berkeley_thequerist.doc

The Querist
by George Berkley
1735 Published in Dublin in three parts, 1735, 1736, 1737. Anonymous.

The Querist containing several Queries proposed to the consideration of the Public I the Lord have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish. -- Ezek. xvii, 24. Advertisement by the Author The Querist was first published in the year one thousand seven hundred and thirty-five; since which time the face of things is somewhat changed. In this edition some alterations have been made. The three Parts are published in one; some few Queries are added, and many omitted, particularly of those relating to the sketch or plan of a national bank, which it may be time enough to take again in hand when the public shall seem disposed to make use of such an expedient. I had determined with myself never to prefix my name to the Querist, but in the last edition was overruled by a friend, who was remarkable for pursuing the public interest with as much diligence as others do their own. I apprehend the same censure on this that I incurred upon another occasion, for meddling out of my profession; though to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, by promoting an honest industry, will, perhaps, be deemed no improper employment for a clergyman who still things himself a member of the commonwealth. As the sum of human happiness is supposed to consist in the goods of mind, body,and fortune, I would fain make my studies of some use to mankind with regard to each of these three particulars, and hope it will not be thought faulty or indecent in any man, of what profession soever, to offer his mite towards improving the manners, health, and prosperity of his fellow-creatures.
QUERY 1 Whether there ever was, is or will be, an industrious nation poor, or an idle rich?
2 Whether a people can be called poor, where the common sort are well fed, clothed, and lodged?
3 Whether the drift and aim of every wise State should not be, to encourage industry in its members? And whether those who employ neither heads nor hands for the common benefit deserve not to be expelled like drones out of a well-governed State?
4 Whether the four elements, and man's labour therein, be not the true source of wealth?
5 Whether money be not only so far useful, as it stirreth up industry, enabling men mutually to participate the fruits of each other's labour?
6 Whether any other means, equally conducing to excite and circulate the industry of mankind, may not be as useful as money. 7 Whether the real end and aim of men be not power? And whether he who could have everything else at his wish or will would value money?

8 Whether the public aim in every well-governed State be not that each member, according to his just pretensions and industry, should have power?
9 Whether power be not referred to action; and whether action doth not follow appetite or will?
10 Whether fashion doth not create appetites; and whether the prevailing will of a nation is not the fashion?
11 Whether the current of industry and commerce be not determined by this prevailing will?
12 Whether it be not owing to custom that the fashions are agreeable?
13 Whether it may not concern the wisdom of the legislature to interpose in the making of fashions; and not leave an affair of so great influence to the management of women and fops, tailors and vintners?
14 Whether reasonable fashions are a greater restraint on freedom than those which are unreasonable?
15 Whether a general good taste in a people would not greatly conduce to their thriving? And whether an uneducated gentry be not the greatest of national evils?
16 Whether customs and fashions do not supply the place of reason in the vulgar of all ranks? Whether, therefore, it doth not very much import that they should be wisely framed?
17 Whether the imitating those neighbours in our fashions, to whom we bear no likeness in our circumstances, be not one cause of distress to this nation?
18 Whether frugal fashions in the upper rank, and comfortable living in the lower, be not the means to multiply inhabitants?
19 Whether the bulk of our Irish natives are not kept from thriving, by that cynical content in dirt and beggary which they possess to a degree beyond any other people in Christendom?
20 Whether the creating of wants be not the likeliest way to produce industry in a people? And whether, if our peasants were accustomed to eat beef and wear shoes, they would not be more industrious?
21 Whether other things being given, as climate, soil, etc., the wealth be not proportioned to the industry, and this to the circulation of credit, be the credit circulated or transferred by what marks or tokens soever?
22 Whether, therefore, less money swiftly circulating, be not, in effect, equivalent to more money slowly circulating? Or, whether, if the circulation be reciprocally as the quantity of coin, the nation can be a loser?
23 Whether money is to be considered as having an intrinsic value, or as being a commodity, a standard, a measure, or a pledge, as is variously suggested by writers? And whether the true idea of money, as such, be not altogether that of a ticket or counter?
24 Whether the value or price of things be not a compounded proportion, directly as the demand, and reciprocally as the plenty?
25 Whether the terms crown, livre, pound sterling, etc., are not to be considered as exponents or denominations of such proportion? And whether gold, silver, and paper are not tickets or counters for reckoning, recording, and transferring thereof?
26 Whether the denominations being retained, although the bullion were gone, things might not nevertheless be rated, bought, and sold, industry promoted, and a circulation of commerce maintained?
27 Whether an equal raising of all sorts of gold, silver, and copper coin can have any effect in bringing money into the? And whether altering the proportions between the kingdom several sorts can have any other effect but multiplying one kind and lessening another, without any increase of the sum total?
28 Whether arbitrary changing the denomination of coin be not a public cheat?
29 What makes a wealthy people? Whether mines of gold and silver are capable of doing this? And whether the negroes, amidst the gold sands of Afric, are not poor and destitute?
30 Whether there be any virtue in gold or silver, other than as they set people at work, or create industry?
31 Whether it be not the opinion or will of the people, exciting them to industry, that truly enricheth a nation? And whether this doth not principally depend on the means for counting, transferring, and preserving power, that is, property of all kinds?
32 Whether if there was no silver or gold in the kingdom, our trade might not, nevertheless, supply bills of exchange, sufficient to answer the demands of absentees in England or elsewhere?
33 Whether current bank-notes may not be deemed money? And whether they are not actually the greater part of the money of this kingdom?
34 Provided the wheels move, whether it is not the same thing, as to the effect of the machine, be this done by the force of wind, or water, or animals?
35 Whether power to command the industry of others be not real wealth? And whether money be not in truth tickets or tokens for conveying and recording such power, and whether it be of great consequence what materials the tickets are made of?
36 Whether trade, either foreign or domestic, be in truth any more than this commerce of industry?
37 Whether to promote, transfer, and secure this commerce, and this property in human labour, or, in other words, this power, be not the sole means of enriching a people, and how far this may be done independently of gold and silver?
38 Whether it were not wrong to suppose land itself to be wealth? And whether the industry of the people is not first to be considered, as that which constitutes wealth, which makes even land and silver to be wealth, neither of which would have, any value but as means and motives to industry?
39 Whether in the wastes of America a man might not possess twenty miles square of land, and yet want his dinner, or a coat to his back?
40 Whether a fertile land, and the industry of its inhabitants, would not prove inexhaustible funds of real wealth, be the counters for conveying and recording thereof what you will, paper, gold, or silver?
41 Whether a single hint be sufficient to overcome a prejudice? And whether even obvious truths will not sometimes bear repeating?
42 Whether, if human labour be the true source of wealth, it doth not follow that idleness should of all things be discouraged in a wise State?
43 Whether even gold or silver, if they should lessen the industry of its inhabitants, would not be ruinous to a country? And whether Spain be not an instance of this?
44 Whether the opinion of men, and their industry consequent thereupon, be not the true wealth of Holland and not the silver supposed to be deposited in the bank at Amsterdam?
45 Whether there is in truth any such treasure lying dead? And whether it be of great consequence to the public that it should be real rather than notional?
46 Whether, in order to understand the true nature of wealth and commerce, it would not be right to consider a ship's crew cast upon a desert island, and by degrees forming themselves to business and civil life, while industry begot credit, and credit moved to industry?
47 Whether such men would not all set themselves to work? Whether they would not subsist by the mutual participation of each other's industry? Whether, when one man had in his way procured more than he could consume, he would not exchange his superfluities to supply his wants? Whether this must not produce credit? Whether, to facilitate these conveyances, to record and circulate this credit, they would not soon agree on certain tallies, tokens, tickets, or counters?
48 Whether reflection in the better sort might not soon remedy our evils? And whether our real defect be not a wrong way of thinking?
49 Whether it would not be an unhappy turn in our gentlemen, if they should take more thought to create an interest to themselves in this or that county, or borough, than to promote the real interest of their country?
50 Whether if a man builds a house he doth not in the first place provide a plan which governs his work? And shall the pubic act without an end, a view, a plan?
51 Whether by how much the less particular folk think for themselves, the public be not so much the more obliged to think for them?
52 Whether small gains be not the way to great profit? And if our tradesmen are beggars, whether they may not thank themselves for it?
53 Whether some way might not be found for making criminals useful in public works, instead of sending them either to America, or to the other world?
54 Whether we may not, as well as other nations, contrive employment for them? And whether servitude, chains, and hard labour, for a term of years, would not be a more discouraging as well as a more adequate punishment for felons than even death itself?
55 Whether there are not such things in Holland as bettering houses for bringing young gentlemen to order? And whether such an institution would be useless among us?
56 Whether it be true that the poor in Holland have no resource but their own labour, and yet there are no beggars in their streets?
57 Whether he whose luxury consumeth foreign products, and whose industry produceth nothing domestic to exchange for them, is not so far forth injurious to his country?
58 Whether necessity is not to be hearkened to before convenience, and convenience before luxury?
59 Whether to provide plentifully for the poor be not feeding the root, the substance whereof will shoot upwards into the branches, and cause the top to flourish?
60 Whether there be any instance of a State wherein the people, living neatly and plentifully, did not aspire to wealth?
61 Whether nastiness and beggary do not, on the contrary, extinguish all such ambition, making men listless, hopeless, and slothful?
62 Whether a country inhabited by people well fed, clothed and lodged would not become every day more populous? And whether a numerous stock of people in such circumstances would? and how far the product of not constitute a flourishing nation; our own country may suffice for the compassing of this end?
63 Whether a people who had provided themselves with the necessaries of life in good plenty would not soon extend their industry to new arts and new branches of commerce?
64 Whether those same manufactures which England imports from other countries may not be admitted from Ireland? And, if so, whether lace, carpets, and tapestry, three considerable articles of English importation, might not find encouragement in Ireland? And whether an academy for design might not greatly conduce to the perfecting those manufactures among us?
65 Whether France and Flanders could have drawn so much money from England for figured silks, lace, and tapestry, if they had not had academies for designing?
66 Whether, when a room was once prepared, and models in plaster of Paris, the annual expense of such an academy need stand the pubic in above two hundred pounds a year?
67 Whether our linen-manufacture would not find the benefit of this institution? And whether there be anything that makes us fall short of the Dutch in damasks, diapers, and printed linen, but our ignorance in design?
68 Whether those who may slight this affair as notional have sufficiently considered the extensive use of the art of design, and its influence in most trades and manufactures, wherein the forms of things are often more regarded than the materials?
69 Whether there be any art sooner learned than that of making carpets? And whether our women, with little time and pains, may not make more beautiful carpets than those imported from Turkey? And whether this branch of the woollen manufacture be not open to us?
70 Whether human industry can produce, from such cheap materials, a manufacture of so great value by any other art as by those of sculpture and painting?
71 Whether pictures and statues are not in fact so much treasure? And whether Rome and Florence would not be poor towns without them?
72 Whether they do not bring ready money as well as jewels? Whether in Italy debts are not paid, and children portioned with them, as with gold and silver?
73 Whether it would not be more prudent, to strike out and exert ourselves in permitted branches of trade, than to fold our hands, and repine that we are not allowed the woollen?
74 Whether it be true that two millions are yearly expended by England in foreign lace and linen?
75 Whether immense sums are not drawn yearly into the Northern countries, for supplying the British navy with hempen manufactures?
76 Whether there be anything more profitable than. hemp? And whether there should not be great