action is a source of happiness independently of its products. There is no good in indolence. The industrious are strangers to many troubles which affict the indolent ; and their sleep and food are usually sweet and refreshing; while the sleep of the indolent is often disturbed and their food distasteful.

The industrious are seldom afflicted with melancholy; and are seldom overcome with any kind of afflictions. The indolent are often affected with imaginary troubles, to an extent which greatly embitters their lives. Men who have attained distinguished honors, and taken the first rank among their fellow-men, have generally been distinguished for great industry, and have been indebted, to a great degree, to this virtue for their distinction in other respects. Benjamin Franklin is an illustrious example of this virtue; and Without great industry it is impossible for men to be great in other respects.

§ 533. Industry may be excessive. This is always the case when persons devote to business a greater proportion of time than is compatible with health and domestic happiness; and when without devoting too great a proportion of time to business, a degree of activity is exercised, which produces excessive exhaustion and consequent infirmity. The obligations of industry vary according to the circumstances of individuals. In want they are greater, in abundance less; and in all cases they are relative to the wants of the agent and of others.

When not in circumstances of extreme want persons ought not usually to devote themselves to business, to the neglect of society. Unremitting devotion to business tends to diminish a taste for society and to disqualify persons for many important social duties. This effect is often produced to a degree which is highly injurious. In some cases persons seem to degenerate into mere machines for the transaction of business with almost no capacity for enjoyment in any thing else. Men are adapted to be industrious in some calling without injury, but they are not fitted to be mere tools of the most interesting branches of business without great and irreparable injury.

Business ought usually to be restricted to its appropriate hours, and time reserved daily both for sleep, unhurried eating and drinking, private social and public religious worship, and the essential purposes of society. When carried

to great excess, industry defeats the great ends of life by an exclusive devotion to secular pursuits, and often defeats its own ends by impairing the health and distroying the life of the agent. That industry which is a virtue, is a due medium between the extreme of indolence and the opposite extreme of excessive and in some cases unremitting devotion to business.

To the industrious a reasonable devotion to business is not a task merely, it is a pleasure; and in this respect it has vastly the advantage of indolence which besides being injurious in other respects is characterized as uniformly disagreeable and unsatisfactory.

CHAPTER V.

NATURE AND OFFICE OF ECONOMY.

§ 534. Economy is a disposition to make a frugal and judicious use of money, and other property. It is opposed to prodigality on the one hand, and parsimony on the other. Prodigality_denotes extravagance in the expenditure of money. Economy consists in the application of wisdom and prudence to human affairs. It implies wisdom in selecting proper objects of enjoyment on which to expend property and industry, and in selecting proper modes of expenditure; and prudence in avoiding unnecessary waste, guarding against losses and injuries, and in withholding property from all uses which are either in a considerable degree hazardous or unprofitable. Every department of human exertion and all the pursuits of industry, open fields for the profitable exercise of economy. The principal branches of economy are Political Economy and Domestic Economy.

Political

Economy has taken rank among the arts and sciences taught in Colleges and other schools, and has become an object of general study and instruction. Professorships have been established in the principal colleges of America and Europe for the exclusive purpose of teaching this science. Political Economy relates to the production, distribution and consumption of property generally, and teaches the way to wealth. Domestic Economy is restricted to a much

narrower sphere. It relates to the use and consumption of property in families and smaller communities. It recognizes a law of property and duty as extending to this department of human action, and proposes the observance of that law.

The acquisition of property is demanded by the wants of families, and is one of the direct objects of industry. The use of property for the satisfaction of human wants involves its consumption, and is of two kinds that which relates to objects of necessity; and that which relates to objects of luxury. These, however, though distinguishable in theory, are inseparably united in fact. Food and drink are objects of necessity, and at the same time to a considerable extent luxurious. The same is true of clothing, buildings and every thing pertaining to the accommodation of families. The same things which in some form and to some extent an objects of necessity, are also objects of luxury.

535. Domestic Economy consists chiefly in preserving property from needless waste, withholding it from consumpsion by improper luxuries, and appropriating it to procuring proper and reasonable enjoyments; so as to make it in the highest possible degree useful; and so as to secure by means of it the greatest possible happiness of families. In many families large amounts of property are annually wasted for want of proper care in preserving it. Food is suffered to be spoiled by age or injured by other means, cloths are unnecessarily soiled, torn, or otherwise injured, for want of suitable care, crockery and iron ware are broken. All such waste and destruction of property is sinful and involves a needless and useless expenditure of the means of happiness.

The expenditure of property in intemperate eating and drinking, including all drinking of intoxicating liquors except as medicines, and all chewing and smoking of tobacco and other exhilarating drugs, is a species of prodigality. The want of theses gratifications is not a reasonable want, and the gratifications themselves are not worth the price that is paid for them. Besides they are attended with great and permanent evils which far exceed any benefits they may be supposed to afford. The property consumed in eating and drinking intemperately, affords the sensual gratification of such eating and drinking, which is but for a moment, but it occasions lasting evils. It is not merely thrown away, but considered with respect to the sum total of its effects, is applied to the destruction of vast amounts of happiness.

There is a wide field for economy in selecting the necessaries and luxuries of life, such as clothing, furniture, employments of industry and art. Wisdom requires us to furnish ourselves with suitable clothing, but economy forbids us to lavish upon it an amount of money which we cannot afford. The same is true of furniture for our houses and of all the implements of art and industry. These may be more or less expensive. In procuring them we ought to consider not what quality or number of these objects are desirable but what we can afford to purchase; that is what we can purchase to advantage. Things may be desirable which it is bad economy to purchase.

§ 536. Economy is generally useful, but to the poor and those only in moderate circumstances, it is in the highest degree necessary; and is a necessary accompaniment of industry in the pursuit of wealth. Some fail in this pursuit for want of sufficient industry; and others for want of economy. Where both concur, success is almost certain.

We have a remarkable example, both of industry and economy, in the case of Benjamin Franklin. He cultivated both these virtues. He commenced life both industrious and economical in the highest degree, and early enjoyed the benefits of these virtues in the wealth which they secured and preserved. Franklin's industry would not have answered his purposes, without the concurring aid of his economy, neither would his economy have been sufficient without his industry. Both together made him wealthy, and secured to him innumerable other blessings. Franklin was not only an example of these virtues, but a teacher of them. He took great pains to inculcate them and impress them on the minds of his countrymen. In times of peculiar depression and distress, Franklin inculcated industry and economy as adequate means of relief. He taught the poor and distressed that a rigid exercise of industry and economy would relieve their poverty and distress, and elevate them to wealth and happiness; and so it was, and so it is now.

Economy requires self-denial and self-government. It sometimes requires persons to be siugular and exposes them to be thought little or mean, but it is on the whole useful and honorable. None can practice it without advantage, or neglect it without disadvantage. The evils to which economy subjects us are less than the benefits which it affords, and the evils which it avoids. Economy needs to be re

duced to rule in order to be practiced most perfectly. Among the rules for its exercise are the following: 1. Let nothing be wasted or lost through neglect. 2. Purchase nothing that you do not want. 3. Purchase nothing through pursuasion contrary to your judgment. 4. Avoid as far as possible getting in debt. 5. Keep an account of all your expenses, and occasionally review it. 6. Purchase nothing without knowing how it is to be paid for.

Excessive economy constitutes parsimony, and excessive parsimony miserly hoarding of property. Economy allows us to expend property for useful purposes, and regulates our expenditure according to the amount which we possess, and the number and quality of our wants, so as as to make our property as useful as possible. Parsimony withholds property from necessary and useful purposes, either to lay it up or expend it for other less useful purposes. Miserliness withholds property from useful purposes generally, restricting the subject and those under his control to a bare supply of the most necessary gratifications.

CHAPTER VII.

NATURE AND OFFICE OF TEMPERANCE.

§ 537. Temperance is a disposition to practice moderation in the exercise of the appetites. The appetites are a class of desires occurring habitually at regular intervals, and depending on sensations. The want of food and drink produces disagreeable sensations denominated hunger and thirst. Agreeable food and drink produces agreeable sensations of taste. The appetites are desires for food and drink founded on hunger and thirst; and on pleasing sensations of taste. When hungry and thirsty, we desire agreeable food and drink, both as a means of appeasing hunger and thirst, and of producing agreeable sensations of taste. A healthy appetite consists in the desire of food as a means of both these ends, and ceases when hunger is appeased. We never have an appetite for what is at the time a disagreeable. But what is not agreeable at other times, in many cases becomes so, under the influence of hunger and thirst; according to