(Image from the Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection at Duke University)
(Image from the Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection
at Duke University)
"Tout mécanisme essentiellement composé, qu'on veut réduire au simple, n'arrive point au simple, mais tombe en composé subversif ou conflit de ses deux éléments."
"Every essentially compound mechanism, that one wants to reduce to a simple one, does not reach the simple one, but falls into subversive compound or conflict of its two elements."
Animals have a simple nature, they attain simple happiness by satisfying simple needs. Man has a composite nature, body and soul, passion and reason, nature and culture, production and consumption; his needs, relations and actions combine several elements, and so his fate is dualized: either composite happiness, or composite unhappiness.
Therefore successful ends require composite means. All solutions to problems must involve a combination of several resorts from different orders.
"God does not want the relief of poors in Civilization." Indeed civilized poor relief is a form of simple and incomplete happiness; the fate of the overwhelming majority is either misery, frustration, and repugnant labour in Civilization, or graduated wealth, pleasures, and passionate labour in Harmony.
All pleasures should combine several passions, both material and spiritual, for example: sharing a good bottle with a good friend, gaining wealth together with honour, opera (story and music), composite love (both celadony and lust). Simple pleasures must be spurned, except as a form of rest and relay between composite charms.