Page:Essays, Moral and Political - David Hume (1741).djvu/107

 Persons combine in the same Views and Measures; but also because Property, when united, causes much greater Dependence, than the same Property, when dispersed. An hundred Persons of 1000 a Year apiece, can consume all their Income, and no Body shall ever be the better for them, except their Servants and Tradesmen, who justly regard their Profits as the Product of their own Labour. But a Man possest of 100,000 a Year, if he has either any Generosity, or any Cunning, may create a great Dependence by Obligations, and still a greater by Expectations. Hence we find, that in all free Governments any Subject exorbitantly rich has always created Jealousy, even tho' his Riches bore no manner of Proportion to the Riches of the State. Crassus's Fortune, if I remember well, amounted only to Three Thousand Talents a Year; and yet we find, that though his Genius was nothing extraordinary, he was able, by Means of his Riches alone, to counter-ballance, during his Lifetime, the Power of Cæsar, who afterwards became Master of the World. The Wealth of