Note 2 — LETTER XLIII.
Reading edition
Letter I. Men’s prosperity is in their own hands; and no forms of government are, in themselves, of the least use. The first beginnings of prosperity must be in getting food, clothes, and fuel. These cannot be got either by the fine arts, or the military arts. Neither painting nor fighting feed men; nor can capital, in the form of money or machinery, feed them. All capital is imaginary or unimportant, except the quantity of food existing in the world at any given moment. Finally, men cannot live by lending money to each other, and the conditions of such loan at present are absurd and deadly.2