First, the spectre of a population explosion that would make most lives miserable appears, as we have seen, to be unfounded. Once this danger is removed, if one considers the realities of ‘bourgeois’ life – but not utopian demands for a life free of all conflict, pain, lack of fulfilment, and, indeed, morality – one might think the pleasures and stimulations of civilisation not a bad bargain for those who do not yet enjoy them.
