Social Rights And Duties Author:Leslie Stephen Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 95 LUXURY. Professor Sidgwick has been discussing the ethics of luxury, and, according to his wont, has been giving fresh interest to a well-worn topic. I ... more »do not wish to dispute anything that he has said, nor do I hope to clear up problems which he professedly left unsolved. In one sense, they obviously cannot be solved precisely. Luxury is a relative term, which cannot be denned in absolute terms. A luxury, in the first place, is distinguished from a necessary. But, then, one man's necessary may be another man's luxury. My very existence depends upon conditions with which another man can dispense. If, again, we admit that there are many things which, though not absolutely necessary, may rightly be used, if they can be used without injuring others, we see that we must also take into account the varying social conditions. If we use luxury, in what Bentham called the dyslogistic sense, we must distinguish between necessaries and superfluities, and then divide superfluities into comforts which may be rightfully enjoyed, and luxuries which cannot be enjoyed without incurring some degree of moral censure. But the dividing lines are always shifting. Scott tells somewhere of a Highlander sleeping on the open moor in a winter night. When he tried to roll the snow into a pillow his companion kicked it away, as a proof of disgraceful effeminacy. Most of us would come to a speedy end if we lived in a social state where such a standard of hardiness was rigidly enforced. We admit that some kind of pillow may be permitted, if not as absolutely necessary, as, at least, a pardonable comfort. We shall probably agree, also, that nobody is to be blamed for using clean sheets and securing a certain amount of warmth and softness—as much, at least, as is desirable for sanitary reasons. But if we ...« less