Thus in an intelligent and moral community, the vanity of the mother is gratified in the well-being of the child, and she prides herself in the proofs of her having been an affectionate and careful parent.In a vain and dissipated community, on the other hand, she would be ashamed of devoting her attention to the homely and unostentatious cares to which a solicitude for the welfare of offspring prompts.In the one ease vanity excites parental affection, in the other it stifles it.The movement of the mind, in these instances, is somewhat analogous to that of those balances, in which the poise, if in the least inclining to one side or the other, hurries it down with a rapid and continually increasing preponderance.
This proneness in humanity to advance or recede with a speed accelerated by the subjugation of opposing motives, helps to afford an explanation of what I conceive to be one of the main causes of the decay of states.
To add continually to the stock of any community, even sometimes to maintain it without diminution at its actual amount, is a process in the prosecution of which difficulties always oppose.While the funds of any society increase, the numbers among whom those funds are to be shared also increase.The greater annual revenue which invention and accumulation provide, though it must support a more numerous population, may not support a population having, individually, a greater share of the means of comfort or pleasure, than that possessed by the members of the society when improvement was yet in its infancy.To carry the community still farther onward, even perhaps to maintain it in its place, requires, therefore, generally, that the interests of futurity should hold the same relation to those of present time in the minds of the members of the society as ever.If, therefore, among any of the divisions of the body politic, futurity weighs more lightly when compared with the present than it did before, there there will be weakness, an incapacity to advance or even to maintain the same position may be experienced, and that which is defective drawing to it what is sound, from this point the progress from bad to worse may commence.The course of society may thus be said to be always against an opposing current, which, if it cannot be stemmed, sweeps downward with headlong force.
"Sic omnia fatis In pejus ruere, ac retro sublapa referri.
Non aliter, quarn qui adverso vix flumine lembum Remigiis subegit: si brachia forte remisit, Atque illum in praeceps prono rapit alveus amni."As a foundation for the few observations which our limits permit me to make on this part of the subject, it is necessary to refer to a circumstance, the truth of Which was assumed in an early part of the discussion."The numbers of every society," it was said, "increase, as what its members are inclined to esteem a sufficient subsistence, is provided for them." (125)The only classes in society which our inquiry has considered, are the two of capitalists and laborers.With regard to them we might a priori, and abstracting our attention from what we know to be the fact, be in doubt which of the following suppositions would be correct.
We might suppose that both classes would reckon that a sufficient subsistence which had supported themselves, and that the numbers of both being equally multiplied, the average revenues of the individuals composing both might remain the same; or we might suppose that neither class would reckon that a sufficient subsistence on which they had been supported, and that they would not add to their numbers but in a proportion less than the additional funds provided, so that the average individual incomes of both capitalists and laborers, would be equally and continually increased; or, finally, we might suppose that the capitalists would add more to their numbers than to their revenues, or that the laborers might do the same thing.
But though it might be difficult, a priori, to determine which of these would take place, yet, in fact, we generally find that, in the progress of society, the increase of the numbers of capitalists does not keep pace with the increase of their stocks and incomes, while that of laborers does keep pace, or does more than keep pace with their incomes.
The cause of this circumstance may, I think, be shortly stated, as follows.
Marriage may be desired both for the pleasures of sense, and for those of sentiment and affection.But, among men of even moderate fortune, it does not in general add to the sum of their purely sensual gratifications.
It were obviously absurd, considering the lives which most young men in this class in Europe lead, to speak of celibacy as implying abstinence.
Purely selfish motives will never, therefore, lead such men to form this connexion.They will rather keep them from it, vanity aiding, or prompting them to the resolution of refraining from any such union, until they have a prospect of raising their families above their own rank.
Among men in the laboring class, again, marriage generally adds to the amount of immediate sensual gratifications.Purely selfish motives, therefore, side with those of sentiment and affection in prompting them to it, and they are not so apt to entertain the ambition of raising their families above their own condition.Hence, while capitalists are inclined to think that only a sufficient subsistence for their offspring, which exceeds what they themselves were supported on, laborers are content if they leave their children in the same condition with themselves.It thus happens, that the one class has a tendency continually to rise above the other.
This separation has farther effects.
Vanity itself is sometimes a coadjutor to the accumulative principle.
