All luxuries occasion a loss to the society, in proportion to their amount.The industry employed in their formation, generates no provision for future wants, and may be said to be expended in vain.Taking the whole society as a body, it supplies no wants.It gives no absolute enjoyment, it is all relative, as much as one is raised by it, another is depressed, the superiority of one man being here equivalent to the inferiority of another.To increase the facilities of production of luxuries, therefore, brings no addition to the absolute capital.It is precisely analogous to increasing the facilities for the production of the metals used for coin, merely adding to the bulk circulated, and not enabling it in any degree to perform its office better.The expense, too, occasioned by keeping up the circulation of the one and the other, and consequent diminution of the national revenue, is equally a loss.It is much greater, however, in the case of luxuries than of coinage, because the whole amount of the former, in ail societies, is probably much greater than that of the latter; and because it consists, in general, of materials far more easily destroyed.
To the loss thus occasioned by vanity the term dissipation may be applied.
Its amount cannot, for reasons already stated, be easily ascertained, nor is it necessary for our purpose that it should.It is sufficient to observe, that, in all societies which have hitherto existed, it has been considerable;and that it seems to be determined, in every society, by the strength of the selfish, and weakness of the intellectual powers and benevolent affections;and, consequently, that it is inversely as the strength of the accumulative principle.
Though vanity, in this way, operates directly to retard the increase of the stock of the society, some of its indirect effects have, notwithstanding, an opposite tendency.As an antagonist to the restraining influence of the spirit of imitation, it is often a very useful auxiliary in the spread of inventions.These, without its aid, might perhaps have been often shut up in the countries where they were discovered; certainly they would not have passed from region to region, so rapidly as they have sometimes succeeded in doing.Under the guise of foreign rarities, and consequently luxuries, they have made their way easily; the mask rubbing off by time, a substratum of utility has been found under it.
Soap seems to bare been first made in the midst of the ashes and tallow of Germany and Gaul.It came to Rome as a luxury, in the shape of a pigment for the hair.In the course of time, its superior detergent qualities becoming apparent, and the manufacture being introduced, this article, so essential to the comfort of the modern European, passed entirely out of the rank of luxuries.Vanity brought silk to Europe.At first it was almost entirely a luxury.As a garment it has often more beauty than any other texture;but when it exchanged for its weight in gold, its beauty must have constituted but a small part of the enjoyment derived from the wearing of it.In some fabrics it is scarcely now a luxury; its qualities of durability and beauty seem to give it a real superiority, sufficient to render the superior price paid for it no dissipation.Increase that facility very much, and some of these fabrics would be discarded by vanity.Were velvet to become as cheap as cloth, it would not be worn by the higher classes; its greater durability would make it too economical for them, and its adoption by the lower would render it vulgar.Fabrics of cotton were at first luxuries.
They would not, perhaps, have been worn had they not had rarity, and consequently vanity, to recommend them.Cashmere shawls are so now; in time they too may cease to be so.The process, indeed, has made some progress in France, where, I have been told, the breed of the animal yielding the wool has been introduced, and the manufacture considerably advanced.
Vanity, also, sometimes facilitates real improvement, by the high estimate it gives to articles that are mere luxuries, but contain the rudiments of extensive utility.It thus stimulates invention to facilitate their production, develope their utility, and put them out of the class of luxuries.
Glass was at first a luxury.It was prized by the Romans for show, as glass beads are now by savages.Ingenuity at length perfected the various processes of the manufacture, and made it an article extensively supplying real wants.The diamond is at present chiefly a luxury; should art ever succeed ill giving at will a crystalline structure to simple carbon, so as to convert it into that substance, it would pass from the rank of luxuries, and would too contribute largely to the supply of real wants.The high estimation in which it is held serves at present to turn the attention of ingenuity to such a project.
These, however, are indirect, and, as it were, accidental effects of luxury; its direct operation is always to dissipate a part of the national funds proportioned to its strength.
