"For, as an alloy to its very great advantages, there is something selfish, ungenerous and illiberal in the nature and views of trade, that tends to debase and sink the mind below its natural state."
— Harris, Joseph (bap. 1704, d. 1764)
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed: Sold by G. Hawkins
Date
1757
Metaphor
"For, as an alloy to its very great advantages, there is something selfish, ungenerous and illiberal in the nature and views of trade, that tends to debase and sink the mind below its natural state."
Metaphor in Context
This was the greatest security to merchants both as to their persons and effect, and consequently the greatest encouragement to commerce, and the greatest blow to despotism, of any thing that ever was invented. For, by this sort of correspondence, merchants can imperceptibly convey away their effects when and wherever they please; and this they will never fail doing, if they are in any wise molested of threatened with danger. But at the same time, that this is so beneficial to commerce, and to liberty, both in certain degrees, inestimable blessings; it weakens the attatchments, and, as I may say, the allegiances of tradesmen to their mother-country. And I should not, for many reasons, chuse to have my abode where the chief property and the chief rule was in mercantile hands. For, as an alloy to its very great advantages, there is something selfish, ungenerous and illiberal in the nature and views of trade, that tends to debase and sink the mind below its natural state. Somewhat of this must be allowed to be the natural genius and bent of trade. Labourers or working people of all sorts, are quite excluded out of the present consideration; and what is here said is not intended as any reflection upon or disparagement to the other ranks of tradesmen: We live happily in a country, where various classes of men by their daily intercourses do, as it were, humanize , and benefit one the other a thousand ways, and correct those errors and notions, which men confined to a particular sphere, are but too apt to fall into.
(p 108n)
(p 108n)
Categories
Provenance
Searching in ECCO
Citation
Harris, Joseph. An Essay Upon Money and Coins. Part I. The Theories of Commerce, Money, and Exchanges (London: G. Hawkins, 1757). <Link to ECCO>
Date of Entry
06/17/2005
Date of Review
04/18/2012
