As Socrates was passing through the fair at Athens,
and casting his eyes over the shops and customers,
"how many things are here," says he, "that
I do not want!" The same sentiment is every
moment rising in the mind of him that walks the streets
of London, however inferior in philosophy to
Socrates: he beholds a thousand shops crowded with
goods, of which he can scarcely tell the use, and
which, therefore, he is apt to consider as of no value:
and indeed, many of the arts by which families are
supported, and wealth is heaped together, are of that
minute and superfluous kind, which nothing but
experience could evince possible to be prosecuted with
advantage, and which, as the world might easily
want, it could scarcely be expected to encourage.
But so it is, that custom, curiosity, or
wantonness, supplies every art with patrons, and finds
purchasers for every manufacture; the world is so
adjusted, that not only bread, but riches may be
obtained without great abilities or arduous
performances: the most unskilful hand and unenlightened
mind have sufficient incitements to industry; for
he that is resolutely busy, can scarcely be in want.
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