------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAP. XX. _Of Luxury._ My reader may perhaps be surprized to find this subject formally introduced, after all I have said of it in the first book, under a definition which renders the term sufficiently clear, by distinguishing it from sensuality and excess; and by confining it to _the providing of superfluities, in favour of a consumption_, which necessarily must produce the good effects of giving employment and bread to the industrious. The simple acceptation of the term, was the most proper for explaining the political effects of extraordinary consumption. I cannot however deny, that the word _luxury_ commonly conveys a more complex idea; and did I take no notice of this circumstance, it might be thought that I had purposely restrained a general term to a particular acceptation, in order to lead to error, and to suppress the vicious influence of modern oeconomy over the minds of mankind; which influence, if vicious, cannot fail to affect even their political happiness. My intention therefore, in this chapter, is to amuse, and to set my ideas concerning luxury (in the most extensive acceptation of the word) in such an order, as first to vindicate the definition I have given of it, by shewing that it is a proper one; and secondly, to reconcile the sentiments of those who appear to combat one another, on a subject wherein all must agree, when terms are fully understood. For this purpose I must distinguish _luxury_ as it affects our different interests, by producing hurtful consequences; from _luxury_, as it regards the moderate gratification of our natural or rational desires. I must separate objects which are but too frequently confounded, and analyze this complicated term, by specifying the ideas it contains, under partial definitions. The interests affected by luxury, I take to be four; _1mo._ _the moral_, in so far as it does hurt to the mind; _2do._ _the physical_, as it hurts the body; the _domestic_, as it hurts the fortune; and the _political_, as it hurts the state. The natural desires which proceed from our animal oeconomy, and which are gratified by _luxury_, may be also reduced to four; viz. _hunger_, _thirst_, _love_, and _ease_ or indolence. The moderate gratification of these desires, and physical happiness, is the same thing. The immoderate gratification of them is _excess_; and if this also be implied by _luxury_, no man, I believe, ever seriously became its apologist.