Do you think any man can find true happiness elsewhere than in his natural state; and when you try to spare him all suffering, are you not taking him out of his natural state?  Indeed I maintain that to enjoy great happiness he must experience slight ills; such is his nature.  Too much bodily prosperity corrupts the morals.  A man who knew nothing of suffering would be incapable of tenderness towards his fellow-creatures and ignorant of the joys of pity; he would be hard-hearted, unsocial, a very monster among men.

Do you know the surest way to make your child miserable?  Let him have everything he wants; for as his wants increase in proportion to the ease with which they are satisfied, you will be compelled, sooner or later, to refuse his demands, and this unlooked-for refusal will hurt him more than the lack of what he wants.  He will want your stick first, then your watch, the bird that flies, or the star that shines above him.  He will want all he sets eyes on, and unless you were God himself, how could you satisfy him?

Man naturally considers all that he can get as his own.  In this sense Hobbes’ theory is true to a certain extent:  Multiply both our wishes and the means of satisfying them, and each will be master of all.  Thus the child, who has only to ask and have, thinks himself the master of the universe; he considers all men as his slaves; and when you are at last compelled to refuse, he takes your refusal as an act of rebellion, for he thinks he has only to command.  All the reasons you give him, while he is still too young to reason, are so many pretences in his eyes; they seem to him only unkindness; the sense of injustice embitters his disposition; he hates every one.  Though he has never felt grateful for kindness, he resents all opposition.

How should I suppose that such a child can ever be happy?  He is the slave of anger, a prey to the fiercest passions.  Happy!  He is a tyrant, at once the basest of slaves and the most wretched of creatures.  I have known children brought up like this who expected you to knock the house down, to give them the weather-cock on the steeple, to stop a regiment on the march so that they might listen to the band; when they could not get their way they screamed and cried and would pay no attention to any one.  In vain everybody strove to please them; as their desires were stimulated by the ease with which they got their own way, they set their hearts on impossibilities, and found themselves face to face with opposition and difficulty, pain and grief.  Scolding, sulking, or in a rage, they wept and cried all day.  Were they really so greatly favoured?  Weakness, combined with love of power, produces nothing but folly and suffering.  One spoilt child beats the table; another whips the sea.  They may beat and whip long enough before they find contentment.