_Of Man's true Interest, or of the Ideas he forms to himself of
Happiness.--Man cannot be happy without Virtue._
Utility, as has been before observed, ought to be the only standard of
the judgment of man. To be useful, is to contribute to the happiness
of his fellow creatures; to be prejudicial, is to further their
misery. This granted, let us examine if the principles we have hitherto
established be prejudicial or advantageous, useful or useless, to the
human race. If man unceasingly seeks after his happiness, he can only
approve of that which procures for him his object, or furnishes him the
means by which it is to be obtained.
What has been already said will serve in fixing our ideas upon what
constitutes this happiness: it has been already shewn that it is only
continued pleasure: but in order that an object may please, it is
necessary that the impressions it makes, the perceptions it gives,
the ideas which it leaves, in short, that the motion it excites in man
should be analogous to his organization; conformable to his temperament;
assimilated to his individual nature:--modified as it is by habit,
determined as it is by an infinity of circumstances, it is necessary
that the action of the object by which he is moved, or of which the idea
remains with him, far from enfeebling him, far from annihilating his
feelings, should tend to strengthen him; it is necessary, that without
fatiguing his mind, exhausting his faculties, or deranging his organs,
this object should impart to his machine that degree of activity for
which it continually has occasion. What is the object that unites
all these qualities? Where is the man whose organs are susceptible
of continual agitation without being fatigued; without experiencing a
painful sensation; without sinking? Man is always willing to be warned
of his existence in the most lively manner, as long as he can be so
without pain. What do I say? He consents frequently to suffer, rather
than not feel. He accustoms himself to a thousand things which at first
must have affected him in a disagreeable manner; but which frequently
end either by converting themselves into wants, or by no longer
affecting him any way: of this truth tobacco, coffee, and above all
brandy furnish examples: this is the reason he runs to see tragedies;
that he witnesses the execution of criminals. In short, the desire
of feeling, of being powerfully moved, appears to be the principle of
curiosity; of that avidity with which man seizes on the marvellous;
of that earnestness with which he clings to the supernatural; of the
disposition he evinces for the incomprehensible. Where, indeed, can
he always find objects in nature capable of continually supplying
the stimulus requisite to keep him in activity, that shall be ever
proportioned to the state of his own organization; which his extreme
mobility renders subject to perpetual variation? The most lively
pleasures are always the least durable, seeing they are those which
exhaust him most.
That man should be uninterruptedly happy, it would be requisite that his
powers were infinite; it would require that to his mobility he joined
a vigor, attached a solidity, which nothing could change; or else it is
necessary that the objects from which he receives impulse, should either
acquire or lose properties, according to the different states through
which his machine is successively obliged to pass; it would need that
the essences of beings should be changed in the same proportion as
his dispositions; should be submitted to the continual influence of a
thousand causes, which modify him without his knowledge, and in despite
of himself. If, at each moment, his machine undergoes changes more
or less marked, which are ascribable to the different degrees of
elasticity, of density, of serenity of the atmosphere; to the portion
of igneous fluid circulating through his blood; to the harmony of his
organs; to the order that exists between the various parts of his body;
if, at every period of his existence, his nerves have not the same
tensions, his fibres the same elasticity, his mind the same activity,
his imagination the same ardour, &c. it is evident that the same causes
in preserving to him only the same qualities, cannot always affect him
in the same manner. Here is the reason why those objects that please
him in one season displease him in another: these objects have not
themselves sensibly changed; but his organs, his dispositions, his
ideas, his mode of seeing, his manner of feeling, have changed:--such is
the source of man's inconstancy.
If the same objects are not constantly in that state competent to form
the happiness of the same individual, it is easy to perceive that they
are yet less in a capacity to please all men; or that the same happiness
cannot be suitable to all. Beings already various by their temperament,
unlike in their faculties, diversified in their organization, different
in their imagination, dissimilar in their ideas, of distinct opinions,
of contrary habits, which an infinity of circumstances, whether physical
or moral, have variously modified, must necessarily form very different
notions of happiness. Those of a MISER cannot be the same as those of
a PRODIGAL; those of a VOLUPTUARY, the same as those of one who is
PHLEGMATIC; those of an intemperate, the same as those of a rational
man, who husbands his health. The happiness of each, is in consequence
composed of his natural organization, and of those circumstances, of
those habits, of those ideas, whether true or false, that have modified
him: this organization and these circumstances, never being the same
in any two men, it follows, that what is the object of one man's views,
must be indifferent, or even displeasing to another; thus, as we
have before said, no one can be capable of judging of that which may
contribute to the felicity of his fellow man.
_Interest_ is the object to which each individual according to his
temperament and his own peculiar ideas, attaches his welfare; from which
it will be perceived that this interest is never more than that which
each contemplates as necessary to his happiness. It must, therefore, be
concluded, that no man is totally without interest. That of the miser to
amass wealth; that of the prodigal to dissipate it: the interest of the
ambitious is to obtain power; that of the modest philosopher to enjoy
tranquillity; the interest of the debauchee is to give himself up,
without reserve, to all sorts of pleasure; that of the prudent man, to
abstain from those which may injure him: the interest of the wicked is
to gratify his passions at any price: that of the virtuous to merit
by his conduct the love, to elicit by his actions the approbation of
others; to do nothing that can degrade himself in his own eyes.
Thus, when it is said that _Interest is the only motive of human
actions;_ it is meant to indicate that each man labours after his own
manner, to his own peculiar happiness; that he places it in some object
either visible or concealed; either real or imaginary; that the whole
system of his conduct is directed to its attainment. This granted, no
man can be called disinterested; this appellation is only applied to
those of whose motives we are ignorant; or whose interest we approve.
Thus the man who finds a greater pleasure in assisting his friends in
misfortune than preserving in his coffers useless treasure, is called
generous, faithful, and disinterested; in like manner all men are
denominated disinterested, who feel their glory far more precious than
their fortune. In short, all men are designated disinterested who place
their happiness in making sacrifices which man considers costly, because
he does not attach the same value to the object for which the sacrifice
is made.
Man frequently judges very erroneously of the interest of others, either
because the motives that animate them are too complicated for him to
unravel; or because to be enabled to judge of them fairly, it is needful
to have the same eyes, the same organs the same passions, the same
opinions: nevertheless, obliged to form his judgment of the actions
of mankind, by their effect on himself, he approves the interest that
actuates them whenever the result is advantageous for his species:
thus, he admires valour, generosity, the love of liberty, great talents,
virtue, &c. he then only approves of the objects in which the beings
he applauds have placed their happiness; he approves these dispositions
even when he is not in a capacity to feel their effects; but in this
judgment he is not himself disinterested; experience, reflection, habit,
reason, have given him a taste for morals, and he finds as much pleasure
in being witness to a great and generous action, as the man of _virtu_
finds in the sight of a fine picture of which he is not the proprietor.
He who has formed to himself a habit of practising virtue, is a man who
has unceasingly before his eyes the interest that he has in meriting
the affection, in deserving the esteem, in securing the assistance of
others, as well as to love and esteem himself: impressed with these
ideas which have become habitual to him, he abstains even from concealed
crimes, since these would degrade him in his own eyes: he resembles a
man who having from his infancy contracted the habit of cleanliness,
would be painfully affected at seeing himself dirty, even when no one
should witness it. The honest man is he to whom truth has shewn his
interest or his happiness in a mode of acting that others are obliged
to love, are under the necessity to approve for their own peculiar
interest.
These principles, duly developed, are the true basis of morals; nothing
is more chimerical than those which are founded upon imaginary motives
placed out of nature; or upon innate sentiments; which some speculators
have regarded as anterior to man's experience; as wholly independant of
those advantages which result to him from its use: it is the essence of
man to love himself; to tend to his own conservation; to seek to render
his existence happy: thus interest, or the desire of happiness, is the
only real motive of all his actions; this interest depends upon his
natural organization, rests itself upon his wants, is bottomed upon his
acquired ideas, springs from the habits he has contracted: he is without
doubt in error, when either a vitiated organization or false opinions
shew him his welfare in objects either useless or injurious to himself,
as well as to others; he marches steadily in the paths of virtue when
true ideas have made him rest his happiness on a conduct useful to
his species; in that which is approved by others; which renders him an
interesting object to his associates. _Morals_ would be a vain science
if it did not incontestibly prove to man that _his interest consists in
being virtuous._ Obligation of whatever kind, can only be founded upon
the probability or the certitude of either obtaining a good or avoiding
an evil.
Indeed, in no one instant of his duration, can a sensible, an
intelligent being, either lose sight of his own preservation or forget
his own welfare; he owes happiness to himself; but experience quickly
proves to him, that bereaved of assistance, quite alone, left entirely
to himself, he cannot procure all those objects which are requisite to
his felicity: he lives with sensible, with intelligent beings, occupied
like himself with their own peculiar happiness; but capable of assisting
him, in obtaining those objects he most desires; he discovers that these
beings will not be favorable to his views, but when they find their
interest involved; from which he concludes, that his own happiness
demands, that his own wants render it necessary he should conduct
himself at all times in a manner suitable to conciliate the attachment,
to obtain the approbation, to elicit the esteem, to secure the
assistance of those beings who are most capacitated to further his
designs. He perceives, that it is man who is most necessary to the
welfare of man: that to induce him to join in his interests, he ought to
make him find real advantages in recording his projects: but to procure
real advantages to the beings of the human species, is to have virtue;
the reasonable man, therefore, is obliged to feel that it is his
interest to be virtuous. _Virtue is only the art of rendering
himself happy, by the felicity of others_. The virtuous man is he who
communicates happiness to those beings who are capable of rendering his
own condition happy; who are necessary to his conservation; who have the
ability to procure him a felicitous existence.
Such, then, is the true foundation of all morals; merit and virtue are
founded upon the nature of man; have their dependance upon his wants. It
is virtue alone that can render him truly happy: without virtue society
can neither be useful nor indeed subsist; it can only have real utility
when it assembles beings animated with the desire of pleasing each
other, and disposed to labour to their reciprocal advantage: there
exists no comfort in those families whose members are not in the
happy disposition to lend each other mutual succours; who have not a
reciprocity of feeling that stimulates them to assist one another; that
induces them to cling to each other, to support the sorrows of life;
to unite their efforts, to put away those evils to which nature has
subjected them; the conjugal bonds, are sweet only in proportion as they
identify the interest of two beings, united by the want of legitimate
pleasure; from whence results the maintenance of political society, and
the means of furnishing it with citizens. Friendship has charms only
when it more particularly associates two virtuous beings; that is to
say, animated with the sincere desire of conspiring to their reciprocal
happiness. In short, it is only by displaying virtue, that man can merit
the benevolence, can win the confidence, can gain the esteem, of all
those with whom he has relation; in a word, no man can be independently
happy.
Indeed, the happiness of each human individual depends on those
sentiments to which he gives birth, on those feelings which he nourishes
in the beings amongst whom his destiny has placed him; grandeur may
dazzle them; power may wrest from them an involuntary homage; force may
compel an unwilling obedience; opulence may seduce mean, may attract
venal souls; but it is humanity, it is benevolence, it is compassion, it
is equity, that unassisted by these, can without efforts obtain for
him, from those by whom he is surrounded, those delicious sentiments of
attachments, those soothing feelings of tenderness, those sweet ideas of
esteem, of which all reasonable men feel the necessity. To be virtuous
then, is to place his interest in that which accords with the interest
of others; it is to enjoy those benefits, to partake of that pleasure
which he himself diffuses over his fellows. He whom, his nature, his
education, his reflections, his habits, have rendered susceptible of
these dispositions, and to whom his circumstances have given him the
faculty of gratifying them, becomes an interesting object to all those
who approach him: he enjoys every instant, he reads with satisfaction
the contentment, he contemplates with pleasure the joy which he has
diffused over all countenances: his wife, his children, his friends, his
servants greet him with gay, serene faces, indicative of that content,
harbingers of that peace, which he recognizes for his own work: every
thing that environs him is ready to partake his pleasures; to share
his pains; cherished, respected, looked up to by others, every thing
conducts him to agreeable reflections; he knows the rights he has
acquired over their hearts; he applauds himself for being the source
of a felicity that captivates all the world; his own condition, his
sentiments of self-love, become an hundred times more delicious when he
sees them participated by all those with whom his destiny has connected
him. The habit of virtue creates for him no wants but those which virtue
itself suffices to satisfy; it is thus that _virtue is always its own
peculiar reward_, that it remunerates itself with all the advantages
which it incessantly procures for others.
It will be said, and perhaps even proved, that under the present
constitution of things, virtue far from procuring the welfare of those
who practice it frequently plunges man into misfortune; often places
continual obstacles to his felicity; that almost every where it is
without recompence. What do I say? A thousand examples could be adduced
as evidence, that in almost every country it is hated, persecuted,
obliged to lament the ingratitude of human nature. I reply with avowing,
that by a necessary consequence of the errors of his race, virtue
rarely conducts man to those objects in which the uninformed make their
happiness consist. The greater number of societies, too frequently ruled
by those whose ignorance makes them abuse their power,--whose prejudices
render them enemies of virtue,--who flattered by sycophants, secure in
the impunity their actions enjoy, commonly lavish their esteem, bestow
their kindness, on none but the most unworthy objects; reward only the
most frivolous, recompence none but the most prejudicial qualities; and
hardly ever accord that justice to merit which is unquestionably its
due. But the truly honest man, is neither ambitious of renumeration, nor
sedulous of the suffrages of a society thus badly constituted: contented
with domestic happiness, he seeks not to augment relations, which would
do no more than increase his danger; he knows that a vitiated community
is a whirlwind, with which an honest man cannot co-order himself: he
therefore steps aside; quits the beaten path, by continuing in which he
would infallibly be crushed. He does all the good of which he is capable
in his sphere; he leaves the road free to the wicked, who are willing
to wade through its mire; he laments the heavy strokes they inflict on
themselves; he applauds mediocrity that affords him security: he pities
those nations made miserable by their errors,--rendered unhappy by those
passions which are the fatal but necessary consequence; he sees they
contain nothing but wretched citizens, who far from cultivating their
true interest, far from labouring to their mutual felicity, far from
feeling the real value of virtue, unconscious how dear it ought to be
to them, do nothing but either openly attack, or secretly injure it;
in short, who detests a quality which would restrain their disorderly
propensities.
In saying that virtue is its own peculiar reward, it is simply meant to
announce, that in a society whose views were guided by truth, trained
by experience, conducted by reason, each individual would be acquainted
with his real interests; would understand the true end of association;
would have sound motives to perform his duties; find real advantages in
fulfilling them; in fact, it would be convinced, that to render himself
solidly happy, he should occupy his actions with the welfare of his
fellows; by their utility merit their esteem, elicit their kindness, and
secure their assistance. In a well-constituted society, the government,
the laws, education, example, would all conspire to prove to the
citizen, that the nation of which he forms a part, is a whole that
cannot be happy, that cannot subsist without virtue; experience would,
at each step, convince him that the welfare of its parts can only result
from that of the whole body corporate; justice would make him feel, that
no society, can be advantageous to its members, where the volition of
wills in those who act, is not so conformable to the interests of the
whole, as to produce an advantageous re-action.
But, alas! by the confusion which the errors of man have carried into
his ideas: virtue disgraced, banished, and persecuted, finds not one
of those advantages it has a right to expect: man is indeed shewn those
rewards for it in a future life, of which he is almost always deprived
in his actual existence. It is thought necessary to deceive, considered
proper to seduce, right to intimidate him, in order to induce him to
follow that virtue which every thing renders incommodious to him; he
is fed with distant hopes, in order to solicit him to practice virtue,
while contemplation of the world makes it hateful to him; he is
alarmed by remote terrors, to deter him from committing evil, which his
associates paint as amiable; which all conspires to render necessary.
It is thus that politics, thus that superstition, by the formation of
chimeras, by the creation of fictitious interests pretend to supply
those true, those real motives which nature furnishes,--which
experience would point out,--which an enlightened government should
hold forth,--which the law ought to enforce,--which instruction should
sanction,--which example should encourage,-which rational opinions would
render pleasant. Man, blinded by his passions, not less dangerous than
necessary, led away by precedent, authorised by custom, enslaved by
habit, pays no attention to these uncertain promises, is regardless of
the menaces held out; the actual interests of his immediate pleasures,
the force of his passions, the inveteracy of his habits, always rise
superior to the distant interests pointed out in his future welfare,
or the remote evils with which he is threatened; which always appear
doubtful, whenever he compares them with present advantages.
Thus _superstition, far from making man virtuous by principle, does
nothing more than impose upon him a yoke as severe as it is useless_; it
is borne by none but enthusiasts, or by the pusillanimous; who, without
becoming better, tremblingly champ the feeble bit put into their mouth;
who are either rendered unhappy by their opinions, or dangerous by their
tenets; indeed, experience, that faithful monitor, incontestibly
proves, that superstition is a dyke inadequate to resist the torrent
of corruption, to which so many accumulated causes give an irresistible
force: nay more, does not this superstition itself augment the public
disorder, by the dangerous passions which it lets loose, by the conduct
which it sanctions, by the actions which it consecrates? Virtue, in
almost every climate, is confined to some few rational souls, who have
sufficient strength of mind to resist the stream of prejudice; who are
contented by remunerating themselves with the benefits they difuse over
society: whose temperate dispositions are gratified with the suffrages
of a small number of virtuous approvers; in short, who are detached
from those frivolous advantages which the injustice of society but too
commonly accords only to baseness, which it rarely bestows, except to
intrigue, with which in general it rewards nothing but crime.
In despite of the injustice that reigns in the world, there are,
however, some virtuous men in the bosom even of the most degenerate
nations; notwithstanding the general depravity, there are some
benevolent beings, still enamoured of virtue; who are fully acquainted
with its true value; who are sufficiently enlightened to know that
it exacts homage even from its enemies; who to use the language of
ECCLESIASTES, "_rejoice in their own works_;" who are, at least, happy in
possessing contented minds, who are satisfied with concealed pleasures,
those internal recompences of which no earthly power is competent to
deprive them. The honest man acquires a right to the esteem, has a just
claim to the veneration, wins the confidence, gains the love, even of
those whose conduct is exposed by a contrast with his own. In short,
vice is obliged to cede to virtue; of which it blushingly, though
unwillingly, acknowledges the superiority. Independent of this
ascendancy so gentle, of this superiority so grand, of this pre-eminence
so infallible, when even the whole universe should be unjust to him,
when even every tongue should cover him with venom, when even every arm
should menace him with hostility, there yet remains to the honest man
the sublime advantage of loving his own conduct; the ineffable pleasure
of esteeming himself; the unalloyed gratification of diving with
satisfaction into the recesses of his own heart; the tranquil delight
of contemplating his own actions with that delicious complacency that
others ought to do, if they were not hood-winked, No power is adequate
to ravish from him the merited esteem of himself; no authority is
sufficiently potent to give it to him when he deserves it not; the
mightiest monarch cannot lend stability to this esteem, when it is
not well founded; it is then a ridiculous sentiment: it ought to be
considered, it really is "_vanity and vexation of spirit_," it is
not wisdom, but folly in the extreme; it ought to be censured when it
displays itself in a mode that is mortifying to its neighbour, in a
manner that is troublesome to others; it is then called ARROGANCE; it
is called VANITY; but when it cannot be condemned, when it is known for
legitimate when it is discovered to have a solid foundation, when it
bottoms itself upon talents, when it rises upon great actions that are
useful to the community, when it erects its edifice upon virtue; even
though society should not set these merits at their just price, it is
NOBLE PRIDE, ELEVATION OF MIND, and GRANDEUR OF SOUL.
Of what consequence then, is it to listen to those superstitious beings,
those enemies to man's happiness, who have been desirous of destroying
it, even in the inmost recesses of his heart; who have prescribed to him
hatred of his follower; who have filled him with contempt for himself;
who pretend to wrest from the honest man that self-respect which is
frequently the only reward that remains to virtue, in a perverse world.
To annihilate in him this sentiment, so full in justice, this love
of himself, is to break the most powerful spring, to weaken the most
efficacious stimulus, that urges him to act right; that spurs him on to
do good to his fellow mortals. What motive, indeed, except it be this,
remains for him in the greater part of human societies? Is not
virtue discouraged? Is not honesty contemned? Is not audacious crime
encouraged? Is not subtle intrigue eulogized? Is not cunning vice
rewarded? Is not love of the public weal taxed as folly; exactitude in
fulfilling duties looked upon as a bubble? Is not compassion laughed
to scorn? ARE NOT TRAITORS DISTINGUISHED BY PUBLIC HONORS? Is not
negligence of morals applauded,--sensibility derided,--tenderness
scoffed,--conjugal fidelity jeered,--sincerity despised,--enviolable
friendship treated with ridicule: while seduction, adultery,
hard-heartedness, punic faith, avarice, and fraud, stalk forth
unabashed, decked in gorgeous array, lauded by the world? Man must have
motives for action: he neither acts well nor ill, but with a view to his
own happiness: that which he judges will conduce to this "_consummation
so devoutly to be wished_," he thinks his interest; he does nothing
gratuitously; when reward for useful actions is withheld from him, he is
reduced either to become as abandoned as others, or else to remunerate
himself with his own applause.
This granted; the honest man can never be completely unhappy; he can
never be entirely deprived of the recompence which is his due; virtue is
competent to repay him for all the benefits he may bestow on others;
can amply make up to him all the happiness denied him by public opinion;
_but nothing can compensate to him the want of virtue_. It does not
follow that the honest man will be exempted from afflictions: like, the
wicked, he is subject to physical evils; he may pine in indigence; he
may be deprived of friendship; he may be worn down with disease; he may
frequently be the subject of calumny; he may be the victim to injustice;
he may be treated with ingratitude; he may be exposed to hatred; but in
the midst of all his misfortunes, in the very bosom of his sorrows,
in the extremity of his vexation, he finds support in himself; he is
contented with his own conduct; he respects himself; he feels his own
dignity; he knows the equity of his rights; he consoles himself with
the confidence inspired by the justness of his cause; he cheers himself
amidst the most sullen circumstances. These supports are not calculated
for the wicked; they avail him nothing: equally liable with the honest
man to infirmities, equally submitted to the caprices of his destiny,
equally the sport of a fluctuating world, he finds the recesses of his
own heart filled with dreadful alarms; diseased with care; cankered
with solitude; corroded with regret; gnawed by remorse; he dies within
himself; his conscience sustains him not but loads him with reproach;
his mind, overwhelmed, sinks beneath its own turpitude; his reflection
is the bitter dregs of hemlock; maddening anguish holds him to the
mirror that shews him his own deformity; that recalls unhallowed deeds;
gloomy thoughts rush on his too faithful memory; despondence benumbs
him; his body, simultaneously assailed on all sides, bends under the
storm of--his own unruly passions; at last despair grapples him to her
filthy bosom, he flies from himself. The honest man is not an insensible
Stoic; virtue does not procure impassibility; honesty gives no exemption
from misfortune, but it enables him to bear cheerly up against it; to
cast off despair, to keep his own company: if he is infirm, if he is
worn with disease, he has less to complain of than the vicious being
who is oppressed with sickness, who is enfeebled by years; if he is
indigent, he is less unhappy in his poverty; if he is in disgrace, he
can endure it with fortitude, he is not overwhelmed by its pressure,
like the wretched slave to crime.
Thus the happiness of each individual depends on the cultivation of his
temperament; nature makes both the happy and the unhappy; it is culture
that gives value to the soil nature has formed; it is instruction that
makes the fruit it produces palatable; It is reflection that makes it
useful. For man to be happily born, is to have received from nature a
sound body, organs that act with precision--a just mind, a heart
whose passions are analogous, whose desires are conformable to the
circumstances in which his destiny has placed him: nature, then, has
done every thing for him, when she has joined to these faculties the
quantum of vigour, the portion of energy, sufficient to enable him to
obtain those Proper things, which his station, his mode of thinking,
his temperament, have rendered desirable. Nature has made him a fatal
present, when she has filled his sanguinary vessels with an over-heated
fluid; when she has given him an imagination too active; when she has
infused into him desires too impetuous; when he has a hankering
after objects either impossible or improper to be obtained under
his circumstances; or which at least he cannot procure without those
incredible efforts, that either place his own welfare in danger or
disturb the repose of society. The most happy man, is commonly he who
possesses a peaceful soul; who only desires those things which he can
procure by labour, suitable to maintain his activity; which he can
obtain without causing those shocks, that are either too violent for
society, or troublesome to his associates. A philosopher whose wants are
easily satisfied, who is a stranger, to ambition, who is contented with
the limited circle of a small number of friends, is, without doubt a
being much more happily constituted than an ambitious conqueror, whose
greedy imagination is reduced to despair by having only one world to
ravage. He who is happily born, or whom nature has rendered susceptible
of being conveniently modified, is not a being injurious to society: it
is generally disturbed by men who are unhappily born, whose organization
renders them turbulent; who are discontented with their destiny; who are
inebriated with their own licentious passions; who are infatuated with
their own vile schemes; who are smitten with difficult enterprises; who
set the world in combustion, to gather imaginary benefits in order to
attain which they must inflict he heaviest curses on mankind, but in
which they make their own happiness consist. An ALEXANDER requires the
destruction of empires, nations to be deluged with blood, cities to
be laid in ashes, its inhabitants to be exterminated, to content that
passion for glory, of which he has formed to himself a false idea;
but which his too ardent imagination, his too vehement mind anxiously
thirsts after: for a DIOGENES there needs only a tub with the liberty
of appearing whimsical; a SOCRATES wants nothing but the pleasure of
forming disciples to virtue.
Man by his organization is a being to whom motion is always necessary;
he must therefore always desire it: this is the reason why too much
facility In procuring the objects of his search, renders them quickly
insipid. To feel happiness, it is necessary to make efforts to obtain
it; to find charms in its enjoyment, it is necessary that the desire
should be whetted by obstacles; he is presently disgusted with those
benefits which have cost him but little pains. The expectation of
happiness, the labour requisite to procure it, the varied prospects it
holds forth, the multiplied pictures which his imagination forms to him,
supply his brain with that motion for which it has occasion; this gives
impulse to his organs, puts his whole machine into activity, exercises
his faculties, sets all his springs in play, in a word, puts him
into that agreeable activity, for the want of which the enjoyment of
happiness itself cannot compensate him. Action is the true element of
the human mind; as soon as it ceases to act, it falls into disgust,
sinks into lassitude. His soul has the same occasion for ideas, his
stomach has for aliment.
Thus the impulse given him by desire, is itself a great benefit; it is
to the mind what exercise is to the body; without it he would not derive
any pleasure in the aliments presented to him; it is thirst that renders
the pleasure of drinking so agreeable; life is a perpetual circle of
regenerated desires and wants satisfied: repose is only a pleasure to
him who labours; it is a source of weariness, the cause of sorrow,
the spring of vice to him who has nothing to do. To enjoy without
interruption is not to enjoy any thing: the man who has nothing to
desire is certainly more unhappy than he who suffers.
These reflections, grounded upon experience, drawn from the fountain of
truth, ought to prove to man, that good as well as evil depends on the
essence of things. Happiness to be felt cannot be continued. Labour
is necessary, to make intervals between his pleasures; his body has
occasion for exercise, to co-order him with the beings who surround him;
his heart must have desires; trouble alone can give him the right
relish of his welfare; it is this which puts in the shadows, this which
furnishes the true perspective to the picture of human life. By an
irrevocable law of his destiny, man is obliged to be discontented with
his present condition; to make efforts to change it; to reciprocally
envy that felicity which no individual enjoys perfectly. Thus the
poor man envies the opulence of his richer neighbour, although this is
frequently more unhappy than his needy maligner; thus the rich man views
with pain the advantages of a poverty, which he sees active, healthy,
and frequently jocund, even in the bosom of penury.
If man was perfectly contented, there would no longer be any activity in
the world; it is necessary that he should desire; it is requisite that
he should act; it is incumbent he should labour, in order that he may
be happy: such is the course of nature of which the life consists in
action. Human societies can only subsist, by the continual exchange of
those things in which man places his happiness. The poor man is obliged
to desire, he is necessitated to labour, that he may procure what he
knows is requisite to the preservation of his existence; the primary
wants given to him by nature, are to nourish himself, clothe himself,
lodge himself, and propagate his species; has he satisfied these? He
is quickly obliged to create others entirely new; or rather, his
imagination only refines upon the first; he seeks to diversify them; he
is willing to give them fresh zest; arrived at opulence, when he has run
over the whole circle of wants, when he has completely exhausted their
combinations, he falls into disgust. Dispensed from labour, his body
amasses humours; destitute of desires, his heart feels a languor;
deprived of activity, he is obliged to participate his riches, with
beings more active, more laborious than himself: these, following their
own peculiar interests, take upon themselves the task of labouring
for his advantage; of procuring for him means to satisfy his want;
of ministering to his caprices, in order to remove the languor that
oppresses him. It is thus the great, the rich excite the energies, give
play to the activity, rouse the faculties, spur on the industry of the
indigent; these labour to their own peculiar welfare by working for
others: thus the desire of ameliorating his condition, renders man
necessary to his fellow man; thus wants, always regenerating, never
satisfied, are the principles of life,--the soul of activity,--the
source of health,--the basis of society. If each individual was
competent to the supply of his own exigencies, there would be no
occasion for him to congregate in society; but it is his wants, his
desires, his whims, that place him in a state of dependence on others:
these are the causes that each individual, in order to further his
own peculiar interest, is obliged to be useful to those, who have the
capability of procuring for him the objects which he himself has not. A
nation is nothing more than the union of a great number of individuals,
connected with each other by the reciprocity of their wants; by their
mutual desire of pleasure. The most happy man is he who has the fewest
wants, and who has the most numerous means of satisfying them. The
man who would be truly rich, has no need to increase his fortune, it
suffices he should diminish his wants.
In the individuals of the human species, as well as in political
society, the progression of wants, is a thing absolutely necessary; it
is founded upon the essence of man, it is requisite that the natural
wants once satisfied, should be replaced by those which he calls
_Imaginary, or wants of the Fancy:_ these become as necessary to his
happiness as the first. Custom, which permits the native American to go
quite naked, obliges the more civilized inhabitant of Europe to clothe
himself; the poor man contents himself with very simple attire, which
equally serve him for winter and for summer, for autumn and for spring;
the rich man desires to have garments suitable to each mutation of
these seasons; he would experience pain if he had not the convenience
of changing his raiment with every variation of his climate; he would be
wretched if he was obliged to wear the same habiliments in the heat of
summer, which he uses in the winter; in short, he would be unhappy
if the expence and variety of his costume did not display to the
surrounding multitude his opulence, mark his rank, announce his
superiority. It is thus habit multiplies, the wants of the wealthy; it
is thus that vanity itself becomes a want which sets a thousand hands
in, motion, a thousand heads to work, who are all eager to gratify its
cravings; in short, this very vanity procures for the necessitous man,
the means of subsisting at the expense of his opulent neighbours He
who is accustomed to pomp, who is used to ostentatious splendour, whose
habits are luxurious, whenever he is deprived of these insignia of
opulence, to which he has attached the idea of happiness, finds himself
just as unhappy as the needy wretch who has not wherewith to cover his
nakedness. The civilized nations of the present day were in their origin
savages composed of erratic tribes,--mere wanderers who were occupied
with war; employed in, the chace; painfully obliged to seek precarious
subsistence by hunting in those woods which the industry of their
successors has cleared; which their labour has covered with yellow
waving ears of nutritious corn; in time they have become stationary:
they first applied themselves to Agriculture, afterwards to commerce:
by degrees they have refined on their primitive wants, extended their
sphere of action, given birth to a thousand new wants, imagined a
thousand new means to satisfy them; this is the natural course, the
necessary progression, the regular march of active beings, who cannot
live without feeling; who to be happy, must of necessity diversify their
sensations. In proportion as man's wants multiply the means to satisfy
them becomes more difficult, he is obliged to depend on a greater
number of his fellow creatures; his interest obliges him to rouse their
activity; to engage them to concur with his views; consequently he is
obliged to procure for them those objects by which they can be excited;
he is under the necessity of contenting their desires, which increase
like his own, by the very food that satisfies them. The savage
needs only put forth his hand to gather the fruit that offers
itself spontaneously to his reach: this he finds sufficient for his
nourishment. The opulent citizen of a flourishing society is obliged to
set innumerable hands to work to produce the sumptuous repast; the four
quarters of the globe are ransacked to procure the far-fetched viands
become necessary to revive his languid appetite; the merchant,
the sailor, the mechanic, leave nothing unattempted to flatter his
inordinate vanity. From this it will appear, that in the same proportion
the wants of man are multiplied, he is obliged to augment the means to
satisfy them. Riches are nothing more than the measure of a convention,
by the assistance of which man is enabled to make a great number of
his fellows concur in the gratification of his desires; by which he
is capacitated to invite them, for their own peculiar interests, to
contribute to his pleasures. What, in fact, does the rich man do,
except announce to the needy, that he can furnish him with the means of
subsistence if he consents to lend himself to his will? What does the
man in power, except shew to others, that he is in a state to supply
the requisites to render them happy? Sovereigns, nobles, men of wealth,
appear to be happy, only because they possess the ability, are masters
of the motives sufficient to determine a great number of individuals to
occupy themselves with their respective felicity.
The more things are considered the more man will be convinced that his
false opinion are the true source of his misery; the clearer it will
appear to him that happiness is so rare, only because he attaches it
to objects either indifferent or useless to his welfare; which, when
enjoyed, convert themselves into real evils; which afflict him; which
become the cause of his misfortune.
_Riches_ are indifferent in themselves, it is only by their application,
by the purposes they compass, that they either become objects of utility
to man, or are rendered prejudicial to his welfare.
_Money_, useless to the savage who understands not its value, is amassed
by the miser, for fear it should be employed uselessly; lest it should
be squandered by the prodigal; or dissipated by the voluptuary; who make
no other use of it than to purchase infirmities; to buy regret.
Pleasures are nothing for the man who is incapable of feeling them;
they become real evils when they are too freely indulged, when they
are destructive to his health,--when they derange the economy of
his machine,--when they entail diseases on himself and on his
posterity,--when they make him neglect his duties,--when they render him
despicable in the eyes of others.
Power is nothing in itself, it is useless to man if he does not avail
himself of it to promote his own peculiar felicity, by augmenting the
happiness of his species; it becomes fatal to him as soon as he abuses
it; it becomes odious whenever he employs it to render others miserable;
it is always the cause of his own misery whenever he stretches it beyond
the due bounds prescribed by nature.
For want of being enlightened on his true interest, the man who enjoys
all the means of rendering himself completely happy, scarcely ever
discovers the secret of making those means truly subservient to his own
peculiar felicity: the art of enjoying, is that which of all others is
least understood; man should learn this art before he begins to desire;
the earth is covered with individuals who only occupy themselves with
the care of procuring the means without ever being acquainted with the
end. All the world desire fortune, solicit power, seek after pleasure,
yet very few, indeed, are those whom objects render truly happy.
It is quite natural in man, it is extremely reasonable, it is absolutely
necessary, to desire those things which can contribute to augment the
sum of his felicity. _Pleasure, riches, power,_ are objects worthy his
ambition, deserving his most strenuous efforts, when he has learned how
to employ them; when he has acquired the faculty of making them render
his existence really more agreeable. It is impossible to censure him who
desires them, to despise him who commands them, but when to obtain them
he employs odious means; or when after he has obtained them he makes a
pernicious use of them, injurious to himself, prejudicial to others; let
him wish for power, let him seek after grandeur, let him be ambitious
of reputation, when he can shew just pretensions to them; when he can
obtain them, without making the purchase at the expence of his own
repose, or that of the beings with whom he lives: let him desire riches,
when he knows how to make a use of them that is truly advantageous for
himself, really beneficial for others; but never let him employ those
means to procure them of which he may be ashamed; with which he may be
obliged to reproach himself; which may draw upon him the hatred of his
associates; or which may render him obnoxious to the castigation of
society: let him always recollect, that his solid happiness should rest
its foundations upon its own esteem,--upon the advantages he procures
for others; above all, never let him for a moment forget, that of all
the objects to which his ambition may point, the most impracticable for
a being who lives in society, is that of _attempting to render himself
exclusively happy_.