with slight misfortunes. If
the body be too much at ease the moral nature becomes corrupted. The
man unacquainted with suffering would not know the tender feelings of
humanity or the sweetness of compassion; he would not be a social
being; he would be a monster among his kind.

The surest way to make a child unhappy is to accustom him to obtain
everything he wants to have. For, since his wishes multiply in
proportion to the ease with which they are gratified, your inability to
fulfil them will sooner or later oblige you to refuse in spite of
yourself, and this unwonted refusal will pain him more than withholding
from him what he demands. At first he will want the cane you hold;
soon he will want your watch; afterward he will want the bird he sees
flying, or the star he sees shining. He will want everything he sees,
and without being God himself how can you content him?

Man is naturally disposed to regard as his own whatever is within his
power. In this sense the principle of Hobbes is correct up to a
certain point; multiply with our desires the means of satisfying them,
and each of us will make himself master of everything. Hence the child
who has only to wish in order to obtain his wish, thinks himself the
owner of the universe. He regards all men as his slaves, and when at
last he must be denied something, he, believing everything possible
when he commands it, takes refusal for an act of rebellion. At his
age, incapable of reasoning, all reasons given seem to him only
pretexts. He sees ill-will in everything; the feeling of imagined
injustice embitters his temper; he begins to hate everybody, and
without ever being thankful for kindness, is angry at any opposition
whatever.

Who supposes that a child thus ruled by anger, a prey to furious
passions, can ever be happy? He happy? He is a tyrant; that is, the
vilest of slaves, and at the same time the most miserable of beings. I
have seen children thus reared who wanted those about them to push the
house down, to give them the weathercock they saw on a steeple, to stop
the march of a regiment so that they could enjoy the drum-beat a little
longer; and as soon as obedience to these demands was delayed they rent
the air with their screams, and would listen to no one. In vain
everybody tried eagerly to gratify them. The ease with which they
found their wishes obeyed stimulated them to desire more, and to be
stubborn about impossibilities. Everywhere they