jections, will be chargeable with the guilt of augmenting this enormous mass of moral and political evil. But every manufacturer shares in the criminality of the evil already exifting, who does not heartily and actively concur in every reasonable attempt for its diminution.

The wealthy manufacturer may also be cautioned against that extravagant and luxurious mode of living, which too frequently attends fuperior opulence. Neither a moderate and unoftentatious conformity to those cuftoms and habits, as far as they are innocent, nor a reasonable indulgence in those comforts, which are become almost neceffary in the eyes of the world to the wealthy, is here reproved. That alone is meant to be cenfured which partakes of pride, of prodigality, or of intemperance. To these exceffes the great merchant may be thought under ftronger temptations than the manufacturer. He who commands the commodities wrought and unwrought of every quarter of the globe; who obtains, by means of his veffels and his commercial connections, foreign luxuries of every kind with almoft as little trouble as a private individual

individual procures neceffaries from the shop, may feem of all men the moft likely to exhi-. bit vanity and profufion in the splendour of his houfe, in the parade of his attendants, and in the delicacies of his table. In the prefent ftate however of this country, every man who can pay for luxuries can easily procure them. In fome refpects indeed the merchant and the manufacturer, fuppofing them to be equally wealthy, may be equally tempted to fall into the errors in queftion. Both are much accustomed to refide in great towns, where oftentatious and voluptuous modes of living are contracted by habit and inflamed by example. Both are accustomed to have a very large portion of their capital pass through their hands every year; and thence are led into the habit of difregarding expences, the amount of which would alarm men of equal property who annually receive only the rent of their eftates. And both look forward, not like great land-owners merely to the permanence of their prefent poffeffions, but to a continual and rapid accumulation of riches. In other refpects the manufacturer seems more exposed to temptation than the merchant. He

has rifen more frequently than the other from fmall beginnings to fudden opulence; and is in confequence likely to feel a peculiar gratification in difplaying his newly acquired fplendour. He has not fo commonly enjoyed the advantage of having his mind improved, and his views of things corrected, by a liberal education. He encounters more frequently than the merchant the aristocratic prejudices and the envious contempt of neighbouring peers and country gentlemen, proud of their rank and ancient family, who even in these days occafionally difgrace themselves by looking down on the man raised by merit and industry from obfcurity to eminence; and thus is excited to outvie them in magnificence and luxury. Let his circumfpection then be proportioned to the many temptations which furround him.

Some manufactures, from the nature of the proceffes used in them, and the various inventions and contrivances requifite for fubduing refractory materials, lead to discoveries of importance in natural philofophy. To this tendency of his occupation the enlightened

manu

And let

manufacturer will ever be awake. him not content himself with pushing his refearches folely as far as they have an immediate reference to his particular manufacture. Let him cultivate a spirit of general enquiry: let him attend to the interest of universal science. Let him employ a portion of his leisure in purfuing to beneficial conclufions those hints which the course of his business has incidentally fuggefted (999); and in carrying on those investigations into the principles and properties of bodies which may difclofe new comforts of life, expand the human mind, increase the stock of rational knowledge, and evince the power, the wisdom, and the goodness of God.

(999) Several manufacturers have actually distinguished themselves by zeal and ability in philofophic pursuits; and none more than the late Mr. Wedgwood. His thermometer for measuring high degrees of heat is one of the most useful difcoveries of modern science.

CHAP. XIV.

ON THE DUTIES OF PRIVATE GENTLEMEN.

THE perfons held immediately in view in the fubfequent pages are private individuals who follow no profeffion, and live upon the annual incomes of their eftates. But the duties which are about to be ftated as incumbent on men of this description, are fo far from being peculiar to them; that they are, in a greater or lefs degree, common to almost every individual, belonging to any one of the claffes and profeffions which have formed the subjects of the preceding chapters. For the purpose of avoiding the endless repetitions, which must have arisen, had these general duties been noticed and enforced in each particular cafe; filence has hitherto been obferved refpecting them. The reader therefore, whatever may be his rank or occupation, is requested to look. upon