Use of external goods.—They are means and not ends: avarice, cupidity, prodigality.
It is not the degree of riches, it is the spirit in which we seek or possess them, which is the object of a moral rule.
Economy, a mean between prodigality and avarice.
Economy and saving are not only duties of self-preservation, but of dignity.
Maxims of Franklin.—The prodigal and the miser, according to Aristotle.
Acquisition of external things.—Universal law of work.—Servile and free work.—Nobility of work.
Work is a pleasure, a necessity, a duty.
142. Necessity of external goods.—External goods are as necessary to man as is his body: for it is in the first place a fundamental law of beings physically organized, that they only subsist by means of a continual exchange of their component parts, with foreign substances. Life is a circulation, a vortex: we lose and acquire; we return to nature what it gave us, and we take from it back again in exchange what we need to repair our losses. There follows from this that certain external things, especially food, are indispensable to our existence, and that it is absolutely necessary that we be in sure possession of them in order to be ourselves sure of life.
Food is not the only need of man. Shelter and clothing, without being as rigorously indispensable (especially in warm countries), are nevertheless of great utility to maintain a certain equilibrium between the temperature of our bodies and the external temperature; for it is well known that the derangement of this equilibrium is one of the most ordinary causes of illness. Nature not having clothed man as she has the other animals, he is obliged to provide himself with clothes by his industry. As for habitations, several animals know as well as man how to construct them: for example, beavers and rabbits; and despite the indisputable superiority of his art, this is yet, as we see for man, but the development of an instinct which he shares with other creatures.
These various wants, then, which to be satisfied demand a certain number of material objects, such as food, houses, clothing, etc., carry with them others in their train: for example, the need of locomotion to procure what is wanted: hence, carriages, boats, etc.;—the need of protecting one’s self against those who would take from us what we possess: hence, arms of every kind;—the need of repose and order in the house: hence, furniture of every sort;—in a higher degree again the need of pleasing the imagination: hence, works of art, pictures, statuary;—the need of information: hence, books, etc.