The Athenian Demades condemned a man from his city, who made a business of selling the things necessary for burials, under the pretext that he demanded too much profit from them, and that this profit could not come to him without the death of many people. This judgment was poorly conceived, because all profit derives from the expense of others, and if the punishment in this case was just, then all gain should be condemned.
The merchant does well in business only because of the debauchery of youth. The plowman requires the high price of wheat; the architect, in the ruin of houses; lawyers, in the trials and quarrels of men; even the honor and practice of the ministers of religion is drawn from our death and our vices. No doctor takes pleasure in the health of his friends, says the ancient Greek comedian, nor a soldier in the peace of his city: so it is with the rest.
And what is worse, if each one searches within himself, he will find that our innermost desires for the most part are born and nourished at the expense of others. Considering this, it occurred to me, as nature never betrays its general policy in this, for physicists maintain that the birth, nourishment and growth of each thing is the alteration and corruption of another:
For whatever comes out changed from its ends, This is the death of that which was before. (Lucretius)