fineness and worth of the humanity on which it is wrought,) still, nothing but harm ever comes of a bad thing.
34. So that, in sum, the term wealth is never to be attached to the accidental object of a morbid desire, but only to the constant object of a legitimate one.[1] By the fury of ignorance, and fitfulness of caprice, large interests may be continually attached to things unserviceable or hurtful; if their nature could be altered by our passions, the science of political Economy would remain, what it has been hitherto among us, the weighing of clouds, and the portioning out of shadows. But of ignorance there is no science; and of caprice no law. Their disturbing forces interfere with the operations of faithful Economy, but have nothing in common with them: she, the calm arbiter of national destiny, regards only essential power for good in all that she accumulates, and alike disdains the
- ↑ [Remember carefully this statement, that Wealth consists only in the things which the nature of humanity has rendered in all ages, and must render in all ages to come, (that is what I meant by "constant,") the objects of legitimate desire. And see Appendix II.]
