360 



ARISTOCRA CY AND E VOL UTION 



Book IV 

 Chapter 4 



Consequently 

 the desire for 

 luxury and 

 wealth, like 

 the pleasure 

 they give, 

 depends on 

 peculiar mental 

 powers or 

 peculiar 

 mental states. 



would point to it as an example of the horrors of 

 overcrowding. When, therefore, the sleeping com- 

 partment is admitted as it is admitted to be a 

 luxury, it is admitted to be so because it is regarded 

 in relation to a variety of circumstances to which the 

 senses are quite blind, and which are realised by acts 

 of the mind and the imagination only. And with all 

 wealth and luxury the case is just the same. Like 

 comfort and competence, they have material things 

 for their foundation ; and the material foundation 

 that supports them is no doubt necessarily larger. 

 But what renders them more desirable is not the 

 additional material in itself, but the qualities with 

 which it is invested by the subtle craftsmanship of 

 the mind. 



Just, then, as wealth and luxury depend on the 

 intellect and the imagination for the larger part of 

 the pleasure which they give to those who possess 

 them, so does the desire for them amongst men in 

 general depend on the action of the intellect and the 

 imagination also. Hence, though a desire for wealth 

 is popularly supposed to be universal, and in a certain 

 sense is so, it is a desire the non-satisfaction of which 

 causes a sense of privation only when the imagina- 

 tion and the intellect work in an exceptional way. Let 

 us take, for example, some community on the out- 

 skirts of civilisation which continues to maintain 

 itself in rude plenty and comfort, but to which wealth 

 and luxury are merely remote ideas. If a stranger 

 suddenly came within its borders carrying a bag 

 which had in it a hundred thousand pounds, and if 



