Causes of Aristocracy [pp. 551-566]

556
CAUSES OF ARISTOCRACY.
progress in art, music, and literature, is in the enormous expen.
ditures of the noble and wealthy. What would become of
poetry and belles-lettres, and the immortal statues and paintings of the old masters, if there had not been wealth to purchase, or leisure to enjoy? Opulence and idleness produced
a demand for these, as well as the useful arts, and hence their
existence.
If the rich classes were to live in all the prim propriety of
the Puritan and amass without spending, we think we hazard nothing in saying, that the world would be bankrupt
and revolutionized in a short time. The poor would be thrown
out of employment, manufactories would stop working, commercial exchanges cease, and commerce become stagnant. It
is, therefore, the policy of modern society to encourage expenditure to that point that is not destructive of health and
morals. It lightens the toils of the poor and prevents the concentration of property; and if it carries with it seeming appearances of evil, we must bear with it as one of the compensatory provisions, by which Nature balances the social system. And in this, we find the Bible inculcating as wise a
philosophy as on other subjects relating to society. We are
commanded to furnish the necessary comforts to our families,
and while we are cursed for deserting them, are forbid to
hoard. If we were Christians enough to obey these commands, what salutary changes might be wrought? Fourier
might then think his social system folly, and fanatics allow
that the proper and only way to reform men was to distribute
Bibles and preach the doctrines of Christ instead of those ot
Party. Hence, we see that it is envy, or mistaken notions of
virtue, that satirizes the ostentation of the rich, and that it is
necessary to expose these specious delusions of prejudice and
imagination, which, while they seem to brighten, make life
more wretched. This kind of satire oftener proceeds from one
repining envy of a bad heart or unhealthy mind, than from
indignant virtue. We do not mean to say that our author
has a bad heart or unhealthy mind, but that in this instance,
he has been led away by a needless imnitation of what he has
read. The truly magnanimous lament the imperfections of
the social system, and pity the infirmities of human nature,
chastening with a gentle wit and refined humor where reformation is possible, but with a friendly hand veiling from
sight those defects that are so much a part of nature as the
spots of the sun are of his disc. True, expense and ostentation may sometimes run into lavish, and into fashionable dis