715. How can men know the limit of what is necessary?

"Wise men know it by intuition; others learn it through experience, and to their cost."

716. Has not nature traced out the limit of our needs in the requirements of our organisation?

"Yes, but man is insatiable. Nature has indicated the limits of his needs by his organisation; but his vices have deteriorated his constitution, and created for him wants that are not real needs."

717. What is to be thought of those who monopolise the productions of the earth, in order to procure for themselves superfluities, at the expense of others who lack the necessaries of life?

"They forget the law of God, and will have to answer for the privations they have caused others to endure."

There is no absolute boundary-line between the necessary and the superfluous. Civilisation has created necessities that do not exist for the savage; and the spirits who have dictated the foregoing precepts do not mean to assert that civilised men should live like the savage. All things are relative; and the function of reason is to determine the part to be allotted to each. Civilisation develops the moral sense, and, at the same time, the sentiment of charity, which leads men to give to each other mutual support. Those who live at the expense of other men's privations monopolise the benefits of civilisation for their own profit; they have only the varnish of civilisation, as others have only the mask of religion.