The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-12-04

needs and DeSet WlLn chIes AOl tHS NioA
 row. Never has the question of food and shelter been sharper or more ab- sorbing than since we are better nour- isbed better clothed and better housed than ever. He errs greatly who thinks that the query, What shall we eat and what shall we drink and where witbal shall we be clothed?' presents itself to the poor alone. exposed as they are to the anguish of morrows without bread or a roof. With them the ques- ton is natural, and yet it is with them that 1t presents itself most simply. l You must go among those who are be- 1 ginning to enjoy a little ease to learn how greatly satisfaction in what one has may be disturbed by regret for what one lacks, and if you would see anxious care for future material good, material good in all its luxurious de- velopment, observe people of small for tune and, above all, the rich. 1t is not the woman with one dress who asks most insistently how she shall be clothed, nor is it those reduced to the strictly necessary who make most question of what they shall eat tomor- row. As an inevitable consequence of the law that needs are increased by , their satisfaction, the more goods man has the more he wants. The more as- sured he is of she morrow, according to the common acceptation, the more eX- clusiyely does he concern himself with how he shall live and provide for his children and his children's children. Impossible to conceive of the fears of a man established in life-their num- Der, their reach and their shades of re- fnement.
 From all this there has arisen throughout the different social orders, modified by conditions and varying in 1 intensity, a common agitation-a very complex mental state, best compared to the petulance of spoiled child, at once satisfied and discontented.
 If we have not become happier, neither have we grown more peaceful and fraternal. The more desires and needs man has the more occasion he finds for conflict with his fellow men, and these conflicts are more bitter in proportion as their causes are less just. It is the law of nature to fight for bread, for the necessities. This law may seem brutal, but there is an ex cuse in It's very harshness, and 1t Is generally limited to elemental cruel ties Quite different is the battle for the superhuous- ambition, priv ilege inclination, luxury. Never has hunger driven man to such baseness as have envy, avarice and thirst for pleasure. Egotism grows more malef- icent as it becomes more refined.
 Do not the very sinews of virtue lie in mans capacity to care for some thing outside himself? And what place remains for ones neighbor in q life given over to material cares, to ar tifcial needs, to the satisfaction of am bitions, grudges and whims? The man who gives himself up entirely to the service of his appetites makes them grow and multiply so well that they become stronger than he, and once their slave, he loses his moral sense, loses his energy and becomes incapable of discerning and practicing the good He has surrendered himself to the in ner anarchy of desire, which In the end gives birth to outer anarchy. In the moral life we govern ourselves; In the immoral life we are governed by our needs and passion; thus. little by little, the bases of the moral life shift and the law of Judgment deviates.
 For the man enslayed to numerous and exacting needs possession is the supreme good and the source of all other good things. It is true that in the fierce struggle for possession we come to hate those who possess and to deny the right of property when this right is in the hands of others and not in our own. But the bitterness of at tack against others possessions Is only new proof of the extraordinary i'm portanee we attach to possession itself In the end people and things come to be estimated at their selling price or according to the profit to be drawn from them. What brings nothing is worth nothing; he who has nothing is nothing Honest poverty risks pass ing for shame, and lucre, however filthy, Is not greatly put to 1t to be accounted for merit.
 some one oDJectS, men you mdhe wholesale condemnation of progress and would lead us back to the good old times--to ascehcism perhaps"
 Not at all. The desire to resuscitate the past is the most unfruitful and dangerous of utopian dreams, and the art of good living does not consist in retiring from life, But we are trying to throw light upon one of the errors that drag most heavily upon human progress in order to find a remedy for it-namely, the belief that man be- comes happier and better by the In crease of outward well being. Nothing is falser than this pretended social axiom; on the contrary, that material prosperity without an offset dlminishes the capacity for happiness and de bases character is a fact which a thousand examples are at hand to prove. The worth of civilization is the worth of the man at its center. When this man lacks moral rectitude progress only makes bad worse and further embroils social problems.
 This principle may be verified in other domains than that of material