on at the cost of other employments which it is more difficult to do without. In a healthy nation we may, in this matter, rely, to a certain extent, on the judgment of public opinion, which knows how to appreciate, at their just value, professional gamblers, pettifoggers and the luxury of soldiers. The greater, freer and more cultivated a nation is, the more probable is it that the productiveness of private economy is also national-economical productiveness, and that national-economical productiveness is world-economical productiveness.(336) Section LIV. Importance Of A Due Proportion In The Different Branches Of Productiveness. Much always depends on the due proportion of the different branches of productiveness to one another. Thus, Spain, for instance, has remained poor under the most advantageous circumstances in the world,(337) because it allowed a disproportionate preponderance of personal services. The character of the Spanish people has always given them a leaning towards aristocratic pride and economic idleness. Tradesmen, in that country, sought, as a rule, to amass merely enough to enable them to live on the interest of their capital; after which they, by way of preference, removed it into some other province, where they might be considered as among the nobility; or they withdrew into a monastery. Even in 1781, the Madrid Academy thought it incumbent on it to propose a prize for the best essay in support of the thesis: “The useful trades in no way detract from personal honor.”(338) During the century in which the country was in its greatest glory, the whole people were bent on being to all Europe what nobles, officers and officials are to a single nation. “Whoever wishes to make his fortune,” said Cervantes, “let him seek the church, the sea (i.e., go as an adventurer to America) or the king’s palace.” Under Philip III., there were in Spain nine hundred and eighty-eight nunneries, and thirty-two thousand mendicant friars. The number of monasteries trebled between 1574 and 1624, and the number of monks increased in a yet greater ratio. A great many of its manufactories, much of its commerce, and not a few of its most important farms were controlled by foreigners, especially by Italians. There were, it seems, in 1610, one hundred and sixty thousand foreign tradesmen living in Castile. In 1787, there were still 188,625 priests, monks, nuns, etc.; 280,092 servants; 480,589 nobles; 964,571 day laborers; 987,187 peasants; 310,739 mechanics and manufacturers; 34,339 merchants.(339) As a counterpart to this, the United States had, in 1840, about 77.5 per cent. of its population engaged in agriculture, 16.8 in manufactures and mining, 4.2 in shipping and commerce, 1.3 in the learned professions.(340)