' JOHNSON. 'All
theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it[850].'--I
did not push the subject any farther. I was glad to find him so mild in
discussing a question of the most abstract nature, involved with
theological tenets, which he generally would not suffer to be in any
degree opposed[851].
He as usual defended luxury[852]; 'You cannot spend money in luxury
without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by
spending it in luxury, than by giving it: for by spending it in luxury,
you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle.
I own, indeed, there may be more virtue in giving it immediately in
charity, than in spending it in luxury; though there may be a pride in
that too.' Miss Seward asked, if this was not Mandeville's doctrine of
'private vices publick benefits.' JOHNSON. 'The fallacy of that book is,
that Mandeville defines neither vices nor benefits. He reckons among
vices everything that gives pleasure[853]. He takes the narrowest system
of morality, monastick morality, which holds pleasure itself to be a
vice, such as eating salt with our fish, because it makes it eat better;
and he reckons wealth as a publick benefit, which is by no means always
true.
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