than under the lofty ceiling. Men grow equally familiar with different
conditions, receive equal pleasure, and are equally allured to sensuality
in the palace and in the cave. Their acquiring in either, habits of
intemperance or sloth, depends on the remission of other pursuits, and on
the distaste of the mind to other engagements. If the affections of the
heart be awake, and the passions of love, admiration, or anger, be kindled,
the costly furniture of the palace, as well as the homely accommodations of
the cottage, are neglected: and men, when roused, reject their repose; or,
when fatigued, embrace it alike on the silken bed, or on the couch of
straw.

We are not, however, from hence to conclude, that luxury, with all its
concomitant circumstances, which either serve to favour its increase, or
which, in the arrangements of civil society, follow it as consequences, can
have no effect to the disadvantage of national manners. If that respite
from public dangers and troubles which gives a leisure for the practice of
commercial arts, be continued, or increased, into a disuse of national
efforts; if the individual, not called to unite with his country, be left
to pursue his private advantage; we may find him become effeminate,
mercenary, and sensual; not because pleasures and profits are become more
alluring, but because he has fewer calls to attend to other objects; and
because he has more encouragement to study his personal advantages, and
pursue his separate interests.

If the disparities of rank and fortune, which are necessary to the pursuit
or enjoyment of luxury, introduce false grounds of precedency and
estimation; if, on the mere considerations of being rich or poor, one order
of men are, in their own apprehension, elevated, another debased; if one be
criminally proud, another meanly dejected; and every rank in its place,
like the tyrant, who thinks that nations are made for himself, be disposed