The increasing regard with which men appear, in the progress of commercial
arts, to study their profit, or the delicacy with which they refine on
their pleasures; even industry itself, or the habit of application to a
tedious employment, in which no honours are won, may, perhaps, be
considered as indications of a growing attention to interest, or of
effeminacy, contracted in the enjoyment of ease and conveniency. Every
successive art, by which the individual is taught to improve on his
fortune, is, in reality, an addition to his private engagements, and a new
avocation of his mind from the public.
Corruption, however, does not arise from the abuse of commercial arts
alone; it requires the aid of political situation; and is not produced by
the objects that occupy a sordid and a mercenary spirit, without the aid of
circumstances that enable men to indulge in safety any mean disposition
they have acquired.
Providence has fitted mankind for the higher engagements which they are
sometimes obliged to fulfil; and it is in the midst of such engagements
that they are most likely to acquire or to preserve their virtues.
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