Materialism

from the book "Morals and Dogma" by Albert Pike, 1871

A free people, forgetting that it has a soul to be cared for, devotes all its energies to its material advancement.

The citizens copy after the State, and regard wealth, pomp, and luxury as the great goods of life. Such a nation creates wealth rapidly and distributes it badly. Thence the two extremes, of monstrous opulence and monstrous misery; all the enjoyment to a few, all the privations to the rest.