The use of morality on this subject, is
not to limit men to any particular species of lodging, diet, or clothes;
but to prevent their considering these conveniencies as the principal
objects of human life. And if we are asked, where the pursuit of trifling
accommodations should stop, in order that a man may devote himself entirely
to the higher engagements of life? we may answer, that it should stop where
it is. This was the rule followed at Sparta: the object of the rule was, to
preserve the heart entire for the public, and to occupy men in cultivating
their own nature, not in accumulating wealth, and external conveniencies.
It was not expected otherwise, that the axe or the saw should be attended
with greater political advantage, than the plane and the chisel. When Cato
walked the streets of Rome without his robe, and without shoes, he did so,
most probably, in contempt of what his countrymen were so prone to admire;
not in hopes of finding a virtue in one species of dress, or a vice in
another.
Luxury, therefore, considered as a predilection in favour of the objects of
vanity, and the costly materials of pleasure, is ruinous to the human
character; considered as the mere use of accommodations and conveniencies
which the age has procured, rather depends on the progress which the
mechanical arts have made, and on the degree in which the fortunes of men
are unequally parcelled, than on the dispositions of particular men either
to vice or to virtue.
Pages:
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459