I am always pleased when I see literature made useful, and scholars
descending from that elevation, which, as it raises them above common
life, must likewise hinder them from beholding the ways of men otherwise
than in a cloud of bustle and confusion. Having lived a life of business,
and remarked how seldom any occurrences emerge for which great qualities
are required, I have learned the necessity of regarding little things;
and though I do not pretend to give laws to the legislators of mankind,
or to limit the range of those powerful minds that carry light and heat
through all the regions of knowledge, yet I have long thought, that the
greatest part of those who lose themselves in studies by which I have not
found that they grow much wiser, might, with more advantage both to the
publick and themselves, apply their understandings to domestick arts, and
store their minds with axioms of humble prudence, and private economy.
Your late paper on frugality was very elegant and pleasing, but, in my
opinion, not sufficiently adapted to common readers, who pay little
regard to the musick of periods, the artifice of connection, or the
arrangement of the flowers of rhetorick; but require a few plain and
cogent instructions, which may sink into the mind by their own weight.
Frugality is so necessary to the happiness of the world, so beneficial
in its various forms to every rank of men, from the highest of human
potentates, to the lowest labourer or artificer; and the miseries which
the neglect of it produces are so numerous and so grievous, that it
ought to be recommended with every variation of address, and adapted
to every class of understanding.
Whether those who treat morals as a science will allow frugality to be
numbered among the virtues, I have not thought it necessary to inquire.
For I, who draw my opinions from a careful observation of the world, am
satisfied with knowing what is abundantly sufficient for practice; that
if it be not a virtue, it is, at least, a quality which can seldom exist
without some virtues, and without which few virtues can exist. Frugality
may be termed the daughter of prudence, the sister of temperance, and the
parent of liberty. He that is extravagant will quickly become poor, and
poverty will enforce dependence, and invite corruption; it will almost
always produce a passive compliance with the wickedness of others; and
there are few who do not learn by degrees to practice those crimes which
they cease to censure.
If there are any who do not dread poverty as dangerous to virtue, yet
mankind seem unanimous enough in abhorring it as destructive to happiness;
and all to whom want is terrible, upon whatever principle, ought to
think themselves obliged to learn the sage maxims of our parsimonious
ancestors, and attain the salutary arts of contracting expense; for
without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.
To most other acts of virtue or exertions of wisdom, a concurrence of many
circumstances is necessary, some previous knowledge must be attained,
some uncommon gifts of nature possessed, or some opportunity produced
by an extraordinary combination of things; but the mere power of saving
what is already in our hands, must be easy of acquisition to every mind;
and as the example of Bacon may shew, that the highest intellect cannot
safely neglect it, a thousand instances will every day prove, that the
meanest may practise it with success.
Riches cannot be within the reach of great numbers, because to be rich
is to possess more than is commonly placed in a single hand; and, if
many could obtain the sum which now makes a man wealthy, the name of
wealth must then be transferred to still greater accumulation. But I am
not certain that it is equally impossible to exempt the lower classes
of mankind from poverty; because, though whatever be the wealth of the
community, some will always have least, and he that has less than any
other is comparatively poor; yet I do not see any co-active necessity
that many should be without the indispensable conveniencies of life; but
am sometimes inclined to imagine, that, casual calamities excepted, there
might, by universal prudence, be procured an universal exemption from
want; and that he who should happen to have least, might notwithstanding
have enough.
But without entering too far into speculations which I do not remember
that any political calculator has attempted, and in which the most
perspicacious reasoner may be easily bewildered, it is evident that they
to whom Providence has allotted no other care but of their own fortune
and their own virtue, which make far the greater part of mankind, have
sufficient incitements to personal frugality, since, whatever might
be its general effect upon provinces or nations, by which it is never
likely to be tried, we know with certainty, that there is scarcely
any individual entering the world, who, by prudent parsimony, may not
reasonably promise himself a cheerful competence in the decline of life.
The prospect of penury in age is so gloomy and terrifying, that every man
who looks before him must resolve to avoid it; and it must be avoided
generally by the science of sparing. For, though in every age there are
some, who by bold adventures, or by favourable accidents, rise suddenly
to riches, yet it is dangerous to indulge hopes of such rare events:
and the bulk of mankind must owe their affluence to small and gradual
profits, below which their expense must be resolutely reduced.
You must not therefore think me sinking below the dignity of a practical
philosopher, when I recommend to the consideration of your readers,
from the statesman to the apprentice, a position replete with mercantile
wisdom, _A penny saved is two-pence got_; which may, I think, be
accommodated to all conditions, by observing not only that they who
pursue any lucrative employment will save time when they forbear expense,
and that the time may be employed to the increase of profit; but that
they who are above such minute considerations will find, by every victory
over appetite or passion, new strength added to the mind, will gain the
power of refusing those solicitations by which the young and vivacious
are hourly assaulted, and in time set themselves above the reach of
extravagance and folly.
It may, perhaps, be inquired by those who are willing rather to cavil
than to learn, what is the just measure of frugality? and when expense,
not absolutely necessary, degenerates into profusion? To such questions
no general answer can be returned; since the liberty of spending,
or necessity of parsimony, may be varied without end by different
circumstances. It may, however, be laid down as a rule never to be
broken, that a _man's voluntary expense should not exceed his revenue_.
A maxim so obvious and incontrovertible, that the civil law ranks the
prodigal with the madman[46], and debars them equally from the conduct of
their own affairs. Another precept arising from the former, and indeed
included in it, is yet necessary to be distinctly impressed upon the
warm, the fanciful, and the brave; _Let no man anticipate uncertain
profits_. Let no man presume to spend upon hopes, to trust his own
abilities for means of deliverance from penury, to give a loose to his
present desires, and leave the reckoning to fortune or to virtue.
To these cautions, which, I suppose, are, at least among the graver part
of mankind, undisputed, I will add another, _Let no man squander against
his inclination_. With this precept it may be, perhaps, imagined easy to
comply; yet if those whom profusion has buried in prisons, or driven into
banishment, were examined, it would be found that very few were ruined by
their own choice, or purchased pleasure with the loss of their estates;
but that they suffered themselves to be borne away by the violence of
those with whom they conversed, and yielded reluctantly to a thousand
prodigalities, either from a trivial emulation of wealth and spirit,
or a mean fear of contempt and ridicule; an emulation for the prize of
folly, or the dread of the laugh of fools.