SECT. III.] BARBARISM AND CIVILIZATION. 383 



nature prepares for him ; hence the civilized man desires no 

 change in his mode of life, nor does the primitive man desire 

 to emerge from the state of nature. Nature acts equitably to- 

 wards both ; the more our capacity for enjoyment, and the greater 

 its intensity, the more the capacity for suffering increases, 

 as pleasure and pain flow from the same source, from the 

 possession and loss of the same goods. All the modes of 

 life in human society are equal in the amount of gratification 

 which they afford to man ; it is better to abstain from com- 

 paring their relative value, and to consider them merely 

 collectively as a grand spectacle in the changes and evolutions 

 in which they take a part. 



We might certainly regret the restlessness with which the 

 civilized man strives to improve his position, the efforts which 

 he makes to pursue his object, and the sufferings and the de- 

 privations which he encounters in his pursuit. The desire for 

 a deeper signification of human life would thus be an error, 

 a mournful product of a perverted culture, the thirst after 

 intelligence, neither better nor nobler than the thirst for water. 

 The history of mankind would thus only exhibit the melan- 

 choly spectacle in which, notwithstanding the greatest efforts, 

 there would only be obtained the common object which na- 

 ture attains in every animal, namely, a constant sum of en- 

 joyment. 



The wonderful design in the construction of separate parts 

 contradicts, however, the idea of viewing the world as an aimless 

 combination of forces. The natural laws sufficiently indicate 

 that the object of nature is not merely the production of the 

 greatest possible sum of enjoyment : although the sum of en- 

 joyment may not be increased by civilization, yet the mode of 

 enjoyment is essentially altered by it. The great value of 

 civilization above the primitive state lies chiefly in this, that 

 it places human life upon a different foundation from that in 

 which it took root. In the natural state it was the indivi- 

 dual interest which, in the form of the instinct of self-preser- 

 vation and sensual enjoyment, acted exclusively on man, whilst 

 in the civilized state the general interests begin to predo- 

 minate. Enjoyment is in its nature confined to the individual ; 



