The Simple Life | Page 2

them.
Let us first speak of a series of facts that put into relief the truth we
wish to show.
The complexity of our life appears in the number of our material needs.
It is a fact universally conceded, that our needs have grown with our

resources. This is not an evil in itself; for the birth of certain needs is
often a mark of progress. To feel the necessity of bathing, of wearing
fresh linen, inhabiting wholesome houses, eating healthful food, and
cultivating our minds, is a sign of superiority. But if certain needs exist
by right, and are desirable, there are others whose effects are fatal,
which, like parasites, live at our expense: numerous and imperious,
they engross us completely.
Could our fathers have foreseen that we should some day have at our
disposal the means and forces we now use in sustaining and defending
our material life, they would have predicted for us an increase of
independence, and therefore of happiness, and a decrease in
competition for worldly goods: they might even have thought that
through the simplification of life thus made possible, a higher degree of
morality would be attained. None of these things has come to pass.
Neither happiness, nor brotherly love, nor power for good has been
increased. In the first place, do you think your fellow-citizens, taken as
a whole, are more contented than their forefathers, and less anxious
about the future? I do not ask if they should find reason to be so, but if
they really are so. To see them live, it seems to me that a majority of
them are discontented with their lot, and, above all, absorbed in
material needs and beset with cares for the morrow. Never has the
question of food and shelter been sharper or more absorbing than since
we are better nourished, 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 wherewithal 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 question is natural, and yet it is with
them that it presents itself most simply. You must go among those who
are beginning 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 development, observe people of small fortune, and,
above all, the rich. It 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
to-morrow. 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 assured he is of the morrow, according to the common
acceptation, the more exclusively 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
number, their reach, and their shades of refinement.
From all this, there has arisen throughout the different social orders,
modified by conditions and varying in intensity, a common agitation--a
very complex mental state, best compared to the petulance of a 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 a 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 excuse in its very harshness, and it is generally limited to
elemental cruelties. Quite different is the battle for the superfluous--for
ambition, privilege, inclination, luxury. Never has hunger driven man
to such baseness as have envy, avarice, and thirst for pleasure. Egotism
grows more maleficent as it becomes more refined. We of these times
have seen an increase of hostile feeling among brothers, and our hearts
are less at peace than ever.[A]
After this, is there any need to ask if we have become better? Do not
the very sinews of virtue lie in man's capacity to care for something
outside himself? And what place remains for one's neighbor in a life
given over to material cares, to artificial needs, to the satisfaction of
ambitions, grudges, and whims? The man who gives himself up
entirely to the service of his appetites,