Under this head, and from a view of these confiderations, may be understood the true evil and proper danger of luxury. Luxury, as it fupplies employment and promotes industry, affifts population. But then, there is another confequence attending it, which counteracts, and often overbalances these advantages. When, by introducing more fuperfluities into general reception, luxury has rendered the ufual accommodations of life more expenfive, artificial, and elaborate, the difficulty of maintaining a family, conformably with the established mode of living, becomes greater, and what each man has to fpare from his perfonal confumption, proportionably lefs: the effect of which is, that marriages grow lefs frequent, agreeably to the maxim above laid down, and which must be remembered as the foundation of all our reafoning upon the fubject, that men will not marry to fink their place or condition in fociety, or to forego thofe indulgencies, which their own habits, or what they observe amongst their equals, have rendered neceffary to their fatiffaction. This principle is applicable to every article of diet and drefs, to houses, furniture, attendance; and this effect will be felt in every class of the community. For inftance, the cus

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tom of wearing broad cloth and fine linen repays the fhepherd and flax-grower, feeds the manufacturer, enriches the merchant, gives not only fupport, but existence to multitudes of families hitherto, therefore, the effects are beneficial: and were these the only effects, such elegancies, or, if you please to call them fo, fuch luxuries, could not be too universal. But here follows the mischief: when once fashion hath annexed the use of these articles of drefs to any certain clafs, to the middling ranks, for example, of the community, each individual of that rank finds them to be necessaries of life; that is, finds himself obliged to comply with the example of his equals, and to maintain that appearance which the custom of fociety requires. This obligation creates fuch a demand upon his income, and withal adds fo much to the cost and burthen of a family, as to put it out of his power to marry, with the profpect of continuing his habits, or of maintaining his place and fituation in the world. We fee, in this defcription, the caufe, which induces men to wafte their lives in a barren celibacy; and this caufe, which impairs the very fource of population, is juftly placed to the account of luxury,

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It appears then, that luxury, confidered with a view to population, acts by two opposite effects; and it seems probable, that there exists a point in the scale, to which luxury may ascend, or, to which the wants of mankind may be multiplied, with advantage to the community, and beyond which the prejudicial confequences begin to preponderate. The determination of this point, though it affume the form of an arithmetical problem, depends upon circumftances too numerous, intricate, and undefined, to admit of a precife folution. However, from what has been obferved concerning the tendency of luxury to diminish marriages, in which tendency the evil of it refides, the following general conclufions may be established.

ift. That, of different kinds of luxury, thofe are the most innocent, which afford employment to the greatest number of artists and manufacturers; or those, in other words, in which the price of the work bears the greatest proportion to that of the raw material. Thus, luxury in drefs or furniture is univerfally preferable to luxury in eating, because the articles which conftitute the one, are more the production of human art and industry, than those which fupply the other.

2dly. That it is the diffusion, rather than the degree of luxury, which is to be dreaded as a national evil. The mischief of luxury confifts, as we have feen, in the obftruction that it forms. to marriage. Now, it is only a small part of the people that the higher ranks in any country compofe; for which reason, the facility, or the difficulty of fupporting the expence of their ftation, and the confequent increase or diminution of marriages amongst them, will influence the ftate of population but little. So long as the prevalency of luxury is confined to a few of elevated rank, much of the benefit is felt, and little of the inconveniency. But when the imitation of the fame manners defcends, as it always will do, into the mafs of the people; when it advances the requifites of living beyond what it adds to men's abilities to purchase them, then it is, that luxury checks the formation of families, in a degree that ought to alarm the public fears.

3dly. That the condition moft favourable to population is that of a laborious, frugal people, miniftring to the demands of an opulent, luxurious nation; because this fituation, whilft it leaves them every advantage of luxury, exempts

them from the evils which naturally accompany its admiffion into any country.

II. Next to the mode of living we are to confider "The quantity of provifion fuited to that "mode, which is either raifed in the country,

or imported into it :" for this is the order in which we affigned the causes of population, and undertook to treat of them. Now, if we meafure the quantity of provision by the number of human bodies it will fupport in due health and vigour, this quantity, the extent and quality of the foil from which it is raised being given, will depend greatly upon the kind. For instance, a piece of ground capable of fupplying animal food fufficient for the fubfiftence of ten perfons, would fuftain, at least, the double of that number with grain, roots, and milk. The first refource of favage life is in the flesh of wild animals; hence the numbers amongst favage nations, compared with the tract of country which they occupy, are univerfally small, because this species of provision is, of all others, fupplied in the flendereft proportion. The next step was the invention of pafturage, or the rearing of flocks and herds of tame animals. This alteration added to the ftock of provision much: but the laft and principal improvement was to follow,