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 n