MORALS OF LUXURY. 679 



wealth of the country. When the ballroom lights were put out, what 

 was left ? Nothing but rumpled vanities, deranged stomachs, and 

 overtaxed nerves. The capital of society has been twice diminished : 

 in the expenditure of money and the waste of human force. On the 

 other hand, when the useful enterprises which have given as much 

 work are finished, there remain a field better drained and manured 

 and bearing more grain, a better planted forest furnishing more wood, 

 a new factory turning out more goods, and a new railway line. The 

 country is enriched and produces more. In the next year the workmen 

 are better provided for, their expenses are lessened, more hands are 

 needed to keep the increased capital employed, and wages are raised. 

 A profit has accrued on both sides. The application of means to the 

 production of necessary and useful objects has the additional advan- 

 tage that the demand for such objects is more stable, that they are 

 not so readily dispensed with in times of retrenchment, and are not 

 so subject to the changes and caprices of fashion. 



It is further pleaded that luxury makes money circulate. This, 

 also, is unsound. Circulation of itself brings no profit. Money no- 

 where circulates faster than on the green cloth of the roulette-table. 

 Some lose, others gain, millions ; but what is the profit to the country ? 

 Money is all the time in circulation, unless it is buried in a pot. The 

 important matter is, whether in passing from hand to hand it com- 

 mands permanent ameliorations and satisfies the real wants of men, or 

 whether it is wasted upon the futilities that minister to pride and os- 

 tentation. 



The crowd approve the letting off of expensive fireworks, and be- 

 lieve that the money they cost is still in the country, and that nothing 

 is lost. But there were in the country two capitals : one of money, 

 the other represented by powder, which might have been employed in 

 extracting coal and minerals from the earth, or in works for railways. 

 The second capital has vanished in smoke, and only the money is left. 

 Consumption is always destruction ; it is important to see that for this 

 destruction is returned as compensation some satisfaction of real wants, 

 or the creation of some new means of production. Consumption is in 

 reality a barter. We give up an existing value ; if we receive in re- 

 turn something to strengthen the body and exalt the soul, we have 

 done well ; if something to stimulate pride and vanity, it is worse than 

 nothing, and we have done ill. 



We may regard luxury, in the third place, from the juridical side, 

 and ask if it is compatible with right and justice. All Christian tra- 

 dition answers the question in the negative. The Scriptures abound 

 in passages condemning the egotistical and unregulated employment 

 of riches. The fathers of the Church insisted upon a kind of equality 

 of right, and urged that those who have a superfluity can not legiti- 

 mately dispose of it for themselves, but ought to share it with those 

 who are in want of necessaries. The Church has indicated alms as the 



