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population. The influx from these sources may | stock, only vary the distribution of it, they are

be immense, and yet the country remain poor and ill-peopled; of which we see an egregious example in the condition of Spain, since the acquisition of its South-American dominions.

not necessarily prejudicial to population. If the state exact money from certain members of the community, she dispenses it also amongst other members of the same community. They who contribute to the revenue, and they who are supported or benefited by the expenses of government, are to be placed one against the other; and whilst what the subsistence of one part is profited by receiving, compensates for what that of the other suffers by paying, the common fund of the society is not lessened. This is true: but it must be observed, that although the sum distributed by the state be always equal to the sum collected from the people, yet the gain and loss to the means of subsistence may be very unequal; and the balance will remain on the wrong or the right side of the account, according as the money passes by taxation from the industrious to the idle, from the many to the few, from those who want to those who abound, or in a contrary direction. For instance: a tax upon coaches, to be

But, secondly, money may become also a real and an operative cause of population, by acting as a stimulus to industry, and by facilitating the means of subsistence. The ease of subsistence, and the encouragement of industry, depend neither upon the price of labour, nor upon the price of provision, but upon the proportion which one bears to the other. Now the influx of money into a country, naturally tends to advance this proportion; that is, every fresh accession of money raises the price of labour before it raises the price of provision. When money is brought from abroad, the persons, be they who they will, into whose hands it first arrives, do not buy up provision with it, but apply it to the purchase and payment of labour. If the state receives it, the state dispenses what it receives amongst soldiers, sailors, artificers, engineers, shipwrights, work-laid out in the repair of roads, would probably immen;—if private persons bring home treasures of gold and silver they usually expend them in the building of houses, the improvement of estates, the purchase of furniture, dress, equipage, in articles of luxury or splendour:-if the merchant be enriched by returns of his foreign commerce, he applies his increased capital to the enlargement of his business at home. The money ere long comes to market for provision; but it comes thither through the hands of the manufacturer, the artist, the husbandman, and labourer. Its effect, therefore, upon the price of art and labour, will precede its effect upon the price of provision; and during the interval between one effect and the other, the means of subsistence will be multiplied and facilitated, as well as industry be excited by new rewards. When the greater plenty of money in circulation has produced an advance in the price of provision, corresponding to the advanced price of labour, its effect ceases. The labourer no fonger gains any thing by the increase of his wages. It is not, therefore, the quantity of specie collected into a country, but the continual increase of that quantity, from which the advantage arises to employment and population. It is only the accession of money which produces the effect, and it is only by money constantly flowing into a country that the effect can be constant. Now whatever consequence arises to the country from the influx of money, the contrary may be expected to follow from the diminution of its quantity: and accordingly we find, that whatever cause drains off the specie of a country, faster than the streams which feed it can supply, not only impoverishes the country, but depopulates it. The knowledge and experience of this effect have given occasion to a phrase which occurs in almost every discourse upon commerce or politics. The balance of trade with any foreign nation is said to be against or in favour of a country, simply as it tends to carry money out, or bring it in: that is, according as the price of the imports exceeds or falls short of the price of the exports: so invariably is the increase or diminution of the specie of a country regarded as a test of the pubhic advantage or detriment which arises from any branch of its commerce.

IV. TAXATION.-As taxes take nothing out of a country; as they do not diminish the public

prove the population of a neighbourhood; a tax upon cottages, to be ultimately expended in the purchase and support of coaches, would certainly diminish it. In like manner, a tax upon wine or tea distributed in bounties to fishermen or husbandmen, would augment the provision of a country; a tax upon fisheries and husbandry, however indirect or concealed, to be converted, when raised, to the procuring of wine or tea for the idle and opulent, would naturally impair the public stock. The effect, therefore, of taxes, upon the means of subsistence, depends not so much upon the amount of the sum levied, as upon the object of the tax and the application. Taxes likewise may be so adjusted as to conduce to the restraint of luxury, and the correction of vice; to the encouragement of industry, trade, agricul ture, and marriage. Taxes thus contrived, become rewards and penalties; not only sources of revenue, but instruments of police. Vices indeed themselves cannot be taxed, without holding forth such a conditional toleration of them as to destroy men's perception of their guilt; a tax comes to be considered as a commutation: the materials, however, and incentives of vice, may. Although, for instance, drunkenness would be, on this account, an unfit object of taxation, yet public houses and spirituous liquors are very properly subjected to heavy imposts.

Nevertheless, although it may be true that taxes cannot be pronounced to be detrimental to population, by an absolute necessity in their nature; and though, under some modifications, and when urged only to a certain extent, they may even operate in favour of it; yet it will be found, in a great plurality of instances, that their tendency is noxious. Let it be supposed that nine families inhabit a neighbourhood, each possessing barely the means of subsistence, or of that mode of subsistence which custom hath established amongst them; let a tenth family be quartered upon these, to be supported by a tax raised from the nine; or rather, let one of the nine have his income augmented by a similar deduction from the incomes of the rest; in either of these cases, it is evident that the whole district would be broken up: for as the entire income of each is supposed to be barely sufficient for the establishment which it maintains, a deduction of any part

destroys that establishment. Now it is no answer telligible; it encourages no activity which is useto this objection, it is no apology for the grievance, ful or productive.

to say, that nothing is taken out of the neighbour- The sum to be raised being settled, a wise hood; that the stock is not diminished: the mis-statesman will contrive his taxes principally with chief is done by deranging the distribution. Nor, a view to their effect upon population; that is, he again, is the luxury of one family, or even the will so adjust them as to give the least possible maintenance of an additional family, a recom- obstruction to those means of subsistence by which pense to the country for the ruin of nine others. the mass of the community is maintained. We Nor, lastly, will it alter the effect though it may are accustomed to an opinion, that a tax, to be conceal the cause, that the contribution, instead just, ought to be accurately proportioned to the of being levied directly upon each day's wages, circumstances of the persons who pay it. But is mixed up in the price of some article of con- upon what, it might be asked, is this opinion stant use and consumption, as in a tax upon founded; unless it could be shown that such a candles, malt, leather, or fuel. This example illus-proportion interferes the least with the general trates the tendency of taxes to obstruct subsistence; and the minutest degree of this obstruction will be felt in the formation of families. The example, indeed, forms an extreme case; the evil is magnified, in order to render its operation dis-ratio than the simple proportion of their incomes. tinct and visible. In real life, families may not be broken up, or forced from their habitation, houses be quitted, or countries suddenly deserted, in consequence of any new imposition whatever; but marriages will become gradually less frequent.

conveniency of subsistence? Whereas I should rather believe, that a tax, constructed with a view to that conveniency, ought to rise upon the different classes of the community, in a much higher

The point to be regarded is, not what men have, but what they can spare; and it is evident that a man who possesses a thousand pounds a year, can more easily give up a hundred, than a man with a hundred pounds a year can part with ten; that is, those habits of life which are reasonable and innocent, and upon the ability to continue which the formation of families depends, will be much less affected by the one deduction than the other: it is still more evident, that a man of a hundred pounds a year would not be so much distressed in his subsistence, by a demand from him of ten pounds, as a man of ten pounds a year would be by the loss of one: to which we must add, that the population of every country being replenished by the marriages of the lowest ranks of the society, their accommodation and relief become of more importance to the state, than the conveniency of any higher but less numerous order of its citizens. But whatever be the proportion which public expediency directs, whether the simple, the duplicate, or any higher or intermediate proportion of men's incomes, it can never be attained by any single tax: as no single object of taxation can be found, which measures the ability of the subject with sufficient generality and exactness. It is only by a system and variety of taxes, mutually balancing and equalising one another, that a due proportion can be preserved. For instance: if a tax upon lands press with greater hardship upon those who live in the country, it may be properly counterpoised by a tax upon the rent of houses, which will affect principally the inhabitants of large towns.

It seems necessary, however, to distinguish between the operation of a new tax, and the effect of taxes which have been long established. In the course of circulation, the money may flow back to the hands from which it was taken. The proportion between the supply and the expense of subsistence, which had been disturbed by the tax, may at length recover itself again. In the instance just now stated, the addition of a tenth family to the neighbourhood, or the enlarged expenses of one of the nine, may, in some shape or other, so advance the profits, or increase the employment, of the rest, as to make full restitution for the share of their property of which it deprives them; or, what is more likely to happen, a reduction may take place in their mode of living, suited to the abridgment of their incomes. Yet still the ultimate and permanent effect of taxation, though distinguishable from the impression of a new tax, is generally adverse to population. The proportion above spoken of, can only be restored by one side or other of the following alternative: by the people either contracting their wants, which at the same time diminishes consumption and employment; or by raising the price of labour, which necessarily adding to the price of the productions and manufactures of the country, checks their sale at foreign markets. A nation which is burthened with taxes, must always be undersold by a nation which is free from them, unless the diftinctions may also be framed in some taxes, which ference be made up by some singular advantage shall allow abatements or exemptions to married of climate, soil, skill, or industry. This quality persons; to the parents of a certain number of belongs to all taxes which affect the mass of the legitimate children; to improvers of the soil; to community, even when imposed upon the proper-particular modes of cultivation, as to tillage in est objects, and applied to the fairest purposes. But abuses are inseparable from the disposal of public money. As governments are usually administered, the produce of public taxes is expended upon a train of gentry, in the maintaining of pomp, or in the purchase of influence. The conversion of property which taxes effectuate, when they are employed in this manner, is attended with obvious evils. It takes from the industrious, to give to the idle; it increases the number of the latter; it tends to accumulation; it sacrifices the conveniency of many to the luxury of a few; it makes no return to the people, from whom the tax is drawn, that is satisfactory or in

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preference to pasturage; and in general to that industry which is immediately productive, in preference to that which is only instrumental; "but above all, which may leave the heaviest part of the burthen upon the methods, whatever they be, of acquiring wealth without industry, or even of subsisting in idleness.

V. EXPORTATION OF BREAD-CORN.-Nothing seems to have a more positive tendency to reduce the number of the people, than the sending abroad part of the provision by which they are maintained; yet this has been the policy of legislators very studious of the improvement of their country. In order to reconcile ourselves to a practice which

appears to militate with the chief interest, that is, I discover or adopt a mechanical improvement, will, with the population of the country that adopts it, for some time, draw to themselves an increase of we must be reminded of a maxim which belongs employment; and that this preference may conto the productions both of nature and art, "that it tinue even after the improvement has become is impossible to have enough without a super-general; for, in every kind of trade, it is not only fluity." The point of sufficiency cannot, in any a great but permanent advantage, to have once case, be so exactly hit upon, as to have nothing preoccupied the public reputation. Thirdly, after to spare, yet never to want. This is peculiarly true every superiority which might be derived from the of bread-corn, of which the annual increase is possession of a secret, has ceased, it may be well extremely valuable. As it is necessary that the questioned whether even then any loss can accrue crop be adequate to the consumption in a year of to employment. The same money will be spared scarcity, it must, of consequence, greatly exceed to the same article still. Wherefore, in proportion it in a year of plenty. A redundancy therefore as the article can be afforded at a lower price, by will occasionally arise from the very care that is reason of an easier or shorter process in the manutaken to secure the people against the danger of facture, it will either grow into more general use, want; and it is manifest that the exportation of or an improvement will take place in the quality this redundancy subtracts nothing from the num- and fabric, which will demand a proportionable ber that can regularly be maintained by the pro- addition of hands. The number of persons emduce of the soil. Moreover, as the exportation of ployed in the manufactory of stockings, has not, I corn, under these circumstances, is attended with apprehend, decreased since the invention of stockno direct injury to population, so the benefits ing-mills. The amount of what is expended upon which indirectly arise to population from foreign the article, after subtracting from it the price of commerce, belongs to this, in common with other the raw material, and consequently what is paid species of trade; together with the peculiar advan- for work in this branch of our manufactories, is not tage of presenting a constant incitement to the less than it was before. Goods of a finer texture skill and industry of the husbandman, by the are worn in the place of coarser. This is the promise of a certain sale and an adequate price, change which the invention has produced; and under every contingency of season and produce. which compensates to the manufactory for every There is another situation, in which corn may other inconveniency. Add to which, that in not only be exported, but in which the people can the above, and in almost every instance, an imthrive by no other means; that is, of a newly provement which conduces to the recommendasettled country, with a fertile soil. The exporta- tion of a manufactory, either by the cheapness tion of a large proportion of the corn which a coun- or the quality of the goods, draws up after it many try produces, proves, it is true, that the inhabitants dependent employments, in which no abbreviation have not yet attained to the number which the has taken place. country is capable of maintaining: but it does not prove but that they may be hastening to this limit with the utmost practicable celerity, which is the perfection to be sought for in a young establishment. In all cases except these two, and in the former of them to any greater degree than what is necessary to take off occasional redundancies, the exportation of corn is either itself noxious to population, or argues a defect of population arising

from some other cause.

VI. ABRIDGMENT OF LABOUR.-It has long been made a question, whether those mechanical contrivances which abridge labour, by performing the same work by fewer hands, be detrimental or not to the population of a country. From what has been delivered in preceding parts of the present chapter, it will be evident that this question is equivalent to another,-whether such contrivances diminish or not the quantity of employment. The first and most obvious effect undoubtedly is this; because, if one man be made to do what three men did before, two are immediately discharged: but if, by some more general and remoter consequence, they increase the demand for work, or, what is the same thing, prevent the diminution of that demand, in a greater proportion than they contract the number of hands by which it is performed, the quantity of employment, upon the whole, will gain an addition. Upon which principle it may be observed, first, that whenever a mechanical invention succeeds in one place, it is necessary that it be imitated in every other, where the same manufacture is carried on; for, it is manifest, that he who has the benefit of a conciser operation, will soon outvie and undersell a competitor who continues to use a more circuitous labour. It is also true, in the second place, that whoever first

From the reasoning that has been pursued, and the various considerations suggested in this chapter, a judgment may, in some sort, be formed, how far regulations of law are in their nature capable of contributing to the support and advancement of population. I say how far; for, as in many subjects, so especially in those which relate to commerce, to plenty, to riches, and to the number of people, more is wont to be expected from laws, than laws can do. Laws can only imperfectly restrain that dissoluteness of manners, which, by diminishing the frequency of marriages, impairs the very source of population. Laws cannot regulate the wants of mankind, their mode of living, or their desire of those superfluities which fashion, more irresistible than laws, has once introduced into general usage; or, in other words, has erected into necessaries of life. Laws cannot induce men to enter into marriages, when the expenses of a family must deprive them of that system of ac commodation to which they have habituated their expectations. Laws, by their protection, by assuring to the labourer the fruit and profit of his labour, may help to make a people industrious; but without industry, the laws cannot provide either subsistence or employment; laws cannot make corn grow without toil and care, or trade flourish without art and diligence. In spite of all laws, the expert, laborious, honest workman, will be employed, in preference to the lazy, the unskilful, the fraudulent, and evasive: and this is not more true of two inhabitants of the same village, than it is of the people of two different countries, which communicate either with each other, or with

the rest of the world. The natural basis of trade is rivalship of quality and price; or, which is the same thing, of skill and industry. Every attempt to force trade by operation of law, that is, by compelling persons to buy goods at one market, which they can obtain cheaper and better from another, is sure to be either eluded by the quick-sightedness and incessant activity of private interest, or to be frustrated by retaliation. One half of the commercial laws of many states are calculated merely to counteract the restrictions which have been imposed by other states. Perhaps the only way in which the interposition of law is salutary in trade, is in the prevention of frauds.

Next to the indispensable requisites of internal peace and security, the chief advantage which can be derived to population from the interference of law, appears to me to consist in the encouragement of agriculture. This, at least, is the direct way of increasing the number of the people: every other mode being effectual only by its influence upon this. Now the principal expedient by which such a purpose can be promoted, is to adjust the laws of property, as nearly as possible, to the two following rules: first, "to give to the occupier all the power over the soil, which is necessary for its perfect cultivation;"-secondly, "to assign the whole profit of every improvement to the persons by whose activity it is carried on." What we call property in land, as hath been observed above, is power over it. Now it is indifferent to the public in whose hands this power resides, if it be rightly used; it matters not to whom the land belongs, if it be well cultivated. When we lament that great estates are often united in the same hand, or complain that one man possesses what would be sufficient for a thousand, we suffer ourselves to be misled by words. The owner of ten thousand pounds a-year, consumes little more of the produce of the soil than the owner of ten pounds a-year. If the cultivation be equal, the estate in the hands of one great lord, affords subsistence and employment to the same number of persons as it would do if it were divided amongst a hundred proprietors. In like manner we ought to judge of the effect upon the public interest, which may arise from lands being holden by the king, or by the subject; by private persons, or by corporations; by laymen, or ecclesiastics; in fee, or for life; by virtue of office, or in right of inheritance. I do not mean that these varieties make no difference, but I mean that all the difference they do make respects the cultivation of the lands which are so holden.

There exist in this country, conditions of tenure which condemn the land itself to perpetual sterility, Of this kind is the right of common, which precludes each proprietor from the improvement, or even the convenient occupation, of his estate, without (what seldom can be obtained) the consent of many others. This tenure is also usually embarrassed by the interference of manorial claims, under which it often happens that the surface belongs to one owner, and the soil to another; so that neither owner can stir a clod without the concurrence of his partner in the property. In many manors, the tenant is restrained from granting leases beyond a short term of years; which renders every plan of solid improvement impracticable. In these cases, the owner wants, what the first rule of rational policy requires, "sufficient power over the soil for its perfect cultivation." This power ought to be extended to him by some easy

and general law of enfranchisement, partition, and enclosure; which, though compulsory upon the lord, or the rest of the tenants, whilst it has in view the melioration of the soil, and tenders an equitable compensation for every right that it takes away, is neither more arbitrary, nor more dangerous to the stability of property, than that which is done in the construction of roads, bridges, embankments, navigable canals, and indeed in almost every pub lic work, in which private owners of land are obliged to accept that price for their property which an indifferent jury may award. It may here, however, be proper to observe, that although the enclosure of wastes and pastures be generally beneficial to population, yet the enclosure of lands in tillage, in order to convert them into pastures, is as generally hurtful.

But, secondly, agriculture is discouraged by every constitution of landed property which lets in those, who have no concern in the improvement, to a participation of the profit. This objection is applicable to all such customs of manors as subject the proprietor, upon the death of the lord or tenant, or the alienation of the estate, to a fine apportioned to the improved value of the land. But of all institutions which are in this way adverse to cultivation and improvement, none is so noxious as that of tithes. A claimant here enters into the produce, who contributed no assistance whatever to the production. When years, perhaps, of care and toil have matured an improvement; when the husbandman sees new crops ripening to his skill and industry; the moment he is ready to put his sickle to the grain, he finds himself compelled to divide his harvest with a stranger. Tithes are a tax not only upon industry, but upon that industry which feeds mankind; upon that species of exertion which it is the aim of all wise laws to cherish and promote; and to uphold and excite which, composes, as we have seen, the main benefit that the community receives from the whole system of trade, and the success of commerce. And, together with the more general inconveniency that attends the exaction of tithes, there is this additional evil, in the mode at least according to which they are collected at present, that they operate as a bounty upon pasturage. The burthen of the tax falls with its chief, if not with its whole weight, upon tillage; that is to say, upon that precise mode of cultivation, which, as hath been shown above, it is the business of the state to relieve and remunerate, in preference to every other. No measure of such extensive concern appears to me so practicable, nor any single alteration so beneficial, as the conversion of tithes into corn-rents. This commutation, I am convinced, might be so adjusted as to secure to the tithe-holder a complete and perpetual equivalent for his interest, and to leave to industry its full operation, and entire reward.

CHAPTER XII.

Of War, and of Military Establishments.

BECAUSE the Christian Scriptures describe wars as what they are, as crimes or judgments, some have been led to believe that it is unlawful for a Christian to bear arms. But it should be remembered that it may be necessary for individuals to unite their force, and for this end to resign themselves to the direction of a common will; and yet

It may be true that that will is often actuated by upon its ultimate utility; that this utility, having criminal motives, and often determined to destruc- a finite and determinate value, situations may be tive purposes. Hence, although the origin of wars feigned, and consequently may possibly arise, in De ascribed, in Scripture, to the operation of law-which the general tendency is outweighed by the less and malignant passion ;* and though war it- enormity of the particular mischief: but she reself be enumerated among the sorest calamities calls, at the same time, to the consideration of the with which a land can be visited, the profession inquirer, the almost inestimable importance, as of of a soldier is nowhere forbidden or condemned. other general rules of relative justice, so especially When the soldiers demanded of John the Baptist of national and personal fidelity; the unseen, if what they should do, he said unto them, "Do vio- not unbounded, extent of the mischief which must lence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and follow from the want of it; the danger of leaving be content with your wages."+ In which answer it to the sufferer to decide upon the comparison we do not find that, in order to prepare themselves of particular and general consequences; and the for the reception of the kingdom of God, it was still greater danger of such decisions being drawn required of soldiers to relinquish their profession, into future precedents. If treaties, for instance, but only that they should beware of the vices of be no longer binding than whilst they are convewhich that profession was accused. The precept nient, or until the inconveniency ascend to a which follows, "Be content with your wages," certain point, (which point must be fixed by the supposed them to continue in their situation. It judgment, or rather by the feelings, of the comwas of a Roman centurion that Christ pronounced plaining party;) or if such an opinion, after being that memorable eulogy, "I have not found so great authorised by a few examples, come at length to faith, no, not in Israel." The first Gentile con- prevail; one and almost the only method of avertverts who was received into the Christian church, ing or closing the calamities of war, of either preand to whom the Gospel was imparted by the im- venting or putting a stop to the destruction of mediate and especial direction of Heaven, held mankind, is lost to the world for ever. We do the same station: and in the history of this trans- not say that no evil can exceed this, nor any posaction we discover not the smallest intimation, sible advantage compensate it; but we say that a that Cornelius, upon becoming a Christian, quit-loss, which affects all, will scarcely be made up ted the service of the Roman legion; that his profession was objected to, or his continuance in it considered as in any wise inconsistent with his new character.

In applying the principles of morality to the affairs of nations, the difficulty which meets us, arises from hence, "that the particular consequence sometimes appears to exceed the value of the general rule." In this circumstance is founded the only distinction that exists between the case of independent states, and of independent individuals. In the transactions of private persons, no advantage that results from the breach of a general law of justice, can compensate to the public for the violation of the law; in the concerns of empire, this may sometimes be doubted. Thus, that the faith of promises ought to be maintained, as far as is lawful, and as far as was intended by the parties, whatever inconveniency either of them may suffer by his fidelity, in the intercourse of private life, is seldom disputed; because it is evident to almost every man who reflects upon the subject, that the common happiness gains more by the preservation of the rule, than it could do by the removal of the inconveniency. But when the adherence to a public treaty would enslave a whole people; would block up seas, rivers, or harbours; depopulate cities; condemn fertile regions to eternal desolation; cut off a country from its sources of provision, or deprive it of those commercial advantages to which its climate, produce, or situation naturally entitle it: the magnitude of the particular evil induces us to call in question the obligation of the general rule. Moral Philosophy furnishes no precise solution to these doubts. She cannot pronounce that any rule of morality is so rigid as to bend to no exceptions; nor, on the other hand, can she comprise these exceptions within any previous description. She confesses that the obligation of every law depends

* James iv. 1.
Į Luke vii. 9.

Luke iii. 14. § Acts. x. 1.

to the common stock of human happiness by any benefit that can be procured to a single nation, which, however respectable when compared with any other single nation, bears an inconsiderable proportion to the whole. These, however, are the principles upon which the calculation is to be formed. It is enough, in this place, to remark the cause which produces the hesitation that we sometimes feel, in applying rules of personal probity to the conduct of nations.

As between individuals it is found impossible to ascertain every duty by an immediate reference to public utility, not only because such reference is oftentimes too remote for the direction of private consciences, but because a multitude of cases arise in which it is indifferent to the general interest by what rule men act, though it be absolutely necessary that they act by some constant and known rule or other and as, for these reasons, certain positive constitutions are wont to be established in every society, which, when established, become as obligatory as the original principles of natural justice themselves; so, likewise, it is between independent communities. Together with those maxims of universal equity which are common to states and to individuals, and by which the rights and conduct of the one as well as the other, ought to be adjusted, when they fall within the scope and application of such maxims; there exists also amongst sovereigns a system of artificial jurisprudence, under the name of the law of nations. In this code are found the rules which determine the right to vacant or newly discovered countries; those which relate to the protection of fugitives, the privileges of ambassadors, the condition and duties of neutrality, the immunities of neutral ships, ports, and coasts, the distance from shore to which these immunities extend, the distinction between free and contraband goods, and a variety of subjects of the same kind. Concerning which examples, and indeed the principal part of what is called the jus gentium, it may be observed, that the rules derive their moral force, (by which I mean the regard that ought to be paid to them by

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