The Querist Part 1

The Querist.

by George Berkley.

Part I

Query 1.

Whether there ever was, is, or will be, an industrious nation poor, or an idle rich?

2. Qu. Whether a people can be called poor, where the common sort are well fed, clothed, and lodged?

3. Qu. Whether the drift and aim of every wise State should not be, to encourage industry in its members? And whether those who employ neither heads nor hands for the common benefit deserve not to be expelled like drones out of a well-governed State?

4. Qu. Whether the four elements, and man's labour therein, be not the true source of wealth?

5. Qu. Whether money be not only so far useful, as it stirreth up industry, enabling men mutually to partic.i.p.ate the fruits of each other's labour?

6. Qu. Whether any other means, equally conducing to excite and circulate the industry of mankind, may not be as useful as money.

7. Qu. Whether the real end and aim of men be not power? And whether he who could have everything else at his wish or will would value money?

8. Qu. Whether the public aim in every well-govern'd State be not that each member, according to his just pretensions and industry, should have power?

9. Qu. Whether power be not referred to action; and whether action doth not follow appet.i.te or will?

10. Qu. Whether fas.h.i.+on doth not create appet.i.tes; and whether the prevailing will of a nation is not the fas.h.i.+on?

11. Qu. Whether the current of industry and commerce be not determined by this prevailing will?

12. Qu. Whether it be not owing to custom that the fas.h.i.+ons are agreeable?

13. Qu. Whether it may not concern the wisdom of the legislature to interpose in the making of fas.h.i.+ons; and not leave an affair of so great influence to the management of women and fops, tailors and vintners?

14. Qu. Whether reasonable fas.h.i.+ons are a greater restraint on freedom than those which are unreasonable?

15. Qu. Whether a general good taste in a people would not greatly conduce to their thriving? And whether an uneducated gentry be not the greatest of national evils?

16. Qu. Whether customs and fas.h.i.+ons do not supply the place of reason in the vulgar of all ranks? Whether, therefore, it doth not very much import that they should be wisely framed?

17. Qu. Whether the imitating those neighbours in our fas.h.i.+ons, to whom we bear no likeness in our circ.u.mstances, be not one cause of distress to this nation?

18. Qu. Whether frugal fas.h.i.+ons in the upper rank, and comfortable living in the lower, be not the means to multiply inhabitants?

19. Qu. Whether the bulk of our Irish natives are not kept from thriving, by that cynical content in dirt and beggary which they possess to a degree beyond any other people in Christendom?

20. Qu. Whether the creating of wants be not the likeliest way to produce industry in a people? And whether, if our peasants were accustomed to eat beef and wear shoes, they would not be more industrious?

21. Qu. Whether other things being given, as climate, soil, etc., the wealth be not proportioned to the industry, and this to the circulation of credit, be the credit circulated or transferred by what marks or tokens soever?

22. Qu. Whether, therefore, less money swiftly circulating, be not, in effect, equivalent to more money slowly circulating? Or, whether, if the circulation be reciprocally as the quant.i.ty of coin, the nation can be a loser?

23. Qu. Whether money is to be considered as having an intrinsic value, or as being a commodity, a standard, a measure, or a pledge, as is variously suggested by writers? And whether the true idea of money, as such, be not altogether that of a ticket or counter?

24. Qu. Whether the value or price of things be not a compounded proportion, directly as the demand, and reciprocally as the plenty?

25. Qu. Whether the terms crown, livre, pound sterling, etc., are not to be considered as exponents or denominations of such proportion? And whether gold, silver, and paper are not tickets or counters for reckoning, recording, and transferring thereof?

26. Qu. Whether the denominations being retained, although the bullion were gone, things might not nevertheless be rated, bought, and sold, industry promoted, and a circulation of commerce maintained?

27. Qu. Whether an equal raising of all sorts of gold, silver, and copper coin can have any effect in bringing money into the kingdom?

And whether altering the proportions between the kingdom several sorts can have any other effect but multiplying one kind and lessening another, without any increase of the sum total?

28. Qu. Whether arbitrary changing the denomination of coin be not a public cheat?

29. Qu. Whether, nevertheless, the damage would be very considerable, if by degrees our money were brought back to the English value there to rest for ever?

30. Qu. Whether the English crown did not formerly pa.s.s with us for six s.h.i.+llings? And what inconvenience ensued to the public upon its reduction to the present value, and whether what hath been may not be?

31. Qu. What makes a wealthy people? Whether mines of gold and silver are capable of doing this? And whether the negroes, amidst the gold sands of Afric, are not poor and dest.i.tute?

32. Qu. Whether there be any vertue in gold or silver, other than as they set people at work, or create industry?

33. Qu. Whether it be not the opinion or will of the people, exciting them to industry, that truly enricheth a nation? And whether this doth not princ.i.p.ally depend on the means for counting, transferring, and preserving power, that is, property of all kinds?

34. Qu. Whether if there was no silver or gold in the kingdom, our trade might not, nevertheless, supply bills of exchange, sufficient to answer the demands of absentees in England or elsewhere?

35. Qu. Whether current bank notes may not be deemed money? And whether they are not actually the greater part of the money of this kingdom?

36. Qu. Provided the wheels move, whether it is not the same thing, as to the effect of the machine, be this done by the force of wind, or water, or animals?

37. Qu. Whether power to command the industry of others be not real wealth? And whether money be not in truth tickets or tokens for conveying and recording such power, and whether it be of great consequence what materials the tickets are made of?

38. Qu. Whether trade, either foreign or domestic, be in truth any more than this commerce of industry?

39. Qu. Whether to promote, transfer, and secure this commerce, and this property in human labour, or, in other words, this power, be not the sole means of enriching a people, and how far this may be done independently of gold and silver?

40. Qu. Whether it were not wrong to suppose land itself to be wealth? And whether the industry of the people is not first to be consider'd, as that which const.i.tutes wealth, which makes even land and silver to be wealth, neither of which would have, any value but as means and motives to industry?

41. Qu. Whether in the wastes of America a man might not possess twenty miles square of land, and yet want his dinner, or a coat to his back?

42. Qu. Whether a fertile land, and the industry of its inhabitants, would not prove inexhaustible funds of real wealth, be the counters for conveying and recording thereof what you will, paper, gold, or silver?

43. Qu. Whether a single hint be sufficient to overcome a prejudice?

And whether even obvious truths will not sometimes bear repeating?

44. Qu. Whether, if human labour be the true source of wealth, it doth not follow that idleness should of all things be discouraged in a wise State?

45. Qu. Whether even gold or silver, if they should lessen the industry of its inhabitants, would not be ruinous to a country? And whether Spain be not an instance of this?