are required to fill the stations of equality, or of honour, to which they
are invited by the forms of the state; they must sink to a depth from which
their imbecility, even more than their depraved inclinations, may prevent
their rise.




SECTION, II

OF LUXURY.


We are far from being agreed on the application of the term _luxury_,
or on that degree of its meaning which is consistent with national
prosperity, or with the moral rectitude of our nature. It is sometimes
employed to signify a manner of life which we think necessary to
civilization, and even to happiness. It is, in our panegyric of polished
ages, the parent of arts, the support of commerce, and the minister of
national greatness, and of opulence. It is, in our censure of degenerate
manners, the source of corruption, and the presage of national declension
and ruin. It is admired, and it is blamed; it is treated as ornamental and
useful, and it is proscribed as a vice.

With all this diversity in our judgments, we are generally uniform in
employing the term to signify that complicated apparatus which mankind
devise for the ease and convenience of life. Their buildings, furniture,
equipage, clothing, train of domestics, refinement of the table, and, in
general, all that assemblage which is rather intended to please the fancy,
than to obviate real wants, and which is rather ornamental than useful.