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consider how much would be gained to the prince by increasing the land to the people.

If the same Omnipotent Power which made the world should at this time raise out of the ocean and join to Great Britain an equal extent of land, with equal buildings, corn, cattle, and other conveniencies and necessaries of life, but no men, women, nor children, I should hardly believe this would add either to the riches of the people or revenue of the prince; for since the present buildings are sufficient for all the inhabitants, if any of them should forsake the old to inhabit the new part of the island, the increase of house-rent in this would be attended with at least an equal decrease of it in the other. Besides, we have such a sufficiency of corn and cattle, that we give bounties to our neighbours to take what exceeds of the former off our hands, and we will not suffer any of the latter to be imported upon us by our fellow-subjects; and for the remaining product of the country, 'tis already equal to all our markets. But if all these things should be doubled to the same buyers, the owners must be glad with half their present prices, the landlords with half their present rents: and thus, by so great an enlargement of the country, the rents in the whole would not increase, nor the taxes to the public.

On the contrary, I should believe they would be very much diminished; for, as the land is only valuable for its fruits, and these are all perishable, and for the most part must either be used within the year, or perish without use, the owners will get rid of them at any rate, rather than they should waste in their possession: so that it is probable the annual production of those perishable things, even of one tenth part of them, beyond all possibility of use, will reduce one half of their value. It seems

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to be for this reason that our neighbour merchants who engross all the spices, and know how great a quantity is equal to the demand, destroy all that exceeds it. It were natural then to think that the annual production of twice as much as can be used, must reduce all to an eighth part of their present prices; and thus this extended island would not exceed one-fourth part of its present value, or pay more than one-fourth part of the present tax.

It is generally observed, that in countries of the greatest plenty there is the poorest living; like the schoolman's ass in one of my speculations, the people almost starve between two meals. The truth is, the poor, which are the bulk of a nation, work only that they may live; and if with two days' labour they can get a wretched subsistence for a week, they will hardly be brought to work the other four. But then with the wages of two days they can neither pay such prices for their provisions, nor such excises to the government.

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That paradox therefore in old Hesiod, πλέον ἥμισυ wavros, or, half is more than the whole,' is very applicable to the present case; since nothing is more true in political arithmetic, than that the same people with half a country is more valuable than with the whole. I begin to think there was nothing absurd in Sir W. Petty, when he fancied if all the highlands of Scotland and the whole kingdom of Ireland were sunk in the ocean, so that the people were all saved and brought into the lowlands of Great Britain; nay, though they were to be reimbursed the value of their estates by the body of the people; yet both the sovereign and the subjects in general would be enriched by the very loss.

If the people only make the riches, the father of ten children is a greater benefactor to his country, than he who has added to it 10,000 acres of land,

and no people. It is certain Lewis has joined vast tracts of land to his dominions: but if Philarithmus says true, that he is not now master of so many subjects as before; we may then account for his not being able to bring such mighty armies into the field, and for their being neither so well fed, nor clothed, nor paid as formerly. The reason is plain; Lewis must needs have been impoverished, not only by his loss of subjects, but by his acquisition of lands.

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No. 201. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1711.

Religentem esse oportet, religiosum nefas.

INCERTI AUTORIS APUD AUL. GELL.

A man should be religious, not superstitious.

Ir is of the last importance to season the passions of a child with devotion, which seldom dies in a mind that has received an early tincture of it. Though

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may seem extinguished for a while by the cares of the world, the heats of youth, or the allurements of vice, it generally breaks out and discovers itself again as soon as discretion, consideration, age, or misfortunes have brought the man to himself. The fire may be covered and overlaid, but cannot be entirely quenched and smothered.

A state of temperance, sobriety, and justice, without devotion, is a cold, lifeless, insipid, condition of virtue; and is rather to be styled philosophy than religion. Devotion opens the mind to great conceptions, and fills it with more sublime ideas than any that are to be met with in the most exalted

science; and at the same time warms and agitates the soul more than sensual pleasure.

It has been observed by some writers, that man is more distinguished from the animal world by devotion than by reason, as several brute creatures discover in their actions something like a faint glimmering of reason, though they betray in no single circumstance of their behaviour any thing that bears the least affinity to devotion. It is certain, the propensity of the mind to religious worship, the natural tendency of the soul to fly to some superior being for succour in dangers and distresses, the gratitude to an invisible Superintendent which rises in us upon receiving any extraordinary and unexpected good fortune, the acts of love and admiration with which the thoughts of men are so wonderfully transported in meditating upon the divine perfections, and the universal concurrence of all the nations under heaven in the great article of adoration, plainly show that devotion or religious worship must be the effect of a tradition from some first founder of mankind, or that it is conformable to the natural light of reason, or that it proceeds from an instinct implanted in the soul itself. For my part, I look upon all these to be the concurrent causes: but whichever of them shall be assigned as the principle of divine worship, it manifestly points to a Supreme Being as the first author of it.

I may take some other opportunity of considering those particular forms and methods of devotion which are taught us by Christianity; but shall here observe into what errors even this divine principle may sometimes lead us, when it is not moderated by that right reason which was given us as the guide of all our actions.

The two great errors into which a mistaken devotion may betray us, are enthusiasm and superstition.

There is not a more melancholy object than a man who has his head turned with a religious enthusiasm. A person that is crazed, though with pride or malice, is a sight very mortifying to human nature; but when the distemper arises from any indiscreet fervours of devotion, or too intense an application of the mind to its mistaken duties, it deserves our compassion in a more particular manner. We may however learn this lesson from it, that since devotion itself, which one would be apt to think could not be too warm, may disorder the mind, unless its heats are tempered with caution and prudence, we should be particularly careful to keep our reason as cool as possible, and to guard ourselves in all parts of life against the influence of passion, imagination, and constitution.

Devotion, when it does not lie under the check of reason, is very apt to degenerate into enthusiasm. When the mind finds herself very much inflamed with her devotions, she is too much inclined to think they are not of her own kindling, but blown up by something divine within her. If she indulges this thought too far, and humours the growing passion, she at last flings herself into imaginary raptures and ecstasies; and when once she fancies herself under the influence of a divine impulse, it is no wonder if she slights human ordinances, and refuses to comply with any established form of religion, as thinking herself directed by a much superior guide.

As enthusiasm is a kind of excess in devotion, superstition is the excess, not only of devotion, but of religion in general, according to an old heathen saying, quoted by Aulus Gellius, Religentem esse oportet, religiosum nefas;' 'A man should be religious, not superstitious. For as that author tells us, Nigidius

* Noctes Atticæ, lib. iv. cap. 9.

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