CHAPTER IX.: the evils of idleness.

1. Idleness engenders many evils destructive of good morals; for young men without occupation and without restraint spend far beyond their means in dressing, feasting, and licentiousness. Being idle, they waste their time and substance with gaming and with women. Their study is to appear dressed in rich garments, to express themselves in cunning and subtle language; and he who can thus most dexterously wound others is most esteemed; and the precepts of the Church are entirely disregarded.

2. A state where the inhabitants pass the greater part of their time in idleness cannot produce men suitable for the conduct of business.

3. Idle people are most frequently used as tools by those who desire a disturbance.

4. If the situation of a city conduces of itself to idleness, then the laws should impose upon the inhabitants those necessities to which nature does not oblige them. And the rulers should imitate those wise people who, living in the most agreeable and fertile countries, where the men were given to idleness and indisposed to every severe exercise, for the purpose of obviating the disadvantages which idleness would have added to the softness of the climate, subjected the inhabitants to the necessity of labor and severe exercise.