440 
des 
Untersuchung 
Schott. 
Geistes 
auch "bei den Orthodoxen selbst, dass der Glerus ein strengeres 
Moralsystem annimmt in Ländern, wo seine Einkünfte fast gleich, 
als in Ländern, wo sie sehr ungleich vertheilt sind. Sind sie alle 
fast gleich vertheilt, so kann keiner sehr reich werden und folglich 
werden auch die hervorragendsten Mitglieder des Standes nur ein 
kleines Einkommen haben. Ein Mann von geringen Mitteln kann 
aber keinen Einfluss haben, wenn seine Sitten nicht musterhaft 
sind. Ohne Reichthum, der ihm Gewicht giebt, würde ein lockeres 
Leben ihn lächerlich machen. Um Verachtung zu vermeiden und 
zugleich die Kosten zu sparen, die ein lockeres Leben nach sich 
zieht, und die seine beschrankten Umstände nicht zulassen, hat er 
nur ein Mittel, und das wendet er an. Er behauptet seinen Ein- 
fluss und rettet seine Kasse durch einen Protest gegen Genüsse, 
do not lead to falsehood and injustice, are generally treated with a good deal of indul- 
gence, und are easily either excused or pardoned altogether. In the austere system, 
0x1 the contrary, these excesses are regardäd with the utmost abhorrence and detes- 
tation. The vices of levity are always minous to the common People, and a single 
week's thoughtlessness und dissipation is often sufücient to undo a poor workman for 
ever, anrl to drive him, through despair, upon committing the most enormous crimes. 
The wiser and better sort of the common people, therefore, have alwuys the utmost 
abhorrence and detestation of such excesses, which their experience tells them are so 
immediately fatal tu people of their condition. The disorder and extravagance of several 
years, on the "eontrary, will not always ruin a. man of fashion; und people of that 
rank are very apt to consider the power of indulging in some degree of excess, as one 
of the advantages of their fortune; and the liberty of doing so without censure or 
reproach, as one of the privileges which belong to their Station. In people of their 
own Station, therefore, they regard such excesses with bnt a. small degree of disappro- 
bation, and censure them either very slightly or not at all. 
"Almost all religious sects have begun among the common people, from whom 
they have generally drawn their earliest, as well as their most numerous proselytes. 
The austere system of morality has, accordingly, been adopted by those sects almost 
constantly, or with very few exeeptions; for there have been some. It was the system 
by which they could best reeommend themselves 1:0 that order of people, to Whom 
they Erst proposed their plan of reformation upon what had been before established. 
Many of them, perhaps the greater part of them, have even endeavoured to gain credit 
by reiining upon this austere system, and by canying it to some degree of folly und 
extravagance; and this excessive rigour has frequently recommended them, more thun 
any thing else, to the respect and veneration of the common people."     "In little 
religious sects, accordingly, the morals of the common people have been almost always 
remßrkßbly regular and orderly; generally much more so than in the established chnrch. 
The rnnrals of those little sects, indeed, have frequently been rather disagreeably rigo- 
rous and lmsüßial." Wealfk of Nations, book V, chap. I, p. 332, 333-