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Society And its Purpose

Book 4 - Psychological Laws and the End of Civil Societies

CHAPTER 13

Satisfied and unsatisfied capacity

640. As capacity opens up more and more through the development of the powers, the human spirit becomes susceptible of pleasant or painful new states.

If capacity is not satisfied by the objects presented to it, the spirit becomes troubled, wretched, deprived. On the other hand, if capacity is satisfied through the acquisition and enjoyment of the objects it longs for, human desire is appeased, and we have the state of spirit I have called contentment.

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