goods, or riches, of accumulated industry and providence.

1342. There is, therefore, a natural correlation, or friendship, between wealth and want-the rich and the poor-not for alms, for they corrupt and debase industry, and are due only from benevolence to the helpless, but for mutual regard and effect. And as malevolence is the opposite of benevolence, malicious is the man who sets at variance a friendship so natural and expedient to the just reciprocation of labour and reward: for wealth and poverty, capital and industry, are artificial correlatives, from the due concurrence of which springs incalculable goods to society, which would be otherwise unattainable. Riches are, therefore, a resource beyond nature for multiplied man, equally advantageous to the poor and the possessor. Nevertheless, happy is the man who, having provided for his eligible wants, asks not the superabundance of riches, but enjoys a liberal content.

1343. In neither of the virtues is the moral and physical interest of man more concerned than in that of economy rightly understood; it is, therefore, fully entitled to the rank and consideration of a cardinal virtue: and hence the criminality of wasteful negligence, and the profligacy of wanton dissipation, both of which are contrary to nature and morality, injurious to society, and at enmity with Providence.

1344. Nor is economy less a Christian virtue

than it is according to nature and morality, since He who, by his word alone, could feed the hungry multitude in the wilderness, ordered the gathering together of the fragments that nothing might be lost; comporting all his actions to the strictest and most correct regimen of an economy truly natural and divine, he exemplified it both by his words and acts: witness the parable of the Prodigal Son-the Virgins with their Lamps-the Servants and the Talents-the Light beneath a Bushel, &c.*

1345. There is this connexion, too, between general virtue and economy, well deserving of notice, that the indigence of the good man is abundance, compared with the affluence of the base; for much less of the goods of life are sufficient to him to whom we hence attribute worth, than to the vicious and licentious man, who, though abounding in wealth, we call worthless: reason and experience evince, also, that the affluence of the virtuous man is provident of the good of others; while the lavishments of the prodigal are but as the driftings of the winds - dissipating of goods in the pampering of vice or folly.

1346. And, in the highest of all views, the Providence of God is not for the improvident, but for the frugal and diligent man, rewarding all according to their work. Hence, Divine bounty lauds not itself by largesses to the improvident,

* Matthew, v. 15; xxv. 1-14. Mark, xv. 18.

nor degrades suppliants to supine dependence; but, according to the proverb, "God helps those who help themselves," it responds to the active economist, whose self-dependence is more secure than riches, and superior to independence: nor does true charity in any case belong to the ostentation of the almsgiver and the prodigal. We are deviating, however, into a fruitful and boundless field of particulars unsuited to the perspicuity of outline, but which is, perhaps, in some measure expedient, on account of the novelty of our distinctions.

1347. It has been remarked, in singular coincidence with our scheme of the virtues, that "the man who loses his character by violating a trust, he who ruins his health by yielding to his desires, and he who squanders to-day his means for tomorrow, are all equally deficient of economy;" so that, as has also been said with much plausibility, "vice is at bottom only a bad calculation."

1348. To conclude: economy, although commonly confounded with parsimony, is that virtue through which all great and good things are accomplished — that by which alone the man of small means may become greatly generous without ostentation, the man of large means eminently bountiful, and nations powerful and munificent: economy is, in fine, the great source whence Providence dispenses universal benevolence, and is in its

proper sense that conduct and management which is the foundation of all order, regulation, and law, and the true basis of all the virtues.

SECTION III.

1349. Secondly, of the SCIENCE OF DECORUM, the second branch of Morals, by which is denoted that regulation, or economy of the inclinations, which conducts to their natural and proper ends: accordingly, that conduct of the appetites, senses, and passions, or affections, which reason deems to be unnatural or intemperate, is criminal, indecent, and void of decorum.

1350. Now decorum, although it has reference to things external and material, as in all matters of order, ordonnance, and arrangement, &c.—and to things internal and mental, as in disciplining the mind to gravity, levity, virtue, and forbearance, &c. -yet is the principal moral reference of decorum to things medial and sensible, comprehending the conduct of the appetites, senses, and affections, or passions.

1351. Decorum allows, then, with regard to the appetites, that they should be licensed so far only as nature, temperate enjoyment, and reason require all inordinate indulgence of the appetites has, accordingly, been deemed vicious and indecorous. Hence, we attribute profligate and

disgusting indecorum to gluttony, drunkenness, and lust; and to the latter, when unnatural, the utmost odiousness of crime, &c.

1352. Again, with regard to the senses, decorum enjoins us to present to them such objects only as excite agreeable and virtuous feelings, and that all such actions and objects as excite disgust and vice be removed from them. Hence personal decency—hence genteelness-gentleness or mildness of manners, which is the medium of decorum, and medial in morals and manners-and hence, lastly, the refinements of sense in the moral, social, and sacred exercise of the sensible and polite arts, and whatever is beautiful and becoming in morals.

1353. Finally, with regard to the affections, decorum demands of us the love and admiration of nature, and all natural things, according to their relations; the love of man, to which belong conjugal, filial, and fraternal love, love of country and love of kind, or friendship, patriotism, and philanthropy; and decorum calls for piety, or the love of God, to whom decoral rites are instituted, and temples raised and decorated.

1354. But when the affections are engaged unworthily, unnaturally, or in undue degree, decorum and moral propriety are violated: hence, excessive favouritism, and the devotion to lapdogs or pets, and to the vicious and worthless of mankind, are moral offences against right reason and propriety; while intemperate love, friendship, patriotism, and