Upon the contingency of a rainy day it is always pleasant to have
something to read in the mountains. A friend of mine gave me a pamphlet
written by one Herbert Spencer, entitled “Education.” A level-headed
appreciative friend who understands one’s needs, is a good thing to
have. Education was my necessity. After being educated I became hungry
for more. My friend had said there were “some good things in Herbert;
that he was a philosopher, but given to infidelity.” I discovered that
Herbert had written a library; I had, then, so to speak, the wide world
from which to choose. I am a seeker after happiness, so I selected
“Social Statics, or the Conditions Essential to Human Happiness.” If
there is any one thing that I enjoy more than another, it is happiness.
Having secured the key to the “Essential Conditions,” I felt as I
imagine a hungry and ragged prospector feels when the assayer tells him
he has “struck it,” and drew heavy drafts on the future, just as any
prospector does. The “Essential Conditions” being philosophy, is not dry
reading as you may imagine, that is on a rainy day in camp. It is good
as a comedy.
Dickens tells us that the editor of the Etanswill _Gazette_ employed a
savan to write an article on Chinese Metaphysics, and that the learned
gentleman did it after this fashion: He consulted the Encyclopedia
Britannica, first under the title “Chinese,” and second under the title
“Metaphysics,” and combined his information. The editor gravely informed
Mr. Pickwick that the essay caused a sensation, as no doubt it did, and
Her Majesty’s minions were put on the lookout for an escaped lunatic.
Sometimes, while studying the “Conditions”—you study and do not read
philosophy—I thought Herbert, when he labored on the “Conditions,” must
have been a very old man, in his second childhood, for instance, and
troubled with dyspepsia. Sometimes that he must have been young, very
young, staggering under a heterogeneous load of information that had
got the better of his mental calibre; that his mind, so to speak,
was in the condition of a few acres of undergrowth just after a
hurricane—demoralized, as it were. Sometimes—when his arguments
reminded me of a horde of inebriated aborigines, each ready to kill his
neighbor—that he must have been in good condition, with a view to
sensation and ducats, and that if his theories, conceding he had any,
could, by any conceivable method be put into practice, it would be when
“chaos was come again,” but that his Christian readers wouldn’t see the
joke, would take him to be serious, and advertise him with abuse.
“There are some good things in Herbert,” of course; I enjoyed them;
unless a thing is good you cannot enjoy it; the only one to doubt this
would be Herbert. He himself is an argument against total depravity, yet
if you can find that he admits the contrary as to all humanity, except
Herbert, call me Ananias, and his wife too.
What has Herbert Spencer got to do with Middle Park and trout fishing?
you inquire. Not anything, except that he says no fellow has a right to
own a mine; that if he—the fellow, I mean—finds a good mine, it
belongs to everybody, and he must ask everybody’s permission to work it
and convert the proceeds to his own use. I wish I were everybody, or
“Society,” as Herbert calls it, I’d go right over to Leadville or Rabbit
Ear Range and assert my rights. Being everybody, nobody else would be
around to say anything, except the fellow who had the mine. If he
undertook to draw his gun, I’d stand up in front of him and argue the
point, while I went round behind him and took away his six-shooter.
Being everybody, this would be easy to do. Then I’d let the fellow go
find another mine, and everybody would go and tell him he was a
claim-jumper and “must light out;” and I’d keep on until I had corraled
all the good mines in the state. Then I’d go down to New York and
interview Mr. Vanderbilt and other millionaires, and convince them that
they entertained a mistaken notion as to the ownership of the many odd
millions of government securities and sundry moneys and valuables, real
and personal, said to be in their names. When I’d got all that, I’d
buy—no, I wouldn’t—I’d take possession of New York; after that I
should be capable of anything—except managing Mr. Conkling.
But I hear you inquire again: What has all this to do with Middle Park
and trout fishing? Not anything. But that I am puzzled to know, under
the circumstances, what I am to do with the gentleman last above named.
If Herbert were only here he could, perhaps, help me out of my dilemma;
he can set up a dilemma and help himself out of it as easy as—falling
off a precipice, and there is nothing hard about that till you get to
the bottom. It must be because his dilemmas are all imaginary, or that
mine is not a dilemma. Let us see what he says of one of his: “Of this
(dilemma) nothing can be said, save that it seems in part due to the
impossibility of making the perfect law recognize an imperfect state,
and in part to that defect in our powers of expression. As matters
stand, however, we must deal with it as best we may.” See how he has
helped himself out of that! There is a world of wisdom in it all,
especially the last sentence, I know, if I could only find it. But
that’s the trouble with Herbert—You ask him for bread and he gives you
a stone. I know I can do as best I may, but I want to know what to do
with Conkling; I cannot go on and perfect my monopoly according to
Herbert’s philosophy without disposing of Roscoe. This planet is not big
enough for both. I am in possession of all worth having. It is well
demonstrated that two bodies cannot occupy the same space. He is too old
to educate. I am, as Herbert’s disciple, opposed to coercion. Everybody,
that’s me, is entitled to his own free will, but here I can’t have mine.
He says that nothing can be said, and yet all the newspapers of the
country, for three or four months, have been saying a great deal. Then
he tells me of the difficulty of making the perfect law—that’s me,
again—recognize the imperfect state—that’s Roscoe. But the latter
makes me recognize him. What use is there in telling me I may deal with
him as best I may? I didn’t need a philosopher to tell me that. I want
that impossible possibility of Herbert’s—a perfect law. I am in some
degree mercenary; everybody is. If I had that law it would be a
curiosity, valuable as some of the mines voluntarily surrendered, as
already stated, and particularly valuable at this crisis. I want to know
how to dispose of Conkling.
You ask me again: What has this to do with trout fishing and Middle
Park? and what good is it? Nothing, except it is some of Herbert’s
philosophy considered in a light atmosphere; where the air is thin, and
you can see a great way, it is easier discovering obscure objects in the
distance. Herbert could not have expressed himself more clearly.
Well, all right; I’ll stop right here. But I would like to say just a
word about Herbert’s style. I like his style—when I can understand what
it is. His arguments are something between black-letter Norman-French
and a fashionable bonnet. The one is incomprehensible to the ordinary
mind, and the other is a delightful combination of vagaries. Good-bye,
Herbert. I hope you will have a good time. But if you don’t find it
harder work traveling over your own turnpike with the load you have on
than driving a jack train over a blind trail, you can set me down for a
fool or a philosopher—the difference is so slight that one may be happy
as either.
The conditions essential to happiness are three, and may be described
thus: Two primary, and one primary and secondary, or primary or
secondary, depending altogether upon the existence of the two primary.
Thus: the first condition essential to happiness is—that is human
happiness; “I do not wish to be misunderstood,” nor have the happiness
of which I am now writing “confounded (nonsense! No, sir) with some
other” happiness—an appetite; this is the first primary. (No, sir! I am
not a ward politician.) Let me repeat: the first condition essential to
happiness is an appetite. The second primary condition essential is a
good digestion. Dependent upon these two is the third condition
essential, which may be called something to eat. Thus, if the appetite
and digestion are good, the third—something to eat—becomes an
essential condition and primary. If the appetite and digestion, or
either, is impaired, the third essential condition becomes secondary or
useless, so to speak. These, the essential conditions, concurring in one
man, he is capable of happiness, mental and physical, otherwise not.
Observe, I do not affirm he will be or is happy, but that he is capable,
merely, of happiness. The conditions essential must concur, however, and
in one man. This is a necessity more than a condition, and may be called
properly a concurrent necessity, rather than a condition essential. But
the appetite requires food. I mean by this that the appetite of the
man—and the term is used in a generic sense and includes women—the
most superficial thinker will concede without argument that there must
be a man to have the appetite; the man, therefore, will be understood,
thus: The appetite of the man requires food. If he have the appetite and
not the food, the conditions are non-concurrent. If he have the food and
not the appetite, there is a similar, but not exactly parallel,
non-concurrence. If he have the appetite and the food and the dyspepsia,
which is the corollary of indigestion, and the opposite of good
digestion, or equivalent to no digestion at all, there is a lack of the
conditions essential. It would seem, therefore, that there are only
three conditions essential, but those three must necessarily concur in
one man before he can be happy.
I like positive people with positive opinions, not people who are
perpetually preferring exceptions. Now I have one of those non-committal
mortals, who is willing to admit that my conclusion is correct,
indisputable in fact, _except_ that I have not taken into consideration
the possible non-concurrence of the conditions essential in the event
that the food, admitted, has not been properly prepared. While I am free
to admit that I have not as yet discovered anything esthetic about the
mere operation of eating, and, farther, that it is purely an animal
necessity, yet I must contend that the preparation of the food is so far
secondary as to be a condition non-essential, as I will now proceed
to——.
Well, just as you say; I’m never disposed to bore one if I can help it,
though you might have so augured in the premises, after reading the
title. Do not swear. I give Herbert up with regret; the sun has come out
after the rain, and it is delightful outside this canvas house of mine.
The air is fresh with the new dampness, and the rain-drops will not
linger long in the shirt fronts of the mountain daisies. What could I
have done this afternoon if not for Herbert?
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