My answer is, That if France were fully cultivated and peopled, the introduction of superfluous consumption would be an abuse, and would diminish the number of inhabitants; as the contrary is the case, it proves an advantage. I shall now give my reasons for differing in opinion from the gentleman whose performance I have cited. As the question is put, you perceive the end to be compassed is, to render food and necessaries abundant; because the abuse is considered in no other light, than relatively to the particular effect of diminishing the proper quantity of subsistence, which the king would incline to preserve, for the nourishment and uses of his people. I shall therefore confine myself chiefly to this object, and if I shew, that these superfluous employments of the surface of the earth, and prodigal consumptions of her fruits, are really no harm, but an encouragement to the improvement of the lands of France _in her present state_, I shall consider the question as sufficiently resolved: because if the abuse, as it is called, proves favourable to agriculture, it can never prove hurtful to population. However, from the inattention of the government, it may affect foreign trade, but this is an object entirely foreign to the question. But before I enter upon the subject, it is proper to observe, that I am of opinion, that any system of oeconomy which necessarily tends to corrupt the manners of a people, ought by every possible means to be discouraged, although no particular prejudice should result from it, either to population, or to plentiful subsistence. Now, in the question before us, the only abuse I can find in these habits of extraordinary consumption, appears relative to the character of the consumers, and seems in no way to proceed from the effects of the consumption. The vices of men may no doubt prove the cause of their making a superfluous consumption, but the consumption they make can hardly ever be the cause of this vice. The most virtuous man in France may have the most splendid table, the richest clothes, the most magnificent equipages, the greatest number of useless horses, the most pompous palace, and most extensive gardens. The most enormous luxury to be conceived, in our acceptation of the term, so long as it is directed to no other object than the consumption of the labour and ingenuity of man, is compatible with virtue as well as with vice. This being premised, I come to the point in hand.