Verily, cousin, if that reason would hold, I daresay the world was never such anywhere that any man might have kept any substance without the danger of damnation.  For since Christ’s days to the world’s end, we have the witness of his own word that there hath never lacked poor men nor ever shall.  For he said himself, “Poor men shall you always have with you, unto whom, when you will, you may do good.”  So that, as I tell you, if your rule should hold, then I suppose there would be no place, in no time, since Christ’s days hitherto, nor I think in as long before that either, nor never shall there be hereafter, in which any man could abide rich without the danger of eternal damnation, even for his riches alone, though he demeaned himself never so well.

But, cousin, men of substance must there be.  For otherwise shall you have more beggars, perdy, than there are, and no man left able to relieve another.  For this I think in my mind a very sure conclusion:  If all the money that is in this country were tomorrow brought together out of every man’s hand and laid all upon one heap, and then divided out unto every man alike, it would be on the morrow after worse than it was the day before.  For I suppose that when it were all equally thus divided among all, the best would be left little better then than almost a beggar is now.  And yet he who was a beggar before, all that he shall be the richer for, that he should thereby receive, shall not make him much above a beggar still.  But many a one of the rich men, if their riches stood but in movable substance, shall be safe enough from riches, haply for all their life after!

Men cannot, you know, live here in this world unless some one man provide a means of living for many others.  Every man cannot have a ship of his own, nor every man be a merchant without a stock.  And these things, you know, must needs be had.  Nor can every man have a plough by himself.  And who could live by the tailor’s craft, if no man were able to have a gown made?  Who could live by masonry, or who could live a carpenter, if no man were able to build either church or house?  Who would be the makers of any manner of cloth, if there lacked men of substance to set sundry sorts to work?  Some man who hath not two ducats in his house would do better to lose them both and leave himself not a farthing, but utterly lose all his own, rather than that some rich man by whom he is weekly set to work should lose one half of his money.  For then would he himself be likely to lack work.  For surely the rich man’s substance is the wellspring of the poor man’s living.  And therefore here would it fare by the poor man as it fared by the woman in one of AEsop’s fables.  She had a hen that laid her every day a golden egg, till on a day she thought she would have a great many eggs at once.  And therefore she killed her hen and found but one or twain in her belly, so that for a few she lost many.