On such an argument as this the defence of luxuries generally rests. The essence of the fallacy lies in the fact, which cannot be repeated too often, that labour spent on such articles is unremunerative and unproductive, because its ultimate result is only to gratify various forms of vanity and greed. To exemplify by a concrete instance what is unremunerative and what is remunerative, let us take a hundred-guinea ball-gown and a pair of boots. It is not possible to estimate the number of people employed in producing the ball-gown. There is the silk, satin, or whatever the principal material may be; there are the trimmings of chiffon, hand-embroidery, lace, braid, beads, sequins, ribbons, etc., etc.; some hundreds of pairs of hands, including factory-workers, dressmakers, sempstresses, etc., will have touched some part of the gown before it is delivered to the wearer. To what end are all these specialised departments of labour concentrated? The gown is worn a few times in the one season; the wearer has the satisfaction of feeling as well dressed as A. to F., and far better dressed than F. to Z. In fact, the net result of all this expenditure of energy is the generating of a rather foolish pride, the encouragement of conceit on the one side and envy on the other, and the hardening of a nature into ways of worldliness and vanity. As for the boots. Again, many more hands than can be calculated have helped to produce them, but they are directly and immediately serviceable to the purchaser, to whose activity the wearing of boots is an essential, and in general they minister to the efficiency of human machines. But if balls are not wrong, ball-gowns must be worn. It is a question of degree; and here again we get to the theory of the limit which in this conjunction can be expressed thus: In relation to human needs, in relation to human powers of enjoyment, in relation to the beneficial effects of pleasure, even in relation to the dictates of fashion, there is a distinct limit not to be expressed in figures up to which expenditure (in this particular case on dress) is legitimate and relatively productive, beyond which it becomes progressively unremunerative and harmful. A hundred guineas, by any conceivable method of calculation, greatly exceeds this limit.