Nevertheless, what has been achieved is of value, and it is childish to depreciate it. Paradoxical minds, like J. J. Rousseau and his parrot-like imitators, may deny the use of all civilization and declare that the so-called state of nature, the ignorance and helplessness of undeveloped man amid all too mighty Nature, is preferable. That is an intellectual joke which is not very amusing. We have not vanquished death, but we have prolonged life, as the mortality statistics prove. We cannot cure all diseases; crowded dwellings in great cities, the nature and intensity of our occupations--civilization, in short--bring diseases from which we should probably not suffer if we were savages; but the cave-dwellers, too, were subject to illnesses, and our antisepsis and hygiene effectually prevent many and grave bodily ills. Division of labour makes the individual dependent on the whole economic organism; it makes it easier for the favoured few to exploit the many and to be parasites at their expense, but nevertheless the individual can more easily satisfy his needs than if, being completely free and independent, he alone had to provide all the objects he requires. The speed and facility with which the exchange of goods is effected, thanks to ever new and ever more excellent means of communication, often give rise to artificial wants; cheap travel occasions useless restlessness, but the emancipation of the individual from the place of his birth, the conversion of the whole globe into one single economic domain, of which every part with its own particular superabundance of men and products supplies the lack of the same in other parts, has at least this invaluable advantage, that it makes man more independent of local hazards and makes the earth more habitable for him. Many things provided by civilization are obtainable only by the rich, and the spectacle of the luxury of these favoured mortals makes the lot of the poor harder to bear, but the possibility of working one's way up into the ranks of the fortunate is a mighty spur to strong characters, and gives rise to efforts which are profitable to many. All the great technical achievements of civilization can certainly not bring happiness either to the individual or to the community, because happiness is a spiritual state which does not depend on bodily satisfactions and, though it may be troubled by material conditions, can never be created by them; but the moments of happiness which the individual experiences derive an extraordinary intensity from the instruments of civilization which surround and serve us.