what relates to political economy, this phenomenon leads to false reasoning. It causes nations to consider their moral and their material interests as contradictory to each other. What can be more discouraging or more dismal?
For instance, there is not a father of a family who does not think it his duty to teach his children order, system, the habits of carefulness, of economy, and of moderation in spending money.
There is no religion which does not thunder against pomp and luxury. This is as it should be: but, on the other hand, how frequently do we hear the following remarks:—
"To hoard, is to drain the veins of the people."
"The luxury of the great is the comfort of the little."
"Prodigals ruin themselves, but they enrich the State."
"It is the superfluity of the rich which makes bread for the poor."
Here, certainly, is a striking contradiction between the moral and the social idea. How many eminent spirits, after having made the assertion, repose in peace. It is a thing I never could understand, for it seems to me that nothing can be more distressing than to discover two opposite tendencies in mankind. Why, it comes to degradation at each of the extremes: economy brings it to misery; prodigality plunges it into moral degradation. Happily, these vulgar maxims exhibit economy and luxury in a false light, taking account, as they
