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.

Different measures of luxury are, however, variously suited to different
constitutions of government. The advancement of arts supposes an unequal
distribution of fortune; and the means of distinction they bring, serve to
render the separation of ranks more sensible. Luxury is, upon this account,
apart from all its moral effects, adverse to the form of democratical
government; and, in any state of society, can be safely admitted in that
degree only in which the members of a community are supposed of unequal
rank, and constitute public order by the relations of superior and vassal.
High degrees of it appear salutary, and even necessary, in monarchical and
mixed governments; where, besides the encouragement to arts and commerce,
it serves to give lustre to those hereditary or constitutional dignities
which have a place of importance in the political system. Whether even here
luxury leads to abuse peculiar to ages of high refinement and opulence, we
shall proceed to consider in the following sections.




SECTION III.

OF THE CORRUPTION INCIDENT TO POLISHED NATIONS.