711. Have all men a right to the usufruct of the products of the earth?

"That right is a consequence of the necessity of living. God cannot have imposed a duty without having given the means of discharging it."

712. Why has God attached an attraction to the enjoyment of material things?

"In order, first, to excite man to the accomplishment of his mission, and next, to try him by temptation."

– What is the aim of temptation?

"To develop his reason, that it may preserve him from excesses."

If man had only been urged to the using of the things of the earthly life by a conviction of their utility, his indifference to them might have compromised the harmony of the universe. Cod has therefore given him the pleasurable attractions that solicit him to the accomplishing of the views of Providence. But God has also willed, through this attraction, to try man by temptations that incite him to abuses against which his reason should protect him.

713. Has nature marked out the proper limits of corporeal satisfactions?

"Yes, limits that coincide with your needs and your well-being. When you overstep them, you bring on satiety, and thus punish yourselves."

714. What is to be thought of the man who seeks to enhance corporeal enjoyments by inventing artificial excesses?

"Think of him as a poor wretch who is to be pitied rather than envied, for he is very near death."

– Do you mean to physical death, or to moral death?

"To both."

The man who, in pursuit of corporeal satisfactions, seeks an enhancement of those satisfactions in any kind of excess, places himself below the level of the brute, for the brute goes no farther than the satisfaction of a need. He abdicates the reason given to him by God for his guidance; and the greater his excesses, the more dominion does he give to his animal nature over his spiritual nature. The maladies and infirmities, often occasioning death, that are the consequences of excess in the satisfaction of any corporeal attraction, are also punishments for thus transgressing the law of God.