Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/848

 834 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

day and age cannot demand any such self-abnegation. The ascetic, the stoic, and the mendicant friar may from their views of life consistently make such demands. But progress and civi- lization demand a less sweeping condemnation. It is not rea- sonable to place an absolute ban upon luxuries, and place art, music, and foreign travel in the same category with gluttony, debauchery, and sensuality. It is certainly a fact that many of the so-called luxuries are highly conducive to better living. They may be made to assist in the development of the individual and the race along moral and intellectual lines. The individual may well, instead of priding himself upon being a member of the "rigorous school," pause and reflect concerning the ethical value of the refined luxuries. The economist, too, may find that in many instances the expenditure of wealth for luxury may possibly be a good investment, even from the standpoint of the production of wealth. In making a plea for more careful dis- crimination in regard to luxuries, however, the matter should be placed on a higher plane than the strictly economic and com- mercial. The mind of the economist, as such, is preoccupied with those forces which conduce to the greatest production of wealth. He seems often to look upon the production of wealth as the aim and ultimate end of human existence. Such it cer- tainly is not. It is a most potent means toward attaining the goal of human endeavor, but not the end itself. This economic idea is too often thrust obnoxiously into the foreground. We say that accumulation of wealth provides opportunity for leisure and self-improvement. Certainly true ; but why spend so many wakeful nights in aiming to obtain that leisure for self-improve- ment, if we neglect the opportunity of using it when offered ? Man would certainly be leading a dreary and barren existence, with little chance of improvement, were it not for the libraries, the operas, the recitals, the concerts, and the social entertain- ments which so many of the so-called "rigorous school" of moralists pride themselves upon condemning in their wholesale and undiscriminating onslaught upon luxuries.

It must be apparent, then, that there are luxuries which ennoble and luxuries which degrade ; those which tend to make