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

301
THE SPIRITS’ BOOK
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.
Voluntary Privations.
718. Does the law of self-preservation make it our duty to provide for our bodily wants?
"Yes; without physical health and strength, labour is impossible."
719. Is it blameable in a man to seek after the comforts and enjoyments of corporeal life?
"The desire of corporeal well-being is natural to man. God only prohibits excess, because
excess is inimical to preservation; He has not made it a crime to seek after enjoyment, if that
enjoyment be not acquired at another's expense, and if it be riot of a nature to weaken either
your moral or your physical strength."
720. Are voluntary privations, in view of a voluntary expiation, meritorious in the sight of
God?
"Do good to others, and you will thereby acquire more merit than is to be acquired by any
self-imposed privations."
-Is any voluntary privation meritorious?
"Yes; the self-privation of useless indulgences, because it loosens man's hold on matter, and
elevates his soul. What is meritorious is resistance to the temptation that solicits to excess or
to indulgence in what is useless; it is the cutting down even of your necessaries, that you may
have more to give to those who are in want. If your privations are only a vain pretence, they
are a mere mockery."
721. At every period in the past, and among all peoples, there have been men who have lived
a life of ascetic mortification; is such a life meritorious from any point of view?