good by arming him against the evils he will have to bear. If he
had his choice, would he hesitate for a moment between you and me?

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;