After having cleared up our ideas concerning luxury, it comes very naturally in, to examine what is meant by physical necessary.
I have observed in the third chapter of the first book, that in most countries where food is limited to a determined quantity, inhabitants are fed in a regular progression down from plenty and ample subsistence, to the last period of want, and dying from hunger. It is ample subsistence where no degree of superfluity is implied, which communicates an idea of the physical-necessary. It is the top of this ladder; it is the first rank among men who enjoy no superfluity whatsoever. A man enjoys the physical-necessary as to food, when he is fully fed; if he is likewise sufficiently clothed, and well defended against every thing which may hurt him, he enjoys his full physical-necessary. The moment he begins to add to this, he may be considered as moving upwards into another category, to wit, the class of the luxurious, or consumers of superfluity; of which there are to be found, in most countries, as many stages upward, as there are stages downwards, from where he stood before. This is one general idea of the question. Let me now look for another.
If we examine the state of many animals which have no appetites leading them to excess, we may form a very just idea of a physical-necessary for man. When they are free from labour, and have food at will, they enjoy their full physical-necessary. They are then in the height of beauty, and enjoy the greatest degree of happiness they are capable of. Animals which are forced to labour, prove to us very plainly, that this physical-necessary is not fixed to a point, but that it may vary like most other things: every one perceives the difference between labouring cattle which are well fed, and those which are middling, or ill fed; all however, I suppose to live in health, and to work according to their strength. This represents the nature of a physical-necessary for man.
In many of the inferior classes in every nation, we find various degrees of ease among the individuals; and yet upon the whole, it would be hard to determine, which are those who enjoy superfluity; which are those who possess the pure physical-necessary; and which are those who fall below it. The cause of this ambiguity must here be explained.
The nature of man furnishes him with some desires relative to his wants, which do not proceed from his animal oeconomy, but which are entirely similar to them in their effects. These proceed from the affections of his mind, are formed by habit and education, and when once regularly established, create another kind of necessary, which, for the sake of distinction, I shall call political. The similitude between these two species of necessary, is therefore the cause of ambiguity.
This political-necessary has for its object, certain articles of physical superfluity, which distinguishes what we call rank in society.
Rank is determined by birth, education, or habit. A man with difficulty submits to descend from a higher way of living to a lower; and when an accidental circumstance has raised him for a while, above the level of that rank where his birth or education had placed him, his ambition prompts him to support himself in his elevation. If his attempt be a rational scheme, he is generally approved of; the common consent of his fellow-citizens prescribes a certain political-necessary for him, proportioned to his ambition; and when at any time this comes to fail, he is considered to be in want.
If on the other hand, a person either from vanity, or from no rational prospect of success, forms a scheme of rising above the rank where birth or education had placed him, his fellow-citizens do not consent to prescribe for him a political-necessary suitable to his ambition; and when this fails him, he is only considered to fall back into the class he properly belonged to. But if the political-necessary suitable to this rank should come to fail, then he is supposed to be deprived of his political-necessary.
The measure of this last species of necessary, is determined only by general opinion, and therefore can never be ascertained justly; and as this opinion may have for its object even those who are below the level of the physical-necessary; it often happens, that we find great difficulties in determining its exact limits.
It may appear absurd, to suppose that any one can enjoy superfluity (which we have called the characteristic of political-necessary) to whom any part of the physical-necessary is found wanting. However absurd this may appear, nothing, however, is more common among men, and the reason arises from what has been observed above. The desires which proceed from the affections of his mind, are often so strong, as to make him comply with them at the expence of becoming incapable of satisfying that which his animal oeconomy necessarily demands.