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 {p24} 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. {p25} 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. {p26}
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.
I thought this reasoning necessary in order to give some light to a philosophical question which has been much disputed in Britain. I call it a philosophical question, not a political one; for whatever may be the consequence of such a miraculous transformation of mankind as would endow them with every species of virtue and free them from every species of vice, this concerns not the magistrate, who aims only at possibilities. He cannot cure every vice by substituting a virtue in its place. Very often he can only cure one vice by another, and in that case he ought to prefer what is least pernicious to society. Luxury, when excessive, is the source of many ills; but it is in general preferable to sloth and idleness, which would commonly succeed in its place, and are more pernicious both to private persons and to the public. When sloth reigns, a mean, uncultivated way of life prevails amongst individuals, without society, without enjoyment. And if the sovereign, in such a situation, demands the service of his subjects, the labour of the state suffices only to furnish the necessaries of life to the labourers, and can afford nothing to those who are employed in the public service.
NOTES, OF REFINEMENT IN THE ARTS.
10 The inscription on the Place de Vendôme says 440,000.
11 Fable of the Bees.
OF MONEY.
Money is not, properly speaking, one of the subjects of commerce, but only the instrument which men have agreed upon to facilitate the exchange of one commodity for another. It is none of the wheels of trade; it is the oil which renders the motion of the wheels more smooth and easy. If we consider any one kingdom by itself, it is evident that the greater or less plenty of money is of no consequence, since the prices of commodities are always proportioned to the plenty of money, and a crown in Henry VII.’s time served the same purpose as a pound does at present. It is only the public which draws
