Defence of Usury [29]
even without exception, improper, and in many cases even ridiculous, I agree with you; nor will I here step aside from my subject to defend from that imputation another mode suggested in a former part of these papers. But however presumptuous and impertinent it may be for the sovereign to attempt in any way to check by legal restraints the prodigality of individuals, to attempt to check their bad management by such restraints seems abundantly more so. To err in the way of prodigality is the lot, though, as you well observe, not of many men, in comparison of the whole mass of mankind, yet at least of any man: the stuff fit to make a prodigal of is to be found in every alehouse, and under every hedge. But even to err in the way of projecting is the lot only of the privileged few. Prodigality, though not so common as to make any very material drain from the general mass of wealth, is however too common to be regarded as a mark of distinction or as a singularity. But the stepping aside from any of the beaten paths of traffic, is regarded as a singularity, as serving to distinguish a man from other men. Even where it requires no genius, no peculiarity of talent, as where it consists in nothing more than the finding out a new market to buy or sell in, it requires however at least a degree of courage, which is not to be found in the common herd of men. What shall we say of it, where, in addition to the vulgar quality of courage, it requires the rare endowment of genius, as in the instance of all those successive enterprizes by which arts and manufactures have been brought from their original nothing to their present splendor? Think how small a part of the community these must make, in comparison of the race of prodigals; of that very race, which, were it only on account of the smallness of its number, would appear too inconsiderable to you to deserve attention. Yet prodigality is essentially and necessarily hurtful, as far as it goes, to the opulence of the state: projecting, only by accident. Every prodigal, without exception, impairs, by the very supposition impairs, if he does not annihilate, his fortune. But it certainly is not every projector that impairs his: it is not every projector that would have done so, had there been none of those wise laws to hinder him: for the fabric of national opulence, that fabric of which you proclaim, with so generous an exultation, the continual increase, that fabric, in every apartment of which, innumerable as they are, it required the reprobated hand of a projector to lay the first stone, has required some hands at least to be employed, and successfully employed. When in comparison of the number of prodigals, which is too inconsiderable to deserve notice, the number of projectors of all kinds is so much more inconsiderable-and when from this inconsiderable number, must be deducted, the not inconsiderable proportion of successful projectors -- and from this remainder again, all those who can carry on their projects without need of borrowing -- think whether it be possible, that this last remainder could afford a multitude, the reducing of which would be an object, deserving the interposition of government by its magnitude, even taking for granted that it were an object proper in its nature? If it be still a question, whether it be worth while for government, by its reason, to attempt to controul the conduct of men visibly and undeniably under the dominion of passion, and acting, under that dominion, contrary to the dictates of their own reason; in short, to effect what is acknowledged to be their better judgment, against what every body, even themselves, would acknowledge to be their worse; is it endurable that the legislator should by violence substitute his own pretended reason, the result of a momentary and scornful glance, the offspring of wantonness and arrogance, much rather than of social anxiety and study, in the place of the humble reason of individuals, binding itself down with all its force to that very object which he pretends to have in view? -- Nor let it be forgotten, that,