THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

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was perfectly decided both to let them all alone, and to obligethem all to let alone one another, there is little danger thatthey would not of their own accord subdivide themselves fastenough, so as soon to become sufficiently numerous.

In every civilized society, in every society where the dis-tinction of ranks has once been completely established, therehave been always two different schemes or systems of moralitycurrent at the same time; of which the one may be calledthe strict or austere; the other the liberal, or, if you will, theloose system. The former is generally admired and reveredby the common people; the latter is commonly more esteemedand adopted by what are called people of fashion. The de-gree of disapprobation with which we ought to mark the vicesof levity, the vices which are apt to arise from great pros-perity, and from the excess of gaiety and good humour, seemsto constitute the principal distinction between those two op-posite schemes or systems. In the liberal or loose system,luxury, wanton, and even disorderly mirth, the pursuit ofpleasure to some degree of intemperance, the breach of chas-tity, at least in one of the two sexes, &c. provided they arenot accompanied with gross indecency, and do not lead tofalsehood and injustice, are generally treated with a gooddeal of indulgence, and are easily either excused or pardonedaltogether. In the austere system, on the contrary, thoseexcesses are regarded with the utmost abhorrence and detes-tation. The vices of levity are always ruinous to the commonpeople, and a single week’s thoughtlessness and dissipationis often sufficient to undo a poor workman for ever, and todrive him through despair upon committing the most enormouscrimes. The wiser and better sort of the common people,therefore, have always the utmost abhorrence and detestationof such excesses, which their experience tells them are soimmediately fatal to people of their condition. The disorderand extravagance of several years, on the contrary, will notalways ruin a man of fashion, and people of that rank arevery apt to consider the power of indulging in some degreeof excess as one of the advantages of their fortune, and theliberty of doing so without censure or reproach, as one of theprivileges which belong to their station. In people of their°'vn station, therefore, they regard such excesses with but asmall degree of disapprobation, and censure them either verys hghtly or not at all.

Almost all religious sects have begun among the common

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