Allan Kardec-THE Spirit's Book_ The Principles of Spiritist Doctrine (1989)

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ALLAN KARDEC
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.
Necessaries and Superfluities.
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."