THE
WORLD says: "You have desires and so satisfy them, for you have the same
rights as the most rich and powerful. Don't be afraid of satisfying them and
even multiply your desires." That is the modern doctrine of the world. In
that they see freedom. And what follows from this right of multiplication of
desires? In the rich, isolation and spiritual suicide; in the poor, envy and
murder; for they have been given rights, but have not been shown the means
of satisfying their wants. They maintain that the world is getting more and
more united, more and more bound together in brotherly community, as it
overcomes distance and sets thoughts flying through the air.
Alas, put no faith in such a bond of union. Interpreting freedom as the
multiplication and rapid satisfaction of desires, men distort their own
nature, for many senseless and foolish desires and habits and ridiculous
fancies are fostered in them. They live only for mutual envy, for luxury and
ostentation. To have dinners visits, carriages, rank, and slaves to wait on
one is looked upon as a necessity, for which life, honour and human feeling
are sacrificed, and men even commit suicide if they are unable to satisfy
it. We see the same thing among those who are not rich, while the poor drown
their unsatisfied need and their envy in drunkenness. But soon they will
drink blood instead of wine, they are being led on to it. I ask you is such
a man free? I knew one "champion of freedom" who told me himself that, when
he was deprived of tobacco in prison, he was so wretched at the privation
that he almost went and betrayed his cause for the sake of getting tobacco
again! And such a man says, "I am fighting for the cause of humanity."
