MORALS OF LUXURY. 673 



M. Baudrillart takes a position between the rigorous school, which 

 advocates the retrenchment of wants, and the lax school, which re- 

 gards luxury as something agreeable to the person and necessary to 

 the state, and as indispensable to the progress of civilization ; and he 

 distinguishes between a luxury that is virtuous, permissible, and even 

 laudable, and one which is improper and immoral. I can not admit 

 the distinction ; and I believe that the rigorous school is right. The 

 condemnations which have been pronounced against luxury by the 

 sages and philosophers of antiquity, the fathers of the Church, and the 

 orators of the pulpit, are justified by the conclusions of modern thought. 

 These men were ignorant of political economy, but they were inspired 

 by right instincts and sentiments. 



We have said that luxury consists in the consummation, to satisfy a 

 factitious want, of something that has cost much labor. While labor 

 is necessary to secure the satisfaction of bare needs, and while so many 

 men are living in almost absolute destitution, can it be legitimate to 

 employ a great part of the forces of capital and workmen which are 

 at our disposition in producing superfluities which we would often be 

 better without ? A thing may cost enormous sums and still be useless 

 and even injurious. Thousands of workmen are employed in the 

 preparation of diamonds ; but if the only use of the diamonds is to 

 stimulate the vanity of those who possess them and to excite envy in 

 those who have none, it would be better if they were sent to the bot- 

 tom of the ocean. If the same workmen were employed in making 

 articles of comfort for those who are in need of them, would it not be 

 a subject for congratulation ? I do not advocate sumptuary laws, but 

 I look with pleasure on countries like Norway and the Alpine cantons 

 of Switzerland, where, although no one buys diamonds, all have the 

 means to procure necessaries. The real point to be considered is, that 

 every object of luxury costs a great deal of labor ; could not this la- 

 bor be made useful in a more rational manner ? The truth will appear 

 more clearly by regarding an isolated individual. Would any man 

 devote three years to making for himself a jewel that will be of no 

 service to him ? The absurdity of the actual transaction is hidden by 

 the appearance of an exchange and the fact that the wearer of the 

 jewel commands it of another. If we regard humanity in the light of 

 a man obliged to satisfy his wants by his labor, it will appear to be 

 folly to employ a part of the time in cutting diamonds, and in return 

 to be obliged to go barefooted another part of the time. The inhabi- 

 tants of a state have the disposal of a certain number of hours in a 

 day ; if they employ half of them in making futilities, it is evident 

 that half the population will want for necessaries. 



While M. Baudrillart condemns what he considers improper luxury 

 with sufficient energy, he assumes that the procuring of necessaries 

 does not afford a sufficient incentive to effort, and that a certain de- 

 gree of luxury, of a moderate and moral kind, is indispensable as a 



VOL. XVIII. 13 



