One of the characteristics of this period is the endeavor to possess the best quality of whatever is possessed at all, and to be satisfied with less of it rather than purchase more of an inferior quality. This is, essentially, to practice frugality, inasmuch as certain production-services remain the same whether the commodity is of the best or the worst quality, and that commodities of the best quality are more superior to the worst in intrinsic goodness than they are in price. But this course supposes a certain well-being already existing. In this period, also, the luxury of the state is wont to take the direction of those enjoyments which are accessible to all.[230-5] [Footnote 230-1: Formerly the dress of citizens was a weak imitation of the court costume: at present the reverse is the case, and the court costume is only a heightening of the citizen costume. Compare _Riehl_, Bürgerl. Gesellschaft, 191.] [Footnote 230-2: _Helvetius_, De l'Homme, 1771. sec. VI, ch. 5.] [Footnote 230-3: _J. B. Say_, Traité, II, 4; _Sismondi_, N. P., IV, ch. 4. As early a writer as _Lauderdale_, Inquiry, 358 ff., thought the social leveling of modern times would promote English industry. In the East Indies, on the other hand, only the most expensive watches, rifles, candelabras etc. were sold, because the nabobs were the only persons who created any demand for European commodities (312 ff.). _Adam Smith_, Wealth of Nat., II, ch. 3, draws a very correct distinction between the luxury of durable goods and that of those which perish rapidly; the former is less calculated to impoverish an individual or a whole nation; and hence it is much more closely allied to frugality. Similarly even _Isocrates_, ad Niccol., 19; _Livy_, XXIV, 7; _Plin._, H. N., XIII, 4; _Mariana_, 1598, De Rege et Regis Institutione, III, 10; _Sir W. Temple_, Works, I, 140 seq., who found this better kind of luxury in Holland: _Berkeley_, Querist, No. 296 ff.] [Footnote 230-4: _Schmoller_, loc. cit., considers it no favorable symptom, that in Prussia, between 1802 and 1867, the per capita consumption of milk decreased and that of wool increased. According to _L. Levi_, the consumption of brandy in England decreased from 1854 and 1870, from 1.13 to 1.01 gallons per capita; but, on the other hand, the consumption of malt increased from 1.45 to 1.84 bushels, and the consumption of wine from 0.23 to 0.45 gallons. The number of licenses to retail spirituous liquors was, in 1830, 6.30 per thousand of the population; in 1860-69, only 5.57. (Statist. Journal, 1872, 32 ff.)]