[Footnote 223-1: Compare _Minard_, Notions élémentaires d'Economie politique appliquée aux Travaux publics, 1850, 71 ff. He calls to mind the many strong castles of the age of chivalry, the Roman aqueducts, theaters, etc., which are still in a good state of preservation, but which can be used by no one; so many bridges too narrow for our purposes, and so many roads too steep. The sluices at Dunkirk, made 12.60 metres in width by Vauban, were made 16 meters wider in 1822, and still are too narrow for Atlantic steamships. In England, private individuals have well learned to take all this into account. Compare _J. B. Say_, Cours pratique, translated by Morstadt, I, 454 ff.] [Footnote 223-2: _Fregier_, Die gefährlichen Klassen, translated 1840, I, 2, 38. In Yorkshire it is said that woolen rags to the amount of £52,000,000 a year are manufactured into useful articles. (_Tooke_, Wool-Production, 196.) Compare The Use of Refuse: Quart. Rev., April, 1868. On the ancient Greek ragpickers the so-called σπερμολόγοις, see _St. John_, The Hellenes, III, 91; on the Roman _Centonariis_: _Cato_, R. R., 135; _Columella_, R. R., I, 8, 9; _Marquardt_, II, 476, V, 2, 187.] CHAPTER II. LUXURY. SECTION CCXXIV. LUXURY IN GENERAL. The idea conveyed by the word luxury is an essentially relative one. Every individual calls all consumption with which he can dispense himself, and every class that which seems not indispensable to themselves, luxury. The same is true of every age and nation. Just as young people ridicule every old fashion as pedantry, every new fashion is censured by old people as luxury.[224-1] But (§ I) a higher civilization always finds expression in an increased number and an increased urgency of satisfied wants. Yet, there is a limit at which new or intensified wants cease to be an element of higher civilization, and become elements of demoralization. Every immoral and every unwise want exceeds this limit.[224-2] Immoral wants are not only those the satisfaction of which wounds the conscience, but also those in which the necessities of the soul are postponed to the affording of superfluities to the body; and where the enjoyment of the few is purchased at the expense of the wretchedness of the many. And not only those are unwise or imprudent for which the voluntary outlay is greater than one's income, but those also where the indispensable is made to suffer for the dispensable. Thus it was in Athens, in the time of Demosthenes, when the festivities of the year cost more than the maintenance of the fleet; when Euripides' tragedies came dearer to the people than the Persian war in former times. There was even a law passed (Ol. 107,4) prohibiting the application of the dramatic fund to purposes of war under pain of death.[224-3]