The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1905-02-09


ished, 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
withal shall we be clothed?" presents
itself to the poor alone, exposed as they
are to the anguish of morrows without
bread or roof. With them the ques-
ton is natural, and yet it is with them
that it presents itself most simply.
You must go among those who are be-
ginning to enjoy 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 a man
has the more he wants. The more as
sured he is of the 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-
finement
From all this there has arisen
throughout the different social orders,
modified by conditions and varying in
intensity, a common agitation-a very
to the petulance of a spoiled child, at
once satisfied and disconnected.
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
1t is the law of nature to fight for
bread, for the necessities. This law
may seem brutal, but there is an eX-
cuse in its very harshness, and it is
generally limited to elemental cruel
ties. Quite different is the battle for
the superfuous- 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 a
life given over to material cares, to ar
tifcial needs, to the satisfaction of am
billions, grudges and whims? The man
who gives himself up entirely to the
service of his appetites makes them
grow and multiply go 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 enslaved to numerous
and eXacting needs possession is the
III
other good things. 1t 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
portance 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 it to be
accounted for merit.
Some one objects, "Then you make
wholesale condemnation of progress
md would lead us back to the good old
times-tO asceticism 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 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 diminishes
the capacity for happiness and de-
bases character is fact which a
thousand examples are at hand TO
prove. The worth of Il civilization is
the worth OF the man at its center.
l.,