of individuals is concerned, projecting, as I observed before, is the one, and prodigality is the other: but the detriment, which society can receive even from the concurrent efficacy of both these causes, you represent on several occasions, as inconsiderable; and, if I do not misapprehend you, too inconsiderable, either to need, or to warrant, the interposition of government to oppose it. Be this as it may with regard to projecting and prodigality taken together, with regard to prodigality at least, I am certain 1 do not misapprehend you. On this subject you ride triumphant, and chastise the " impertinence and pre " sumption of kings and ministers," with a tone of authority, which it re quired a courage like your's to ven ture upon, and a genius like your's to 158 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, to warrant a man to assume*. After drawing the parallel between private thrift and public profusion, " It is " (you conclude) " the highest imper- " tinence and presumption therefore " in kings and ministers to pretend to " watch over the economy of private " people, and to restrain their expense, f( either by sumptuary laws, or by (f prohibiting the importation of fo- " reign luxuries. They are themselves " always, and without exception, the " greatest spendthrifts in the society. " Let them look well after their own " expense, and they may safely trust " private people with theirs. If their " own extravagance does not ruin the " state, that of their subjects never « will."
B. II. ch. iii. vol. ii. p. 27. edit. 8vo. 1784.
That on Projects in Arts, fife. 159 That the employing the expedients you mention for restraining prodigality, is indeed generally, perhaps even without exception, improper, and in many cases even ridiculous. I agree with you: nor will I here step aside from my subject to defend from that imputation another mode suggested in a former part of these papers. But however presumptuous and impertinent it may be for the sovereign to attempt in any way to check by legal restraints the prodigality of individuals, to attempt to check their bad management by such restraints, seems abundantly more so. To err in the way of prodigality is the lot, though, as you well observe, not of many men, in comparison of the whole mass of mankind, yet at least of any man: the stuff fit to make a prodigal of is to be found in every alehouse, and under every hedge.
160 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, hedge. But even to err in the way of projecting is the lot only of the privileged few. Prodigality, though not so common as to make any very material drain from the general mass of wealth, is however too common to be regarded as a mark of distinction or as a singularity. But the stepping aside from any of the beaten paths of traffic, is regarded as a singularity, as serving to distinguish a man from other men. Even where it requires no genius, no peculiarity of talent, as where it consists in nothing more than the finding out a new market to buy or sell in, it requires however at least a degree of courage, which is not to be found in the common herd of men. "What shall we say of it, where, in addition to the vulgar quality of courage, it requires the rare endowment of genius, as in the instance of all those successive ton Projects in Arts, Kc. 161 successive enterprises by which arts and manufactures have been brought from their original nothing to their present splendour? Think how small a part of the community these must make, in comparison of the race of prodigals; of that very race, which, were it only on account of the smallness of its number, would appear too inconsiderable to you to deserve attention. Yet prodigality is essentially and necessarily hurtful, as far as it goes, to the opulence of the state: projecting, only by accident. Every prodigal, without exception, impairs, by the very supposition impairs, if he does not annihilate, his fortune. But it certainly is not every projector that impairs his: it is not every projector that would have done so, had there been none of those wise laws to hinder him: for the fabric of national opulence, 162 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, opulence, that fabric of which you proclaim, with so generous an exultation, the continual increase, that fabric, in every apartment of which, innumerable as they are, it required the reprobated hand of a projector to lay the first stone, has required some hands at least to be employed, and successfully employed. When in comparison of the number of prodigals, which is too inconsiderable to deserve notice, the number of projectors of all kinds is so much more inconsiderable— and when from this inconsiderable number, must be deducted, the not inconsiderable proportion of successful projectors — and from this remainder again, all those who can carry on their projects without need of borrowing — think whether it be possible, that this last remainder could afford a multitude, the reducing of which would on Projects in Arts, fife. 163 would be an object, deserving the interposition of government by its magnitude, even taking for granted that it were an object proper in its nature?
If it be still a question, whether it be worth while for government, by its reason, to attempt to controul the conduct of men visibly and undeniably under the dominion of passion, and acting under that dominion, contrary to the dictates of their own reason; in short, to effect what is acknowledged to be their better judgment, against what every body, even themselves, would acknowledge to be their worse: is it endurable that the legislator should by violence substitute his own pretended reason, the result of a momentary and scornful glance, the offspring of wantonness and arrogance, much rather than of social anxiety and study, 164 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, study, in the place of the humble reason of individuals, binding itself down with all its force to that very object \vhich he pretends to have in view? — Nor let it be forgotten, that, on the side of the individual in this strange competition, there is the most perfect and minute knowledge and information, which interest, the whole interest of a man's reputation and fortune, can ensure: on the side of the legislator, the most perfect ignorance. All that he knows, all that he can know, is, that the enterprize is aproject, which, merely because it is susceptible of that obnoxious name, he looks upon as a sort of cock, for him, in childish wantonness, to shie at. — Shall the blind lead the blind? is a question that has been put of old to indicate the height of folly: but what then shall we say of him who, being necessarily blind, in- 'sists on Projects in Arts, fife. 165 sists on leading, in paths he never trod in, those who can see?
It must be by some distinction too fine for my conception, if you clear yourself from the having taken, on another occasion, but on the very point in question, the side, on which it would be my ambition to see you fix.
" What is the species of domestic " industry which his capital can em- " ploy, and of which the produce is " likely to be of the greatest value, " every individual" (you say*), " it " is evident, can, in his local situation, " judge much better than any states- " man or lawgiver can do for him. " The statesman, who should attempt " to direct private people in what x< manner they ought to employ their * B. IV. ch. ii. vol. ii. p. 182, edit. 8vo.
" capitals, 166 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, (t capitals, would not only load him- " self with a most unnecessary atten- " tion, but assume an authority which * could safely be trusted, not only to " no single person, but to no council " or senate whatsoever, and which " would no where be so dangerous as " in the hands of a man who had folly " and presumption enough to fancy " himself fit to exercise it.
" To give the monopoly of the " home market to the produce of do- " mestic industry, in any particular " art or manufacture, is in some mea- " sure to direct private people in what " manner they ought to employ their " capitals, and must in almost all cases " be either a useless or a hurtful regu- " lation." — Thus far you: and I add, to limit the legal interest to a rate at which the carriers on of the oldest and best-established and least hazardous trades on Projects in Arts, Sfc. 167 trades are always glad to borrow, is to give the monopoly of the money-market to those traders, as against the projectors of new-imagined trades, not one of which but, were it only from the circumstance of its novelty, must, as I have already observed, appear more hazardous than the old.
These, in comparison are but inconclusive topics. I touched upon them merely as affording, what appeared to me the only shadow of a plea, that could be brought, in defence of the policy I am contending against. I come back therefore to my first ground, and beg you once more to consider, whether, of all that host of manufactures, which we both exult in as the causes and ingredients of national prosperity, there be a single one, that could have existed at first but in the shape of a project. But, if a regulation, 168 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, gulation, the tendency and effect of which is merely to check projects, in as far as they are projects, without any sort of tendency, as I have shewn, to weed out the bad ones, is defensible in its present state of imperfect efficacy, it should not only have been defensible, but much more worthy of our approbation, could the efficacy of it have been so far strengthened and compleated as to have opposed, from the beginning, an unsurmountable bar to all sorts of projects whatsoever: that is to say, if, stretching forth its hand over the first rudiments of society, it had confined us, from the beginning, to mud for our habitations, to skins for our cloathing, and to acorns for our food.
I hope you may by this time be disposed to allow me, that we have not been ill served by the projects of time vn Projects in Arts, Kc. 169 time past. I have already intimated, that I could not see any reason why we should apprehend our being worse served by the projects of time future. I will now venture to add, that I think I do see reason, why we should expect to be still better and better served by these projects, than by those. I mean better upon the whole, in virtue of the reduction which experience, if experience be worth any thing, should make in the proportion of the number of the ill-grounded and unsuccessful, to that of the well-grounded and successful ones.
The career of art, the great road which receives the footsteps of projectors, may be considered as a vast, and perhaps unbounded, plain, bestrewed with gulphs, such as Curtius was swallowed up in. Each requires I an 170 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, an human victim to fall into it ere it can close; but when it once closes, it closes to open no more, and so much of the path is safe to those who follow. If the want of perfect information of former miscarriages renders the reality of human life less happy than this picture, still the similitude must be acknowledged: and we see at once the only plain and effectual method for bringing that similitude still nearer and nearer to perfection; I mean, the framing the history of the projects of time past, and (what may be executed in much greater perfection, were but a finger held up by the hand of government) the making provision for recording, and collecting, and publishing as they are brought forth, the race of those with which the womb of futurity is still pregnant. But to pursue this vn Projects in Arts, tfc. 171 this idea, the execution of which is not within my competence, would lead me too far from the purpose.
Comfortable it is to reflect, that this state of continually-improving security, is the natural state not only of the road to opulence, but of every other track of human life. In the war which industry and ingenuity maintain with fortune, past ages of ignorance and barbarism form the forlorn hope, which has been detached in advance, and made a sacrifice of for the sake of future. The golden age, it is>, but too true, is not the lot of the generation in which we live: but, if it is to be found in any part of the track ', marked out for human existence, it will be found, I trust, not in any part which is past, but in some part which j is to come.
But to return to the laws against I 2 usury, 172 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, usury, and their restraining influence on projectors. I have made it, I hope, pretty apparent, that these restraints have no power or tendency to pick out bad projects from the good. Is it worth while to add, which I think I may do with some truth, that the tendency of them is rather to pick the good out from the bad? Thus much at least may be said, and it comes to the same thing, that there is one case in which, be the project what it may, they may have the effect of checking it, and another in which they can have no such effect; and that the first has for its accompaniment, and that a necessary one, a circumstance which has a strong tendency to separate and discard every project of the injudicious stamp, but which is wanting in the other case. I mean, in a word, the benefit of discussion.
It on Projects in Arts, Sfc.
It is evident enough, that upon all such projects, whatever be their nature, as find funds sufficient to carry them on, in the hands of him whose invention gave them birth, these laws are perfectly, and if by this time you will allow me to say so, very happily, without power. But for these there has not necessarily been any other judge, prior to experience, than the inventor's own partial affection. It is not only not necessary that they should have had, but it is natural enough that they should not have had, any such judge: since in most cases the advantage to be expected from the project depends upon the exclusive property in it, and consequently upon the concealment of the principle. Think, on the other hand, how different is the lot of that enterprize which depends upon the good opinion of 174 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, of another man; that other, a man possessed of the wealth which the projector wants, and before whom necessity forces him to appear in the character of a suppliant at least: happy if, in the imagination of his judge, he adds not to that degrading character, that of a visionary enthusiast or an impostor! At any rate, there are, in this case, two wits, set to sift into the merits of the project, for one, which was employed upon that same task in the other case: and of these two there is one, whose prejudices are certainly not most likely to be on the favourable side. True it is, that in the jumble of occurrences, an over-sanguine projector may stumble upon a patron as over-sanguine as himself; and the wishes may bribe the judgment of the one, as they did of the other. The opposite case, however, you will allow, I think, to be by much on Projects in Arts, 8fc. 175 much the more natural. Whatever a man's wishes may be for the success of an enterprize not yet his own, his fears are likely to be still stronger. That same pretty generally implanted principle of vanity and self-conceit, which disposes most of us to over-value each of us his own conceptions, disposes us, in a proportionable degree, to undervalue those of other men.
Is it worth adding, though it be undeniably true, that could it even be proved, by ever so uncontrovertible evidence, that, from the beginning of time to the present day, there never was a project that did not terminate in the ruin of its author; not even from such a fact as this, could the legislator derive any sufficient warrant, so much as for wishing to see the spirit of projects in any degree repressed? — The discouraging motto, Sic vos non vobisy may 176 LETT. XIII. To Dr: Smith, may be matter of serious consideration to the individual, but what is it to the legislator? What general, let him attack with ever so superior an army, but knows that hundreds, or perhaps thousands, must perish at the first onset? Shall he, for that consideration alone, lie inactive in his lines? « Every " man for himself — but God," adds the proverb (and it might have added the general, and the legislator, and all other public servants), " for us all." Those sacrifices of individual to general welfare, which, on so many occasions, are made by third persons against men's wills, shall the parties themselves be restrained from making, when they do it of their own choice? To tie men neck and heels, and throw them into the gulphs I have been speaking of, is altogether out of the question: but if at every gulph a Curtius stands mounted on Projects in Arts, Sfc. 177 mounted and caparisoned, ready to take the leap, is it for the legislator, in a fit of old-womanish tenderness, to pull him away? Laying even public interest out of the question, and considering nothing but the feelings of the individuals immediately concerned, a legislator would scarcely do so, who knew the value of hope, " the most precious " gift of heaven.'* Consider, Sir, that it is not with the invention-lottery (that great branch of the project lottery, for the sake of which I am defending the whole, and must continue so to do until you or somebody else can shew me how to defend it on better terms), it is not I say with the invention-lottery, as with the mine-lottery, the privateeringlottery, and so many other lotteries, which you speak of, and in no instance, I think, very much to their advantage.
178 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, In these lines, success does not, as in this, arise out of the embers of ill success, and thence propagate itself, by a happy contagion, perhaps to all eternity. Let Titius have found a mine, it is not the more easy, but by so much the less easy, for Sempronius to find one too: let Titius have made a capture, it is not the more easy, but by so much the less easy, for Sempronius to do the like. But let Titius have found out a new dye, more brilliant or more durable than those in use, let him have invented a new and more convenient machine, or a new and more profitable mode of husbandry; a thousand dyers, ten thousand mechanics, a hundred thousand husbandmen, may repeat and multiply his success: and then, what is it to the public, though the fortune of Titius, or of his usurer, should on Projects in Arts, fife. 179 should have sunk under the experiment?
Birmingham and Sheffield are pitched upon by you as examples, the one of a projecting town, the other of an unprojecting one*. Can you forgive my saying, I rather wonder that this comparison of your own choosing, did not suggest some suspicions of the justice of the conceptions you had taken up, to the disadvantage of projectors. Sheffield is an old oak: Birmingham, but a mushroom. What if we should find the mushroom still vaster and more vigorous than the oak? Not but the one as well as the other, at what time soever planted, must equally have been planted by projectors: for though Tubal Cain himself were to be 180' LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, be brought post from Armenia to plant Sheffield, Tubal Cain himself was as arrant a projector in his day, as ever Sir Thomas Lombe was, or bishop Blaise: but Birmingham, it seems, claims in common parlance the title of a projecting town, to the exclusion of the other, because, being but of yesterday, the spirit of project smells fresher and stronger there than elsewhere.
When the odious sound of the word projector no longer tingles in your ears, the race of men thus stigmatized do not always find you their enemy. Projects, even under the name of " dangerous and expensive experi-(f ments," are represented as not unfit to be encouraged, even though monopoly be the means: and the monopoly is defended in that instance, by its similarity on Projects in Arts, Xc. 181 milarity to other instances in which the like means are employed to the like purpose.
" When a company of merchants " undertake at their own risk and ex- " pense to establish a new trade with " some remote and barbarous nation, " it may not be unreasonable" (you observe) " to incorporate them into " a joint-stock company, and to grant " them, in case of their success, a " monopoly of the trade for a certain " number of years. It is the easiest " and most natural way, in which the " state can recompense them, for ha- " zarding a dangerous and expensive " experiment, of which the public is " afterwards to reap the benefit. A " temporary monopoly of this kind •' may be vindicated, upon the same " principles, upon which a like mon- " opoly of a new machine is granted to " its 182 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, " its inventor, and that of a new book " to its author."
Private respect must not stop me from embracing this occasion of giving a warning, which is so much needed by mankind. If so original and independent a spirit has not been always able to save itself from being drawn aside by the fascination of sounds, into the paths of vulgar prejudice, how strict a watch ought not men of common mould to set over their judgments, to save themselves from being led astray by similar delusions?
I have sometimes been tempted to think, that were it in the power of Jaws to put words under proscription, as it is to put men, the cause of inventive industry might perhaps derive scarcely less assistance from a bill of attainder against the words project and projectors, than on Projects in Arts, Xc. 183 than it has derived from the act authorizing the grant of patents. I should add, however, for a time: for even then the envy, and vanity, and wounded pride, of the uningenious herd, would sooner or later infuse their venom into some other word, and set it up as a new tyrant, to hover, like its predecessor, over the birth of infant genius, and crush it in its cradle.
Will not you accuse me of pushing malice beyond all bounds, if I bring down against you so numerous and respectable a body of men, as the members of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts? I do not, must not, care: for you command too much respect to have any claim to mercy. At least you will not accuse me of spiriting up against you barbarian enemies, and 184 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, and devoting you to the vengeance of Cherokees and Chicasaws.
Of that popular institution, the very professed and capital object is the encouragement of projects, and the propagating of that obnoxious breed, the crushing of which you commend as a fit exercise for the arm of power. But if it be right to crush the acting malefactors, it would be downright inconsistency not to crush, at the same time, or rather not to begin with crushing, these their hirers and abettors. Thank then their inadvertence, or their generosity, or their prudence, if their beadle has not yet received orders to burn in ceremony, as a libel on the society, a book that does honour to the age.
After having had the boldness to accuse so great a master of having fallen on Projects in Arts, Sfc. 185 fallen unawares into an error, may I take the still farther liberty, of setting conjecture to work to account for it? Scarce any man, perhaps no man, can push the work of creation, in any line, to such a pitch of compleatness, as to have gone through the task of examining with his own eyes into the grounds of every position, without exception, which he has had occasion to employ. You heard the public voice, strengthened by that of law, proclaiming all round you, that usury was a sad thing, and usurers a wicked and pernicious set of men: you heard from one at least of those quarters, that projectors were either a foolish and contemptible race, or a knavish and destructive one: Hurried away by the throng, and taking, very naturally, for granted, that what every body said must have some ground for it, you have joined the cry, and 186 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, and added your suffrage to the rest. Possibly too, among the crowd of projectors which the lottery of occurrences happened to present to your observation, the prejudicial sort may have borne such a proportion to the beneficial, or shewn themselves in so much stronger colours, as to have given the popular notion a firmer hold in your judgment, than it would have had, had the contrary proportion happened to present itself to your notice. To allow no more weight to examples that fall close under our eyes, than to those which have fallen at ever so great a distance — to suffer the judgment on no occasion to indulge itself in the licence of a too hasty and extensive generalization— not to give any proposition footing there, till after all such defalcations have been made, as are necessary to reduce it within the limits of rigid on Projects in Artst tfc. 187 rigid truth — these are laws, the cotnpleat observance whereof forms the ultimate, and hitherto, perhaps for ever, ideal term of human wisdom.
You have defended against unmerited obloquy two classes of men, the one innocent at least, the other highly useful j the spreaders of English arts in foreign climes*, and those whose industry exerts itself in distributing that necessary commodity which is called by the way of eminence the staff of life. May I flatter myself with having succeeded at last in my endeavours, to recommend to the same powerful protection, two other highly useful and equally persecuted sets of men, usurers and projectors.— Yes — I will, for the moment at least, indulge so » B. IV. ch. viii. vol. ii. p. 514. ct alibi, edit.
flattering 188 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, flattering an idea: and, in pursuance of it, leaving usurers, for whom I have said enough already, I will consider myself as joined now with you in the same commission, and thinking with you of the best means of relieving the projector from the load of discouragement laid on him by these laws, in so far as the pressure of them falls particularly upon him. In my own view of the matter, indeed, no temperament, no middle course, is either necessary or proper: the only perfectly effectual, is the only perfectly proper remedy, — a spunge. But, as nothing is more common with mankind, than to give opposite receptions, to conclusions flowing with equal necessity from the same principle, let us accommodate our views to that contingency.
According to this idea, the object, as on Projects in Arts, ffc. 189 as far as confined to the present case, should be, to provide, in favour of projectors only, a dispensation from the rigour of the anti-usurious laws: such, for instance, as is enjoyed by persons engaged in the carrying trade, in virtue of the indulgence given to loans made on the footing of respondentia or bottomry. As to abuse, I see not why the danger of it should be greater in this case than in those. Whether a sum of money be embarked, or not embarked, in such or such a new manufacture on land, should not, in its own nature, be a fact much more difficult to ascertain, than whether it be embarked, or not embarked, in such or such a trading adventure by sea: and, in the one case as in the other, the payment of the interest, as well as the repayment of the principal, might be made to depend upon the success of 190 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, of the adventure. To confine the indulgence to new undertakings, the having obtained a patent for some invention, and the continuance of the term of the patent, might be made conditions of the allowance given to the bargain: to this might be added affidavits, expressive of the intended application, and bonds, with sureties, conditioned for the performance of the intention so declared; to be registered in one of the patent-offices, or elsewhere. After this, affidavits once a year, or oftener, during the subsistence of the contract, declaring what has been done in execution of it.
If the leading-string is not yet thought tight enough, boards of controul might be instituted to draw it tighter. Then opens a scene of vexation and intrigue: waste of timevconsumed in courting the favour of the members on Projects in Arts, Kc. 191 members of the board: waste of time, in opening their understandings* clenched perhaps by ignorance, at any rate by disdain and self-sumciency, and vanity, and pride: the favour (for pride will make it a favour) granted to skill in the arts of self-recommendation and cabal, devoid of inventive merit, and refused to naked merit unadorned by practice in those arts: waste of time on the part of the persons themselves engaged in this impertinent inquiry: waste of somebody's money in paying them for this waste of time. All these may be necessary evils, where the money to be bestowed is public money: how idle where it is the party's own! — I will not plague you, nor myself, with enquiring of whom shall be composed this board of nurses to grown gentlemen: were it only to cut the matter short, one might name at 192 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith.