Dress
Animals and birds grow their own clothing. Sheep are covered with wool, leopards with fur horses with hair, birds with feathers. So they do not need any clothes. But men need clothes to protect their bare skins against cold. So they had to find some kind of dress. At first, in cold countries, they used the skins of animals, like bears. Then they found out how to make cloth, by weaving the wool of sheep, and fibers of some plants like cotton or flax (linen), or the threads of the cocoons of the silkworm.
Dress serves three purposes. It is used by civilized people for the sake of decency. Savages in warm countries, who do not need clothes against cold, often go naked; but civilized people cannot do that.
Then in cold countries, the dress is needed to keep one warm and protect one from cold. A bear with its thick coat can stand the cold, but men would soon die of cold if they do not cover themselves with warm clothing.
Thirdly, a dress is worn for ornament. When savages take to clothes in a hot country, they do not do so for warmth or for the sake of decency, but an ornament. They think they look more handsome with colored clothes or grasses on. And that is why also civilized people like to wear the grand and costly dress. They do so to make themselves look fine.
Fine clothes do not make a gentleman; but a gentleman will always see that his dress is neat, clean, and tidy, and as far as he can afford it, in the fashion of the day. Untidiness and lack of cleanliness in dress is a fault of which we should be ashamed. At the same time, spending too much on fine clothes is foolish, and equally a fault. It is a form of vanity.
