Concern about the increasing social importance of commerce and trade infuses the discourse of the civic tradition and the narratives of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novels. These issues were never merely economic or political but always involved speculation about how commercial pressures affect individual character. Hume’s view of economic development’s effects on character is strikingly optimistic. The Essays highlight the virtue of industry, which Hume believes to be both essential for human happiness and promoted by progress in manufacturing and trade. The four “essays on happiness,” read together as an extended dialogue, suggest both that human happiness requires industry and that this requirement is among the enduring features of human nature. One might fear, with Josef Pieper, that such celebration of work and industry leads to the neglect of more humane pursuits, particularly the liberal arts, in favor of mere utilitarian ends. But Hume insists on the interdependence of industry, knowledge, and humanity. Humean luxury is no vice; it instead enables us to value superfluity.