To take care of our Interest is the great law of Nature, and is universally followed. Every one for himself, and Fate for us all, as the donkey said when he danced among the chickens, is as profound a maxim as the gnothi seauton of Plato. "Take care of yourself" is of more importance than "Know thyself." To take care of oneself is a science which comes home to every man's business and bosom. It is "wisdom" identified with our personal character. It is philosophy turned to account. It is morality above par. It is a religion in which "every man may be his own parson," find his Bible in his ledger, his Creed in the "stock-list," his Psalter in the tariff, his Book of Common Prayer in the railway and canal shares, his Temple in the Royal Exchange, his Altar in his counter, and his God in his money.
THE OLD AND NEW PRINCIPLE—BOTH WITH CREDIT.
Principle, or Principal, is an old term used by our forefathers in "money matters" and commercial transactions, but is now obsolete. It formerly represented capital, and raised the British merchant in the scale of nations; but it is now a maxim of trade to discard Principle as not being consistent with Interest. It is paradoxically Capital to take care of our Interest, but it seldom requires any Principle to do so.
"The want of money is the root of all evil." Such is the new reading, according to the translation of a new sect called the Tinites. In the orthodox translation, the love of money was unfortunately rendered. To be without money is worse than being without brains—for this reason we should oppose all dangerous innovations, which in any way have a tendency to disturb the "balance of Capital." Right is not to usurp might. We are not, for the sake of Quixotic experiment, to invade the interests of the landed proprietor by an Anti-Corn Law movement, nor the vested right of doing wrong, which the various close corporations of law, physic, and trade, &c. have so long maintained, making England the envy of the world and the glory of surrounding nations.
THE TIN-DER PASSION.
Interest, therefore, teaches us to interest ourselves for our own interests, and to keep them continually in view in all our transactions. When a man loses sight of his own interests he is morally blind; he must, therefore, according to this rule, walk with his eyes open, and be wide awake to every move—keep the weather-eye open, and not have one eye up the chimney and the other in the pot, but both stedfastly fixed on the main chance.
Interest teaches us also to swear to anything and admit nothing; to prove, by the devil's rhetoric, that black is white and white black; to tamper, to shuffle, to misrepresent, to falsify, to scheme, to undervalue, to entangle, to evade, to delay, to humbug, and to cheat in virtue of the monied interest.