Luxury is a word of a very uncertain signification, and may be taken
in a good as well as in a bad sense. In general, it means great
refinement in the gratification of the senses, and any degree of it
may be innocent or blameable, according to the age, or country, or
condition of the person. The bounds between the virtue and the vice
cannot here be fixed exactly, more than in other moral subjects. To
imagine that the gratifying any of the senses, or the indulging any
delicacy in meats, drinks, or apparel, is in itself a vice, can never
enter into a head that is not disordered by the frenzies of enthusiasm.
I have, indeed, heard of a monk abroad who, because the windows of
his cell opened upon a very noble prospect, made a covenant with his
eyes never to turn that way, or receive so sensual a gratification.
And such is the crime of drinking champagne or burgundy, preferably to
small beer or porter. These indulgences are only vices when they are
pursued at the expense of some virtue, as liberality or charity; in
like manner as they are follies when for them a man ruins his fortune,
and reduces himself to want and beggary. Where they entrench upon no
virtue, but leave ample subject whence to provide for friends, family,
and every proper object of generosity or compassion, they are entirely
innocent, and have in every age been acknowledged such by almost all
moralists. To be entirely occupied with the luxury of the table, for
instance, without any relish for the pleasures of ambition, study, or
conversation, is a mark of gross stupidity, and is incompatible with
any vigour of temper or genius. To confine one’s expense entirely
to such a gratification, without regard to friends or family, is an
indication of a heart entirely devoid of humanity or benevolence. But
if a man reserve time sufficient for all laudable pursuits, and money
sufficient for all generous purposes, he is free from every
shadow of blame or reproach.
Since luxury may be considered either as innocent or blameable, one may
be surprised at those preposterous opinions which have been entertained
concerning it; while men of libertine principles bestow praises even on
vicious luxury, and represent it as highly advantageous to society; and
on the other hand, men of severe morals blame even the most innocent
luxury, and regard it as the source of all the corruptions, disorders,
and factions incident to civil government. We shall here endeavour
to correct both these extremes, by proving, first, that the ages of
refinement are both the happiest and most virtuous; secondly, that
wherever luxury ceases to be innocent, it also ceases to be beneficial;
and when carried a degree too far, is a quality pernicious, though
perhaps not the most pernicious, to political society.
To prove the first point, we need but consider the effects of
refinement both on private and on public life. Human happiness,
according to the most received notions, seems to consist in three
ingredients: action, pleasure, and indolence; and though these
ingredients ought to be mixed in different proportions, according
to the particular dispositions of the person, yet no one ingredient
can be entirely wanting without destroying, in some measure, the
relish of the whole composition. Indolence or repose, indeed, seems
not of itself to contribute much to our enjoyment; but, like sleep,
is requisite as an indulgence to the weakness of human nature, which
cannot support an uninterrupted course of business or pleasure. That
quick march of the spirits which takes a man from himself, and chiefly
gives satisfaction, does in the end exhaust the mind, and requires
some intervals of repose, which, though agreeable for a moment, yet,
if prolonged, beget a languor and lethargy that destroy all enjoyment.
Education, custom, and example have a mighty influence in turning the
mind to any of these pursuits; and it must be owned, that where they
promote a relish for action and pleasure, they are so far favourable
to human happiness. In times when industry and arts flourish,
men are kept in perpetual occupation, and enjoy, as their reward, the
occupation itself, as well as those pleasures which are the fruits of
their labour. The mind acquires new vigour; enlarges its powers and
faculties; and by an assiduity in honest industry, both satisfies its
natural appetites and prevents the growth of unnatural ones, which
commonly spring up when nourished with ease and idleness. Banish those
arts from society, you deprive men both of action and of pleasure; and
leaving nothing but indolence in their place, you even destroy the
relish of indolence, which never is agreeable but when it succeeds to
labour, and recruits the spirits, exhausted by too much application and
fatigue.
Another advantage of industry and of refinements in the mechanical arts
is that they commonly produce some refinements in the liberal; nor can
the one be carried to perfection without being accompanied, in some
degree, with the other. The same age which produces great philosophers
and politicians, renowned generals and poets, usually abounds with
skilful weavers and ship-carpenters. We cannot reasonably expect that a
piece of woollen cloth will be wrought to perfection in a nation which
is ignorant of astronomy, or where ethics are neglected. The spirit of
the age affects all the arts; and the minds of men, being once roused
from their lethargy and put into a fermentation, turn themselves on
all sides, and carry improvements into every art and science. Profound
ignorance is totally banished, and men enjoy the privilege of rational
creatures, to think as well as to act, to cultivate the pleasures of
the mind as well as those of the body.
The more these refined arts advance, the more sociable do men become;
nor is it possible that, when enriched with science and possessed of a
fund of conversation, they should be contented to remain in solitude,
or live with their fellow-citizens in that distant manner which is
peculiar to ignorant and barbarous nations. They flock into cities;
love to receive and communicate knowledge; to show their wit
or their breeding; their taste in conversation or living, in clothes
or furniture. Curiosity allures the wise; vanity the foolish; and
pleasure both. Particular clubs and societies are everywhere formed,
both sexes meet in an easy and sociable manner, and the tempers of
men, as well as their behaviour, refine apace. So that, besides the
improvements which they receive from knowledge and the liberal arts, it
is impossible but they must feel an increase of humanity from the very
habit of conversing together and contributing to each other’s pleasure
and entertainment. Thus industry, knowledge, and humanity are linked
together by an indissoluble chain, and are found, from experience as
well as reason, to be peculiar to the more polished, and, what are
commonly denominated, the more luxurious ages.
Nor are these advantages attended with disadvantages which bear
any proportion to them. The more men refine upon pleasure the less
will they indulge in excesses of any kind, because nothing is more
destructive to true pleasure than such excesses. One may safely affirm
that the Tartars are oftener guilty of beastly gluttony when they
feast on their dead horses than European courtiers with all their
refinements of cookery. And if libertine love, or even infidelity to
the marriage-bed, be more frequent in polite ages, when it is often
regarded only as a piece of gallantry, drunkenness, on the other hand,
is much less common—a vice more odious and more pernicious both to
mind and body. And in this matter I would appeal not only to an Ovid
or a Petronius, but to a Seneca or a Cato. We know that Cæsar, during
Catiline’s conspiracy, being necessitated to put into Cato’s hands a
_billet-doux_ which discovered an intrigue with Servilia, Cato’s own
sister, that stern philosopher threw it back to him with indignation,
and, in the bitterness of his wrath, gave him the appellation of
drunkard, as a term more opprobrious than that with which he could more
justly have reproached him.
But industry, knowledge, and humanity are not advantageous in private
life alone; they diffuse their beneficial influence on the public,
and render the government as great and flourishing as they make
individuals happy and prosperous. The increase and consumption of all
the commodities which serve to the ornament and pleasure of life are
advantageous to society, because at the same time that they multiply
those innocent gratifications to individuals, they are a kind of
storehouse of labour, which, in the exigencies of state, may be turned
to the public service. In a nation where there is no demand for such
superfluities men sink into indolence, lose all the enjoyment of life,
and are useless to the public, which cannot maintain nor support its
fleets and armies from the industries of such slothful members.
The bounds of all the European kingdoms are at present pretty near the
same they were two hundred years ago; but what a difference is there
in the power and grandeur of those kingdoms! Which can be ascribed to
nothing but the increase of art and industry. When Charles VIII. of
France invaded Italy, he carried with him about 20,000 men; and yet
this armament so exhausted the nation, as we learn from Guicciardin,
that for some years it was not able to make so great an effort.
The late King of France, in time of war, kept in pay above 400,000
men,[10] though from Mazarin’s death to his own he was engaged in a
course of wars that lasted near thirty years.
This industry is much promoted by the knowledge inseparable from the
ages of art and refinement; as, on the other hand, this knowledge
enables the public to make the best advantage of the industry of its
subjects. Laws, order, police, discipline—these can never be carried
to any degree of perfection before human reason has refined itself by
exercise, and by an application to the more vulgar arts, at least, of
commerce and manufactures. Can we expect that a government will be
well modelled by a people who know not how to make a spinning-wheel,
or to employ a loom to advantage? Not to mention that all ignorant
ages are infested with superstition, which throws the government
off its bias, and disturbs men in the pursuit of their interest and
happiness.
Knowledge in the arts of government naturally begets mildness and
moderation, by instructing men in the advantages of humane maxims above
rigour and severity, which drive subjects into rebellion, and render
the return to submission impracticable, by cutting off all hopes of
pardon. When the tempers of men are softened as well as their knowledge
improved, this humanity appears still more conspicuous, and is the
chief characteristic which distinguishes a civilized age from times of
barbarity and ignorance. Factions are then less inveterate, revolutions
less tragical, authority less severe, and seditions less frequent. Even
foreign wars abate of their cruelty; and after the field of battle,
where honour and interest steel men against compassion as well as fear,
the combatants divest themselves of the brute, and resume the man.
Nor need we fear that men, by losing their ferocity, will lose their
martial spirit, or become less undaunted and vigorous in defence
of their country or their liberty. The arts have no such effect in
enervating either the mind or body. On the contrary, industry, their
inseparable attendant, adds new force to both. And if anger, which is
said to be the whetstone of courage, loses somewhat of its asperity
by politeness and refinement, a sense of honour, which is a stronger,
more constant, and more governable principle, acquires fresh vigour
by that elevation of genius which arises from knowledge and a good
education. Add to this that courage can neither have any duration nor
be of any use when not accompanied with discipline and martial skill,
which are seldom found among a barbarous people. The ancients remarked
that Datames was the only barbarian that ever knew the art of war.
And Pyrrhus, seeing the Romans marshal their army with some art and
skill, said with surprise, “These barbarians have nothing barbarous
in their discipline!” It is observable that as the old Romans, by
applying themselves solely to war, were the only uncivilized
people that ever possessed military discipline, so the Italians are the
only civilized people among Europeans that ever wanted courage and a
martial spirit. Those who would ascribe this effeminacy of the Italians
to their luxury or politeness, or application to the arts, need but
consider the French and English, whose bravery is as incontestable as
their love for luxury and their assiduity in commerce. The Italian
historians give us a more satisfactory reason for this degeneracy of
their countrymen. They show us how the sword was dropped at once by
all the Italian sovereigns; while the Venetian aristocracy was jealous
of its subjects, the Florentine democracy applied itself entirely to
commerce; Rome was governed by priests, and Naples by women. War then
became the business of soldiers of fortune, who spared one another,
and, to the astonishment of the world, could engage a whole day in what
they called a battle, and return at night to their camp without the
least bloodshed.
What has chiefly induced severe moralists to declaim against refinement
in the arts is the example of ancient Rome, which, joining to its
poverty and rusticity, virtue and public spirit, rose to such a
surprising height of grandeur and liberty; but having learned from
its conquered provinces the Asiatic luxury, fell into every kind of
corruption, whence arose sedition and civil wars, attended at last
with the total loss of liberty. All the Latin classics, whom we peruse
in our infancy, are full of these sentiments, and universally ascribe
the ruin of their state to the arts and riches imported from the East:
insomuch that Sallust represents a taste for painting as a vice no less
than lewdness and drinking. And so popular were these sentiments during
the latter ages of the republic, that this author abounds in praises of
the old rigid Roman virtue, though himself the most egregious instance
of modern luxury and corruption; speaks contemptuously of the Grecian
eloquence, though the most eloquent writer in the world; nay, employs
preposterous digressions and declamations to this purpose, though a
model of taste and correctness.
But it would be easy to prove that these writers mistook the cause of
the disorders in the Roman state, and ascribed to luxury and the arts
what really proceeded from an ill-modelled government and the unlimited
extent of conquests. Refinement on the pleasures and conveniences
of life has no natural tendency to beget venality and corruption.
The value which all men put upon any particular pleasure depends on
comparison and experience; nor is a porter less greedy of money, which
he spends on bacon and brandy, than a courtier, who purchases champagne
and ortolans. Riches are valuable at all times, and to all men, because
they always purchase pleasures such as men are accustomed to and
desire; nor can anything restrain or regulate the love of money but a
sense of honour and virtue, which, if it be not nearly equal at all
times, will naturally abound most in ages of knowledge and refinement.
Of all European kingdoms, Poland seems the most defective in the arts
of war, as well as peace, mechanical as well as liberal; and yet it is
there that venality and corruption do most prevail. The nobles seem to
have preserved their crown elective for no other purpose but regularly
to sell it to the highest bidder; this is almost the only species of
commerce with which that people are acquainted.
The liberties of England, so far from decaying since the improvements
in the arts, have never flourished so much as during that period. And
though corruption may seem to increase of late years, this is chiefly
to be ascribed to our established liberty, when our princes have found
the impossibility of governing without parliaments, or of terrifying
parliaments by the phantom of prerogative. Not to mention that this
corruption or venality prevails infinitely more among the electors than
the elected, and therefore cannot justly be ascribed to any refinements
in luxury.
If we consider the matter in a proper light, we shall find that
improvements in the arts are rather favourable to liberty, and have a
natural tendency to preserve, if not produce a free government.
In rude, unpolished nations, where the arts are neglected, all the
labour is bestowed on the cultivation of the ground; and the whole
society is divided into two classes—proprietors of land and their
vassals or tenants. The latter are necessarily dependent, and fitted
for slavery and subjection; especially where they possess no riches,
and are not valued for their knowledge in agriculture, as must always
be the case where the arts are neglected. The former naturally erect
themselves into petty tyrants, and must either submit to an absolute
master for the sake of peace and order, or if they will preserve
their independency, like the ancient barons, they must fall into
feuds and contests among themselves, and throw the whole society into
such confusion as is perhaps worse than the most despotic government.
But where luxury nourishes commerce and industry, the peasants, by a
proper cultivation of the land, become rich and independent; while
the tradesmen and merchants acquire a share of the property, and draw
authority and consideration to that middling rank of men, who are the
best and firmest basis of public liberty. These submit not to slavery,
like the poor peasants, from poverty and meanness of spirit; and having
no hopes of tyrannizing over others, like the barons, they are not
tempted, for the sake of that gratification, to submit to the tyranny
of their sovereign. They covet equal laws, which may secure their
property, and preserve them from monarchical as well as aristocratical
tyranny.
The House of Commons is the support of our popular government, and
all the world acknowledges that it owed its chief influence and
consideration to the increase of commerce, which threw such a balance
of property into the hands of the commons. How inconsistent then is it
to blame so violently a refinement in the arts, and to represent it as
the bane of liberty and public spirit!
To declaim against present times, and magnify the virtue of remote
ancestors, is a propensity almost inherent in human nature: and as
the sentiments and opinions of civilized ages alone are transmitted
to posterity, hence it is that we meet with so many severe judgments
pronounced against luxury, and even science; and hence it is that at
present we give so ready an assent to them. But the fallacy is easily
perceived from comparing different nations that are contemporaries,
where we both judge more impartially and can better set in opposition
those manners with which we are sufficiently acquainted. Treachery
and cruelty, the most pernicious and most odious of all vices, seem
peculiar to uncivilized ages; and by the refined Greeks and Romans were
ascribed to all the barbarous nations which surrounded them. They might
justly, therefore, have presumed that their own ancestors, so highly
celebrated, possessed no greater virtue, and were as much inferior to
their posterity in honour and humanity as in taste and science. An
ancient Frank or Saxon may be highly extolled; but I believe every man
would think his life or fortune much less secure in the hands of a Moor
or Tartar than in those of a French or English gentleman, the rank of
men the most civilized in the most civilized nations.
We come now to the second position which we proposed to illustrate—viz.,
that as innocent luxury, or a refinement in the arts and conveniences
of life, is advantageous to the public, so, wherever luxury ceases to
be innocent, it also ceases to be beneficial; and when carried a degree
farther, begins to be a quality pernicious, though perhaps not the most
pernicious, to political society.
Let us consider what we call vicious luxury. No gratification,
however sensual, can of itself be esteemed vicious. A gratification
is only vicious when it engrosses all a man’s expense, and leaves no
ability for such acts of duty and generosity as are required by his
situation and fortune. Suppose that he correct the vice, and employ
part of his expense in the education of his children, in the support
of his friends, and in relieving the poor, would any prejudice result
to society? On the contrary, the same consumption would arise, and
that labour which at present is employed only in producing a slender
gratification to one man, would relieve the necessitous, and bestow
satisfaction on hundreds. The same care and toil which raise a dish of
peas at Christmas would give bread to a whole family during six months.
To say that, without a vicious luxury, the labour would not have been
employed at all, is only to say that there is some other defect in
human nature, such as indolence, selfishness, inattention to others,
for which luxury in some measure provides a remedy, as one poison may
be an antidote to another. But virtue, like wholesome food, is better
than poisons, however corrected.
Suppose the same number of men that are at present in Britain, with
the same soil and climate: I ask, is it not possible for them to be
happier, by the most perfect way of life which can be imagined, and
by the greatest reformation which Omnipotence itself could work in
their temper and disposition? To assert that they cannot appears
evidently ridiculous. As the land is able to maintain more than all its
inhabitants, they could never, in such a Utopian state, feel any other
ills than those which arise from bodily sickness; and these are not the
half of human miseries. All other ills spring from some vice, either
in ourselves or others; and even many of our diseases proceed from the
same origin. Remove the vices, and the ills follow. You must only take
care to remove all the vices. If you remove part, you may render the
matter worse. By banishing vicious luxury, without curing sloth and an
indifference to others, you only diminish industry in the state, and
add nothing to men’s charity or their generosity. Let us, therefore,
rest contented with asserting that two opposite vices in a state may
be more advantageous than either of them alone; but let us never
pronounce vice in itself advantageous. Is it not very inconsistent for
an author to assert in one page that moral distinctions are inventions
of politicians for public interest, and in the next page maintain that
vice is advantageous to the public?[11] And indeed it seems, upon any
system of morality, little less than a contradiction in terms to talk
of a vice which is in general beneficial to society.
Prodigality is not to be confounded with a refinement in the arts. It
even appears that that vice is much less frequent in the cultivated
ages. Industry and gain beget frugality, among the lower and middle
ranks of men, and in all the busy professions. Men of high rank,
indeed, it may be pretended, are more allured by the pleasures, which
become more frequent. But idleness is the great source of prodigality
at all times, and there are pleasures and vanities in every age, which
allure men equally when they are unacquainted with better enjoyments.
Not to mention that the high interest paid in rude times quickly
consumes the fortunes of the landed gentry, and multiplies their
necessities.