553 Whether the wealth of a country will not bear proportion to the skill and industry of its inhabitants?
554 Whether foreign imports that tend to promote industry should not be encouraged, and such as have a tendency to promote luxury should not be discouraged?
555 Whether the annual balance of trade between Italy and Lyons be not about four millions in favour of the former, and yet, whether Lyons be not a gainer by this trade?
556 Whether the general rule, of determining the profit of a commerce by its balance, doth not, like other general rules, admit of exceptions?
557 Whether it would not be a monstrous folly to import nothing but gold and silver, supposing we might do it, from every foreign part to which we trade? And yet, whether some men may not think this foolish circumstance a very happy one?
558 But whether we do not all see the ridicule of the Mogul's subjects, who take from us nothing but our silver, and bury it under ground, in order to make sure thereof against the resurrection?
559 Whether he must not be a wrongheaded patriot or politician, whose ultimate view was drawing money into a country, and keeping it there?
560 Whether it be not evident that not gold but industry causeth a country to flourish?
561 Whether it would not be a silly project in any nation to hope to grow rich by prohibiting the exportation of gold and silver?
562 Whether there can be a greater mistake in politics than to measure the wealth of the nation by its gold and silver?
563 Whether gold and silver be not a drug, where they do not promote industry? Whether they be not even the bane and undoing of an idle people?
564 Whether gold will not cause either industry or vice to flourish? And whether a country, where it flowed in without labour, must not be wretched and dissolute like an island inhabited by buccaneers?
565 Whether arts and virtue are not likely to thrive, where money is made a means to industry? But whether money without this would be a blessing to any people?
566 Whether keeping cash at home, or sending it abroad, just as it most serves to promote industry, be not the real interest of every nation?
567 Whether commodities of all kinds do not naturally flow where there is the greatest demand? Whether the greatest demand for a thing be not where it is of most use? Whether money, like other things, hath not its proper use? Whether this use be not to circulate? Whether therefore there must not of course be money where there is a circulation of industry?
568 Whether it is not a great point to know what we would be at?
And whether whole States, as well as private persons, do not often fluctuate for want of this knowledge?
569 Whether gold may not be compared to Sejanus's horse, if we consider its passage through the world, and the fate of those nations which have been successively possessed thereof?
570 Whether means are not so far useful as they answer the end?
And whether, in different circumstances, the same ends are not obtained by different means?
571 If we are a poor nation, abounding with very poor people, will it not follow that a far greater proportion of our stock should be in the smallest and lowest species than would suit with England?
572 Whether, therefore, it would not be highly expedient if our money were coined of peculiar values, best fitted to the circumstances and uses of our own country; and whether any other people could take umbrage at our consulting our own convenience, in an affair entirely domestic, and that lies within ourselves?
573 Whether every man doth not know, and hath not long known, that the want of a mint causeth many other wants in this kingdom?
574 What harm did England sustain about three centuries ago, when silver was coined in this kingdom?
575 What harm was it to Spain that her provinces of Naples and Sicily had all along mints of their own?
576 Whether it may not be presumed that our not having a privilege which every other kingdom in the world enjoys, be not owing to our want of diligence and unanimity in soliciting for it?
577 Whether it be not the interest of England that we should cultivate a domestic commerce among ourselves? And whether it could give them any possible jealousy, if our small sum of cash was contrived to go a little further, if there was a little more life in our markets, a little more buying and selling in our shops, a little better provision for the backs and bellies of so many forlorn wretches throughout the towns and villages of this island?
578 Whether Great Britain ought not to promote the prosperity of her Colonies, by all methods consistent with her own? And whether the Colonies themselves ought to wish or aim at it by others?
579 Whether the remotest parts from the metropolis, and the lowest of the people, are not to be regarded as the extremities and capillaries of the political body?
580 Whether, although the capillary vessels are small, yet obstructions in them do not produce great chronical diseases?
581 Whether faculties are not enlarged and improved by exercise?
582 Whether the sum of the faculties put into act, or, in other words, the united action of a whole people, doth not constitute the momentum of a State?
583 Whether such momentum be not the real stock or wealth of a State; and whether its credit be not proportional thereunto?
584 Whether in every wise State the faculties of the mind are not most considered?
585 Whether the momentum of a State doth not imply the whole exertion of its faculties, intellectual and corporeal; and whether the latter without the former could act in concert?
586 Whether the divided force of men, acting singly, would not be a rope of sand?
587 Whether the particular motions of the members of a State, in opposite directions, will not destroy each other, and lessen the momentum of the whole; but whether they must not conspire to produce a great effect?
588 Whether the ready means to put spirit into this State, to fortify and increase its momentum, would not be a national bank, and plenty of small cash?