e-jd THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



foolish expenditures even when they are incurred by those who can 

 afford them. 



We may consider hixury from three points of view : First, from 

 the moral point, as concerning the individual ; within what limits is 

 the perfect satisfaction of wants useful in the normal development of 

 the human faculties ? Second, from the economical point ; to what 

 extent is luxury a help or a hindrance to the increase of wealth ? 

 Third, from the point of right and justice ; is luxury compatible with 

 the equitable division of products, and with the general principle that 

 the remuneration of each person ought to be proportional to the 

 amount of useful labor that he has performed ? The third aspect of 

 the problem has hardly been appreciated, because it has never been 

 clearly seen that juridical principles should be applied to the economi- 

 cal repartition of products. We should not forget, however; that 

 Christianity, having made charity a duty, has always condemned lux- 

 ury because it devotes to superfluous and therefore immoral expendi- 

 ture that which ought, according to its principles, to be given to the 

 poor. 



Putting aside the consideration of what man owes to his fellows, 

 and what charity and justice expect of him, let us see whether luxury 

 is good or injurious to the individual. The end to be pursued by man 

 in his life is the normal development of all his faculties and the happi- 

 ness that should result from it. It includes the perfection of his phys- 

 ical and intellectual forces, of his sentiments, of his affections in the 

 family and toward his race, and the enjoyment of the beautiful in 

 nature and art. Modern luxury, with the multitude of efforts required 

 to satisfy its demands, opposes a double inconvenience against the at- 

 tainment of these objects. Time has to be consumed in gaining the 

 money that its futilities require, and the leisure that is left after the 

 money is got is employed in expending it upon them. The whole 

 man is thus entangled in a wheel-work of material pursuits, and can 

 afford nothing for the life of the mind and the heart. Consider the 

 life of that financier who counts his millions by the hundred : his 

 transactions, his calculations, his business associates, take up his whole 

 day ; and even in the evening, among pleasures which he seeks and 

 does not enjoy, he is still thinking about operations that may increase 

 that fortune the revenue of which already surpasses by many times 

 the cost of all the wants that he can dream of. He may be said to be 

 loaded down under the mass of his property. He may be without 

 doubt a useful wheel in the general work of production, but is he on 

 the road that leads to perfection and happiness ? The man without 

 wants is without cares, and may be gay as the lark all the day. By 

 help of the gifts of science and art we are able to produce so much 

 wealth that we are confounded at the sight of the figures by which it 

 is measured in the statistical tables ; and still our age is preoccupied, 

 tense, and melancholy. 



