Society And its Purpose
Book 3 - Determining the End of Civil Societies
CHAPTER 7
Summary
392. What has been said enables us to understand how the practical reason of the masses make use of the political criterion we have described. This reason successively places the proximate end of civil society in four different objects each of which, as the aim of the collective or social will, corresponds to some imperfect, temporary contentment. As the will loses its initial satisfaction, society takes a step forward. The collective will, having lost faith in the illusion created by its own imagination and hope, seeks contentment elsewhere.
393. The instability of popular satisfaction shows that none of the four good objects can provide the full contentment human beings desire. Worst of all, the moderate, just affection the masses have for these objects gradually degenerates. At this point, each good is not only unsuitable for producing imperfect contentment; against every expectation, it causes profound, incurable unhappiness. People in this condition are like drunks who think their only remedy lies in yet another drink. The analysis of such a miserable state of society deserves separate consideration and will be the subject of the following book.