would they not find something else, and quarrel for it instead?

L. No. Wherever legislators have succeeded in excluding, for a
time, jewels and precious metals from among national possessions,
the national spirit has remained healthy. Covetousness is not
natural to man--generosity is; but covetousness must be excited by
a special cause, as a given disease by a given miasma; and the
essential nature of a material for the excitement of covetousness
is, that it shall be a beautiful thing which can be retained
without a use. The moment we can use our possessions to any good
purpose ourselves, the instinct of communicating that use to
others rises side by side with our power. If you can read a book
rightly, you will want others to hear it; if you can enjoy a
picture rightly, you will want others to see it: learn how to
manage a horse, a plough, or a ship, and you will desire to make
your subordinates good horsemen, ploughmen, or sailors; you will
never be able to see the fine instrument you are master of,
abused; but, once fix your desire on anything useless, and all the
purest pride and folly in your heart will mix with the desire, and
make you at last wholly inhuman, a mere ugly lump of stomach and
suckers, like a cuttle-fish.

SIBYL. But surely, these two beautiful things, gold and diamonds,
must have been appointed to some good purpose?

L. Quite conceivably so, my dear: as also earthquakes and
pestilences; but of such ultimate purposes we can have no sight.
The practical, immediate office of the earthquake and pestilence
is to slay us, like moths; and, as moths, we shall be wise to live
out of their way. So, the practical, immediate office of gold and