Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/244

234 bricks, I employ him in fiddling for me, the corn he eats is gone, and no part of his manufacture remains to augment the wealth and convenience of the family: I ſhall therefore be the poorer for this fiddling man, unleſs the reſt of my family work more, or eat leſs, to make up the deficiency he occaſions. Look round the world, and ſee the millions employed in doing nothing, or in ſomething that amounts to nothing, when the neceſſaries and conveniences of life are in queſtion. What is the bulk of commerce, for which we fight and deſtroy each other, but the toil of millions for ſuperfluities, to the great hazard and loſs of many lives, by the conſtant dangers of the ſea? How much labour is ſpent in building and fitting great ſhips, to go to China and Arabia for tea and coffee, to the Weſt Indies for ſugar, to America for tobacco? Theſe things cannot be called the neceſſaries of life, for our anceſtors lived very comfortably without them.

A queſtion may be aſked: Could all theſe people now employed in raiſing, making, or carrying ſuperfluities, be ſubſiſted by raiſing neceſſaries? I think they might. The world is large, and a great part of it ſtill uncultivated. Many hundred millions of acres in Aſia, Africa and America, are ſtill in a foreſt; and a great deal even in Europe. On a hundred acres of this foreſt a man might become a ſubſtantial farmer; and a hundred thouſand men employed in clearing each his hundred acres, would hardly brighten a ſpot big enough to be viſible from the moon, unleſs with Herſchel’s teleſcope; ſo vaſt are the regions ſtill in wood.

It is however ſome comfort to reflect, that, upon the whole, the quantity of induſtry and prudence among mankind exceeds the quantity