Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1904-12-09

the vegetable Kingdom 90 not lnu
nourishment In all the different pro.
vinces of society they live. And those
who grow there are men as are the
rest It seems strange that among
fellow-men such prodgious differ
ences in needs could be. And here
the analogy of our comparison aban-
dons u.s. Plants and animals of the
same family have identical needs.
Human life brings us to other obser
vations quite contrary What conclu-
sion shall we draw II it is not that
there Is a considerable elasticity in
the nature and number of our needs?
Is it useful, is it favorable to the de-
velopment and happiness of the indi-
vidual, to the developments and happi-
ness of society. that man should have
a multitude of needs and supply him
self to satisfy them? But. first, we
will take up again our comparison
with the inferior beings. Once their
essential needs are satisfied they live
contented Is it so with human So
ciety? No. In all the degrees we en-
counter discomfort. l except COM
pletely here those who lack the neces.
saries One could not without injus-
tice assimilate with the discontinued
ones those from whom the cold, hun
ger and misery force means. | wish
to speak only of that multitude of
people who live in condition after all
supportable? From whence comes their
discomfort? Why is it met with not
,xrh@
though modest, is sufficient, but again
under shades of difference always
more refined, up to opulence and to
the summit of social conditions?
They speak of the portly bourgeois.
Who speaks of them? Those who,
judging from the outside, think that,
given the time during which they
have devoted themselves to money
making, they really ought to consider
1t enough. But do they themselves
think SO? Not the least in the world
If there are rich and contented peo-
pie, be sure that they are not con-
tented because they are rich, but be-
cause they have learned to be con-
tented. An animal Is satisfied be-
cause 1t has eaten. 1t lies down and
sleeps. A man also may lie down and
sleep for a certain length of time;
but that does not last long; he ac-
customs himself to his well-being,
wearies of 1t and demands greater.
The appetite is not appeased in a
man by his food; 1t comes as he eats.
That may appear absurd but 1t is the
absolute truth.
And the fact that those who COM
plain the most are almost always the
ones who would have the most rea-
sons to declare themselves satisfied
proves clearly that happiness is not
attached to the number of our needs
and the haste which we employ TO
cultivate them. Every one is inter
ested in penetrating this truth for
himself. If he does not do it, if by
an act of energy he does not manage
to limit his actions, he risks finding
himself insensibly sliding down the
incline of desire.
The man who lives to eat, to drink
to sleep, to dress, to travel, to give
himself in fact all that he can give
himself whether he is the parasite
the bourgeois, servant of his stomach
the woman absorbed in her toilette
the jovial fellow of low class, or the
jolly fellow of mark, or that he be
simply the vulgar epicurean, though
good fellow, too docile as to material
needs; that man, we say, is started on
the incline of desire, and that incline
is fatal. Those who go down obey
the same laws as the body rolling
down an inclined plane. A prey tc
an illusion ceaselessly renewed, they
say to themselves: Just a few steps
more, the last toward that object be
low which attracts our covetousness
then we will stop" But the added
velocity draws them onward. The far
Their they go the less they can resist
That is the secret of the agitation
of the madness of many of our con
, temporaries. Having condemned
their wills to the slavery Of their ap
petites, they receive the chastisemen
of their works. They are delivered
, to savage and implacable desires
, which eat their flesh, crush thei
bones, drink their blood and are neve
odtiSHeu. an uOl pIedCHlnS mere
, transcendant moral: l listen to tn
speech of life not ing in the transi
, a few of the truths which are echoe,
from all the crossroads.
Has drunkenness, so inventive O
; new beverages, found means o
Quenching thirst? No, they Nigh
}. sooner call it the art to preserv
= thirst and render it inextlnguishablt
. Does shamelessness dull the spur @
e our senses? No, 1t eXasperates
e and converts the natural desire int
= a morbid obsession, fixed idea. LIE
0 your needs reign and entertain them
n you will see them multiply like II
. sects in the sun. The more you hav
a given them the more they will ash
8 He Is insensate who seeks happines
y in only well-being. 1t would be a
easy as to undertake to fill the tan
e of Danaides. To those who have mi
= tOua lank Othar millions. m thOs