higher stations of life, by every means in their power to diminish their demand for work of such kind, and to live with as little aid from the lower trades, as they can possibly contrive.
128. I suppose you see that this conclusion is not a little at variance with received notions on political economy? It is popularly supposed that it benefits a nation to invent a want. But the fact is, that the true benefit is in extinguishing a want—in living with as few wants as possible.
I cannot tell you the contempt I feel for the common writers on political economy, in their stupefied missing of this first principle of all human economy—individual or political—to live, namely, with as few wants as possible, and to waste nothing of what is given you to supply them.
129. This ought to be the first lesson of every rich man's political code. "Sir," his tutor should early say to him, "you are so
to eat all day, as to labour with the hands all day. But it is not degrading to think all day—if you can. A highly-bred court lady, rightly interested in politics and literature, is a much finer type of the human creature than a servant of all work, however clever and honest.
