Effects of Luxury.
4. Thrift has produced wealth, wealth luxury, and luxury also acts as a restraint on population, because, in a luxurious age, children are too expensive.
Weakening of the Warlike Temper
5. As for national defence, the wealth of France is of use for all material things, such as ships, fortresses, and guns, but by increasing the love of comfort and commerce it has enfeebled the warlike temper of the nation.
Temptation to Enemies.
6. As the wealth of France continually increases, and her defenders do not increase with it, she becomes every year a more tempting prize for an enemy.
CHAPTER VI
CLEANLINESS
English Civilisation.
Entering London one day with a friend in the railway train, I asked him what, in his opinion, would have been the impressions of an ancient Roman if he could have accompanied us. What would an inhabitant of Augustan Rome think of English civilisation in Victorian London?
My friend at once answered, “He would think we were a very dirty race, and this impression would be so strong and so unfavourable that he would be slow to perceive our superiority in other respects.”