XXXIX. I would not have it be understood, that by the eulogium I have just ended on poverty, I mean to speak of absolute poverty, but of the relative; not of the state of beggary, where people are in want of what is precisely needful; but of that limited moderation, which administers to nature, no more than what is absolutely necessary, and what her wants demand; and that, at the expence of bodily labour. In truth, when I speak of beggars, I am at a loss what to say, or what decision to make concerning them. On the one hand, I see them suffer great inconveniences, and on the other, I see many people betake themselves to that way of life, who could earn their living by their labour, and who prefer going from door to door, to working in the field, or even to leading an idle life in an alms-house. Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, in his Book on the Vanity of the Sciences, says of those who go about pretending to occult science, that they would not change their condition, for that of nobility; and I believe he says right. XL. All those voluntary poor, who are not so in the gospel sense, and for that reason, not comprehended in the benediction of Christ, are the pests of the states they inhabit, or where they strole about. They live well, not only without being of the least advantage, but are even an injury to the community. Like the ants, they are serviceable to themselves only, and a nuisance in the place where they make their nests, and where they run about. For which reason, they are not tolerated in any republic, that is governed by the maxims of good policy.