The first point to be explained, is what is to be understood by _excess_. What appears an excess to one man, may appear moderation to another. I therefore measure the _excess_ by the bad effects it produces on the _mind_, the _body_, the _fortune_, and the _state_: and when we speak of _luxury_ as a vice, it is requisite to point out the particular bad effects it produces, to one, more, or all the interests which may be affected by it: when this is neglected, ambiguities ensue, which involve people in inextricable disputes. In order to communicate my thoughts upon this subject with the more precision, I shall give an example of the harm resulting to the _mind_, the _body_, the _fortune_, and the _state_, from the excessive gratification of the several natural desires above-mentioned. _1mo._ As to the mind, _eating to excess_ produces the inconvenience of rendring the perceptions dull, and of making a person unfit for study or application. _Drinking_ confounds the understanding, and often prevents our discovering the most palpable relations of things. _Love_ fixes our ideas too much upon the same object, makes all our pursuits and pleasures analogous to it, and consequently renders them trifling and superficial. _Ease_, that is, too great a fondness for it, destroys activity, damps our resolutions, and misleads the decisions of our judgment on every occasion, where one side of the question implies an obstacle to the enjoyment of a favourite indolence. These are examples of the evils proceeding from _luxury_ in the most general acceptation of the term. While the gratification of those desires is accompanied by no such inconveniencies, I think it is a proof, that there has been no _moral excess_, or that no moral evil has been directly implied in the gratification. But I cannot equally determine, that there has been no luxury in the enjoyment of superfluity. _2do._ _The physical_ inconveniencies which follow from all the four, terminate in the hurt they do the body, health or constitution. If no such harm follows upon the gratification of our desires, I find no _physical_ evil: but still _luxury_, I think, may be applied in every acceptation in which the term can be taken. _3tio._ If the _domestic_ inconveniences of the four species be examined, they all center in one, viz. the dissipation of fortune, upon which depends the future ease of the proprietor, and the well-being of his posterity. When _luxury_ is examined with respect to this object, the idea we conceive of it admits of a new modification. An _excess_ here, is compatible with a very moderate gratification of our most natural desires. It is not _eating_, nor _drinking_, _love_, nor _indolence_ which are hurtful to the fortune, but the expence attending such gratifications. All these are frequently indulged even to _excess_, in a _moral_ and _physical_ sense, by people who are daily becoming more wealthy by these very means.