But it is not merely a neglect of industry and the means of rising in society, or keeping one’s place in it that is hurtful; the general way of thinking and acting becomes different, and, by degrees, the character of a nation is entirely altered.  This change was the most rapid, and the most observable in the Roman republic, and was the cause that brought it to an end, and prepared the people for submitting to be ruled by the emperors.  The human character was as much degraded under them, when the citizens were rich, as it ever had been exalted under their consular government, when the people were indigent. [end of page #90]

The various effects of this change in manners will be considered under different heads, but it is too deeply rooted in human nature ever to be entirely counteracted, much less entirely done away.  It is firmly connected with the first principles of action in man, and can no more be removed than his entire nature can be altered.  What is in the extreme, if dangerous, may be diminished; and that is all that it would be any way useful to attempt:  it may be rendered less formidable in its operation, and that is all that can be expected.

The degradation of moral character; the loss of attention to the first principles to which a society owes its prosperity and safety, both of which accompany wealth, are most powerful agents in the decline of nations.  We have seen that the Romans, the greatest of all nations, were ruined, chiefly, by degradation of character, by effeminacy, by ignorance; for we generally find that idleness degenerates, at last, into sloth and inaction.  To a love of justice, and a power of overcoming danger, or of preventing it, listlessness and a total want of energy succeed:  at length, the mind becomes estranged from hope, and the body incapable of exertion.  This is the case with those who have for a time enjoyed luxury when they begin to decline; their fall is then inevitable.  The Eastern empire, as well as the Western, fell by this means; and it may be said to have been the ordinary course in the decline of nations that have fallen gradually.

The Turks, {80} the Spaniards, and the Portuguese, all owe part of their present feebleness to this cause; and the government of France certainly, in a great measure, owed its downfal =sic= to the same.  There the courtiers had sunk in character, and it was become impossible even for the energy, the activity, and intelligence of the nation at large, to counteract the baneful effect of the change that had taken place amongst those who regulated its affairs.

In history we have seen scarcely any thing similar to this, for it was the effect operating on the rulers of the nation only; the strength of the great body of the nation, on which it did not operate, supported that

—–­ {80} Those nations resemble each other in feebleness, and in the cause of it, though, with respect to the Turks, it has existed for a longer period. -=-