XXXVII. It may be also necessary to apprize the complaining gentlemen, that the rich, merely as rich people, are in some degree intitled to the respect that is shewn them. The blessing of the Lord, says Solomon in the Proverbs, makes men rich, so that riches is a gift from heaven, and such a gift, as according to the common estimation and opinion of the world, constitutes those who possess it worthy to be honoured and respected. St. Thomas affirms this to be the case in the following sentence: _Secundum vulgarem opinionem, excellentia divitiarum facit hominem dignum honore._ (22. quæst. 45. art. 1.) The common estimation in this particular, founds a right: and although that judgment should be erroneous, it would be prudent for us to wait till the world is undeceived, before we exempt ourselves from conforming to the usages of it. But this happy time will hardly ever arrive, till God, with his powerful hand, shall bend and incline the hearts of men to esteem virtue, and that only; though if this happy day should arrive, the nobility may probably find a falling-off in the estimation they are at present held in; for every one then, would be respected according to his own deeds, and not according to those of his ancestors. This mode of rating things, would be exceedingly beneficial to the state; for how well would it be served, and what good citizens would it consist of, if there was no other road but that of virtue, whereby to arrive at the public esteem! but as the case stands at present, the merit, or even the fortune of an individual, makes all his descendants glorious and honourable, and when those who succeed in that line, find that by virtue of their birth the public veneration is attached to their family, great numbers of them will consider themselves as excused from negotiating it by some honourable application. XXXVIII. From hence I infer, that what is speciously urged in favour of the nobility, to wit, that it is just and right to reward in the descendants the virtue of their ancestors, although it may sound well in theory, will have but a bad effect in practice. If only personal virtue was to be rewarded, in the course of twenty descendants, there might probably be ten or a dozen of them, who would labour to acquire glory. But if the first of the twenty gains it for all the rest, he only would be useful to the state. He would serve the public, and the public would become the servants of all the rest. SECT. IX.