decline. If it remains uncorrupted, the matter is very easy,
or, more properly, it may be said that prosperity is the natural
consequence.

Manners will always be found of more consequence than laws, and
they depend, in a great measure, on the wise regulations of
government in every country.

Not only do most governments profit by laying the vices of the people
under contribution; but, as revenue is, by a very false rule, taken as a
criterion from which the prosperity of a nation may be estimated, the
very evil that brings on decay serves to disguise its approach. A nation
may be irretrievably undone, before it is perceived that it has any
tendency to decline; it is, therefore, unwise for governments to wait
till they see the effects of decay, and then to hope to counteract them;
they must look before-hand, and prevent, otherwise all their exertions