PART I.

Produced by Julia Miller, Carol Brown and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This

file was produced from images generously made available

by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

THE

PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

A BOOK OF

STUDIES AND STROWINGS

BY

DANIEL G. BRINTON, A.M., M.D., LL.D.

AUTHOR OF “RACES AND PEOPLES,” “THE MYTHS OF THE NEW WORLD,” “ESSAYS

OF AN AMERICANIST,” ETC., ETC.

PHILADELPHIA

DAVID MCKAY, PUBLISHER

NO. 23 SOUTH NINTH STREET

1893

COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY D. G. BRINTON.

WM. F. FELL & CO.,

ELECTROTYPERS AND PRINTERS

1220-24 SANSOM ST.,

PHILADELPHIA.

TO THE

HON. GEORGE PIERCE ANDREWS,

JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK,

This Book is Inscribed,

IN MEMORY OF A FRIENDSHIP WHICH HAS CONTINUED

UNINTERRUPTED SINCE OUR EARLIEST

COLLEGE DAYS.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident,――that all men are created

equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable

rights; that among these are life, liberty, and THE PURSUIT OF

HAPPINESS.”――_The Declaration of Independence of the United States of

America._

“The sun and stars that float in the open air,

The apple-shaped earth and we upon it, surely the drift of them is

something grand,

I do not know what it is except that it is something grand, and

that it is Happiness.”

_――Walt Whitman._

CONTENTS.

PART I.

Happiness as the Aim of Life.

I. _Is a Guide to Happiness Possible? And if Possible, is it

Desirable?_

Objections to the Pursuit of Happiness as a Low and Selfish

Aim.――Answered by the Fact that we Cannot do Otherwise than Pursue

it.――Enjoyment is not a Sin, but a Duty.――No One Can Impart

Happiness who does not Possess it Himself.――It is Desirable,

therefore, that Men be Taught How to become Happy.――Nor is this a

Commendation of Selfishness, pp. 9-14

II. _The Definition of Happiness._

Happiness is not Pleasure, but is Built Upon it.――Explanation of

Pleasure and Pain in Sensation.――Happiness Dependent on the Will

and Self-consciousness.――Difference Between Self-feeling and

Self-seeking.――Happiness is the Increasing Consciousness of

Self.――It may be Derived from Other than Pleasurable

Feelings.――The Yearning for Joy is a Cry of Nature.――It is the

Secret of Evolution, pp. 15-20

III. _The Relative Value of Pleasures._

All Pleasures are Inseparably Connected.――The Error of Religions and

Philosophies which Condemn Any.――Escape from Pain the Lowest Form

of Pleasure.――Indifference to Pleasure a Sign of Mental

Failing.――Contentment is not Happiness.――Happiness means Expansion

and Growth.――Practical Difficulty in Comparing Pleasures.――The

Hierarchy of Enjoyments.――The Blunders of Asceticism.――The

Equality of Pleasures, as Such, pp. 21-25

IV. _The Distribution of Happiness._

Relation of Happiness to the Means of Happiness.――Law of the “Rate

of Pleasure.”――The Extremes of the Social Order Equally

Unfavorable.――Civilization does not Increase Personal

Enjoyment.――Social Evils Diminish, but Personal Sufferings

Increase.――The Motive of the True Civilization.――Women Have Less

Happiness than Men.――Partly through their Physical Nature, Partly

through Social Impositions.――Pernicious, Legal and Ecclesiastical

Restrictions.――The True and False Education of Women.――Man will

Profit by Woman’s Improvement.――Childhood and Youth not the

Happiest Periods of Life.――Enjoyment Should Increase with Mental

and Physical Vigor.――Old Age is not the Period of Wisdom.――Spurious

Enjoyments of the Aged. pp. 26-35

V. _Principles of a Self-Education for the Promotion of One’s Own

Happiness._

Happiness is the Reward of Effort.――The Greatest Efficiency is not

the Greatest Happiness.――The Principles of a Self-Education:――I.

The Multiplication of the Sources of Enjoyment――What these Sources

Are――The Avoidance of Profitless Pain――The Value of Knowledge――The

True End of Culture――Falsity of “Contentment with Little.”――The

Kind of Knowledge Required:――1. Of Our Bodily Constitution――2. Of

the Elements of the Sciences――3. Of the Nature of the Mind――4. Of

the Principles of Business――5. Of the Value of Evidence.――II. The

Maintenance of a Sensibility to Pleasure.――The Criteria of

Pleasurable Sensations.――The Anatomy of Ennui.――III. The Search

for Variety of Impressions.――Variety Necessary to High

Pleasure.――Pleasure must be Remitted.――The Individual should Seek

Novelty.――The Evil Effects of Habit.――IV. The Proper Proportion

Between Desire and Pleasure.――The Wisdom of Counting the

Cost.――Precepts for the Regulation of Desire.――V. Make all

Pleasures a Part of Happiness.――All Pleasures are

Excellent.――Error of the Contrary Doctrine.――All Pleasures should

be Brought into Relation.――The Bond of Sense to what is Beyond

Sense.――The Reality of the Ideal.

STROWINGS pp. 36-56

PART II.

How Far Our Happiness Depends on Nature and Fate.

I. _Our Bodily and Mental Constitutions._

Life as a Synonym of Happiness.――Necessity and Chance the Arbiters

of Life.――The Endowment of the Child.――The Laws of

Heredity.――Hereditary and Congenital Traits.――The Heritage of the

Race.――Family Jewels and Family Curses.――The Avenue of

Escape.――Precepts for Self-training.――Words for Women.――Beauty and

its Cult.――Its Perils and its Power.――The Ideal of the

Beautiful.――The Four Temperaments.――Cheerfulness and its Physical

Seat.――Diseases that are Cheerful and those that are Not.――What to

do in an Attack of the Blues.――Old Age and its Attainment.――The

Fallacious Bliss of Youth.――Men who Outlive Themselves.

STROWINGS, pp. 57-80

II. _Our Physical Surroundings._

Clothing and its Objects.――The Dress of Women.――The Value of Good

Clothes.――The Room and its Furniture.――Our Living Rooms.――Own Your

Own House.――Foes to Fight in House-building.――A New Principle for

Architects.――Love of Home and Homesickness.――How Climate

Influences Cheerfulness.

STROWINGS, pp. 81-91

III. _Luck and its Laws._

What Solon said about Happiness.――Destiny in Human Affairs.――The

Calculation of Chances.――Results of the Laws of Luck.――They Cannot

be Escaped.――Runs of Luck and their Results.――“A Fool for Luck,”

and Why.――The Story of Polycrates and its Moral.――The Fetichism of

Gamblers.――Luck Does Less Than Many Think.――The Miracles of

Insurance.――The Dark Hand of Destiny.――Trifles Rule the World.――We

Are the Slaves of Chance.――But What is Chance?

STROWINGS, pp. 92-108

PART III.

How Far Our Happiness Depends on Ourselves.

I. _Our Occupations――Those of Necessity and those of Choice._

The Washerwoman’s Ideal of Happiness.――Labor is the True Source of

Enjoyment.――Selection of an Occupation.――How to Find Pleasure in

Its Pursuit.――Fitness and Unfitness for Certain

Occupations.――Dangers of Diligence in Business.――The Rare

Complaint, Over-Conscientiousness.――Making a Living a Mean

Business.――Occupations of Choice.――Reflections on Recreations.

STROWINGS, pp. 109-117

II. _Money-making, Its Laws and Its Limits._

The Universal Prayer.――Property the Foundation of Progress.――Wealth

is Welcome to All.――What Riches Give.――“Effective” and

“Productive” Riches.――The Author Discovers the Fortunate

Isles.――But is Promptly Disenchanted.――How to Get Rich.――Another

Way to Get Rich.――New Lamps for Old.――Riches and Happiness.

STROWINGS, pp. 118-127

III. _The Pleasures we may Derive from Our Senses._

The Elect of God are those who Improve their Faculties.――Division of

the Faculties.――The Rules of Pleasure.――The Rule of

Moderation.――The Rule of Variety.――Pleasures of the Muscular

Sense.――Of the Sense of Touch.――Of the Sense of Smell.――Of Tobacco

Using.――Eating as a Fine Art.――The Symmetry of a Well-served

Dinner.――Gastronomic Precepts.――Pleasures of the Sense of

Hearing.――Of the Sense of Sight.

STROWINGS, pp. 128-141

IV. _The Pleasures we may Derive from Our Emotions._

Hope and Fear.――The Folly of Philosophies.――Hopes which are

Incompatibles.――A Most Useful Suggestion.――Fear is a

Safeguard.――Worry and its Remedies.――Courage and Apathy.――Remorse

and Regret.――Anger, Hatred, and Revenge.――The Imagination.――The

Esthetic Emotions.――The Contemplation of Nature.――The Arts of

Pleasure.――The Excellence of Good Taste.――Plot-Interest.――The

Emotions of Pursuit.――The Emotions of Risk.

STROWINGS, pp. 142-155

V. _The Pleasures we may Derive from Our Intellect._

The Search for Truth.――Advantages of Intellectual

Pleasures.――Especially to Women.――Riddles and Puzzles.――Reading,

and Rules for It.――My Own Plan.――What Line to Read In.――A Plea for

Poetry.――Thinking About Reading.――What Meditation Means.――Social

Intellectual Pleasures.――Writing and Letter Writing.――Keeping a

Diary.――The Pursuit of Truth.――What Truth Is.――The Study of

Science.

STROWINGS, pp. 156-168

VI. _The Satisfaction of the Religious Sentiment._

Happiness the Only Standard of Value.――The Strange Law of

Evolution.――The Ideal of Humanity.――The Position of Dogmatic

Religion.-The Unhappiness Produced by Religions.――The Happiness

Derived from Religions.――The Doctrine of Faith.――Morality and

Religion.――Erroneous Estimate of the Moral Life.――True Religious

Unity.――The Religion of the Future.

STROWINGS, pp. 169-180

VII. _The Cultivation of Our Individuality._

The Prevailing Lack of Individuality.――Examples of Great

Teachers.――The Man of Strong Personality.――What Individuality Is

and Is Not.――Value of Self-knowledge.――The Pains of

Diffidence.――Dangers of Self-conceit.――The Tyranny of

Opinion.――The Foolishness of Fixed Principles.――Obstinate

Asseveration.――Giving and Taking Advice.――Decision of

Character.――Importance of Reserve.――Sincerity is

Essential.――Veracity at Least to Oneself.――Seek Many-sidedness of

Character.

STROWINGS, pp. 181-193

PART IV.

How Far Our Happiness Depends on Others.

I. _What Others Give Us: Safety, Liberty, Education._

Man’s Dependence on Society for his Safety.――Security the Aim of

Government.――Two Theories of Government.――Justice as the Aim of

Government.――Freedom the Aim of Law.――Another Theory of

Government.――Knowledge the Brother of Liberty.――Education a

Necessity.――Defective Education of Women.――What it Should

Be.――Study Should Be Made a Pleasure.――Man’s Dependence on Others.

STROWINGS, pp. 195-205

II. _What we Owe Others: Morality, Duty, Benevolence._

Happiness and Virtue are Independent Aims.――Morality and the Moral

Sense not the Same.――What Morality Is.――No Universal Moral

Precepts.――The Dualism of Morals.――The Sense of Duty.――The

Pleasures of the Moral Sense.――What “A Clear Conscience”

Means.――What is “The Chief End of Man.”――The Moral Sense Opposes

Moral Laws.――The Benevolent Emotions.

STROWINGS, pp. 206-215

III. _The Practice of Business and the Enjoyment of Society._

The Value of Association.――Society Should Not Ask the Sacrifice of

the Individual.――Maxims for Dealing with Men: First, Distrust;

Second, Trust.――What “Society” is.――The Drawing-room as the Shrine

of Civilization.――Good-will the Basis of Good Society.――Ordinary

People are the Most Agreeable.――Maxim for Success in Society.――The

Aim of Society.――Good Society Not Selfish.――The Power of

Society.――What Politeness is.――Society Conversation.――The Expert

in Small Talk.

STROWINGS, pp. 216-227

IV. _On Fellowship, Comradeship, and Friendship._

Man’s Highest Pleasure is in Humanity.――What Fellowship

Means.――Mutuality of Interests the Basis of Social Progress.――But

the Individual must be Respected.――Comradeship is Based on Tastes

in Common.――It is a Substitute for Friendship.――Examples of

it.――The Meaning of Friendship.――What Weakens and what Strengthens

it.――It should be Carefully Cultivated.――Friendship Between Men

and Women.――Examples of it.

STROWINGS, pp. 228-237

V. _Love, Marriage, and the Family Relation._

The Single Life Ever Incomplete.――The Holiness of Maternity.――The

Emotion of Love Explained.――Love and Beauty.――Love Immortalized in

Posterity.――The History of Marriage.――The Three Conditions of

Marriage.――The Question of Divorce.――What True Marriage

Means.――Opinions of Thinkers About Divorce.――The Family as the

Object of Marriage.――The Family Tie Among Us.

STROWINGS, pp. 238-247

PART V.

The Consolations of Affliction.

I. _The Removal of Unhappiness._

Suffering is Unavoidable.――Where to Look for Consolation.――Two

Consoling Reflections.――Advantage of a Multitude of Miseries.――The

Habit of Unhappiness.――Some Require Ill Fortune.――Two Popular

Methods of Consolation.――Talk It Over, and Why.――Our Strange Claim

for Happiness.――The Tolerance of Suffering.――The Universal

Panacea.――Look Before and After.――Deal Justly by Yourself.――How to

Regard Incivility and Ingratitude.――Success Arising from

Failures.――Resignation, Sympathy.――Remember Your

Advantages.――Thoughts About Time and Death.

STROWINGS, pp. 248-280

II. _The Inseparable Connection of Pleasure and Pain._

Pleasure Requires Pain, and Joy Sorrow.――The Words of

Socrates.――Physiological Relations of Pleasure and Pain.――Their

Analogy to Joy and Sorrow.――The Oneness of the Pleasure-Pain

Sensation.――The Rhythm of Sensations and Emotions.――Pleasure

Derived from Pain, Joy from Sorrow.――Quotation from Leigh

Hunt.――Quotation from Sir Richard Steele.――Sadness the Best

Preparative for Gladness.――Influence of Time on Pleasures and

Pains.

STROWINGS, pp. 263-272

III. _The Education of Suffering._

What is Suffering?――The Human Passion of Sorrow.――Sorrow as the

Initiation into the Mysteries of Life.――The Noblest Prizes Won

Only by Suffering.――It is the Highest Inspiration of Religion and

Art.――It Alone Teaches the Elder Truths.――The Ministry of

Grief.――The Sweetness of Departed Joys.――The Compensations of

Loves that are Lost.――The Despair that is Divine.

STROWINGS, pp. 273-280

PART I.

Happiness as the Aim of Life.

I. _Is a Guide to Happiness Possible? And, if Possible, is it

Desirable?_

The pursuit of happiness,――the pursuit of one’s own happiness,――is it

a vain quest? and, if not vain, is it a worthy object of life?

There have been plenty to condemn it on both grounds. They have said

that the endeavor is hopeless; that to study the art of being happy is

like studying the art of making gold, which is the only art by which

gold can never be made. Nothing, they add, is so unpropitious to

happiness as the very effort to attain it.

They go farther. “Let life,” they proclaim, “have a larger purpose

than enjoyment.” They quote the mighty Plato, when he demands that the

right aim of living shall stand apart, and out of all relation to

pleasure or pain. They declare that the theory of happiness as an end

is the most dangerous of all in modern sociology――the tap-root of the

worst weeds in the political theories of the day, for the reason that

the individual pursuit of enjoyment is necessarily destructive of that

of society at large. Moreover, they urge, who dares write of it? For

he who has not enjoyed it, cannot speak wisely of it; and in him who

has attained it, ’twere insolence to boast of it.

Over against these stands another school, not, by any means, solely a

modern school. If that boasts Plato as its leader, this can claim

Aristotle as its master. It is with the single aim to become happier,

said that wise teacher, that we deliberately perform any act of our

lives. This is the final end of every conscious action of man. That

alone is the true purpose of existence, which, by itself, and not as a

means to something else, makes life worth living and desirable for its

own sake; and happiness――happiness alone――fulfills this requirement.

Through the ages this conflict has continued. We find the thoughtful

Pascal declaring that every free act of the will has, and can have, no

other end in view than the increase of the individual happiness, be it

so seemingly inconsistent as drowning or hanging oneself; while the

distinctively modern school of social philosophers, without any

exception, pin to their banners the maxim of their master, Jeremy

Bentham, “The common end of every person’s efforts is happiness;” and

they love to confound the ascetics by proclaiming, with Spencer, that

“Without pleasure there is no good in life;” or asserting, with Ward,

that the sole aim of a right sociology is the organization of

happiness. Nay, they have gone so far as to project a series of

sciences by which the human race is to reach a condition of entire

enjoyment. They give us “Eudæmonics,” or the art of the attainment of

well-being; “Hedonism,” or the theory of the securing of pleasure; and

even the “Hedonical Calculus,” by which we can to a nicety calculate

how much any object, if secured, will add to our felicity.

These excellent authorities have therefore answered the inquiry

whether the pursuit of happiness is a possible occupation, by showing

that in fact we cannot of our own wills do anything else; and though

we often pursue it blindly and by false routes, we can, by taking

thought and learning of others, follow it up successfully. So also

taught Aristotle, who tells us in his _Ethics_, “It is possible for

every man by certain studies and appropriate care to reach a condition

of happiness.”

Since the aim of enjoyment is thus natural, even thus necessary, to

man, since it is the motive of his every action, how important that it

should be guided by the dictates of wisdom, and not condemned and

discarded as evil! Have not those who declared it criminal smothered

the germ which they should have nursed?

Away with the cold and cruel doctrines which for ages have darkened

the lives of men by teaching them that enjoyment is folly and pleasure

a sin! If the reasoned pursuit of happiness conflicts with current

morality, so much the worse for that morality. Away with it, and in

the light of a younger day seek a better one. What is right is

reasonable, and what is reasonable is right. Enjoy yourself; it is the

highest wisdom. Diffuse enjoyment; it is the loftiest virtue. Not only

are the two compatible; they are inseparable; as the sage Rasselas

said to the Princess: “It is our business to consider what beings like

us may perform; each laboring for his own happiness by promoting

within his circle, however narrow, the happiness of others.”

All agree that we should strive for the happiness of others; it has

even been said that this is the only moral justification of any act of

our lives. But the cup which we are to proffer to all, we are,

forsooth, forbidden to taste ourselves! What is good for everybody

else is bad for oneself!

There is something radically wrong here, both in fact and logic.

Mental moods are contagious, and the man who enjoys little will prove

a kill-joy to others. Who are more disagreeable than those Philistines

and Pharisees who insist on making you happy against your will, and

contrary to your inclinations? I have noticed that the usual pretext

for annoying people is solicitude about their welfare. But, as a rule,

people are not happy whose pleasures are assigned them by others.

Nobody’s vegetables are so sweet as those from my own garden, and if

the whole world set to work to please me, I am sure I should be

discontented. These moralists put the cart before the horse. Before we

are qualified to make others happy we must compass happiness in some

degree for ourselves; and our success with others will be just to that

degree and no more. The quality and intensity of enjoyment which we

ourselves have is alone that which we are able to impart to others. To

assert, therefore, that we should make no effort to obtain or increase

this, is as illogical as can be.

Here some one may think I am caught in my own trap. For if people

cannot assign pleasures to others, is it not an impertinence to offer

instruction on the subject? Can anybody tell me better than myself

what I like and what I desire?

True, but the difference is wide between telling me what things should

please me, and telling me how I can best please myself; and the latter

is the aim of right instruction in this matter. That it is badly

needed, one who runs may read. Most people pursue unhappiness more

steadily than happiness. Only fools find life an easy thing; to the

wise it is a perpetual surprise that they get along at all. To them,

life is a lesson to be learned, and happiness is a science the first

axiom in which is to seek knowledge. To be happy one must work for it,

and not merely have the wish and possess the requisites; as Aristotle

so prettily expresses it, “As at the Olympic games, it is not the

strongest or handsomest who gain the crown, but only those who join in

the combat.”

There is boundless need for a clear statement of the true theory of

personal happiness. It has been neglected, misconceived, and decried

long enough, and countless lives have been darkened in consequence.

Such a theory, to be true, must be applicable to all men, of all sorts

and conditions, because the desire of happiness is the common motive

of all. Has it yet been discovered? That is the object of the present

inquiry――for it is little more than an inquiry; but be sure that when

it is discovered and set forth, it will come not as something new or

strange, but like some half-forgotten, long familiar truth.

Not only, therefore, is it desirable, it is the bounden duty of every

man to consider his own highest happiness, to learn what that is, and

to go to work to secure it. It is his duty to his neighbors as well as

to himself; more than that, it is his first duty to his kind. It is

incumbent on every generation to transmit an increased store of social

and personal felicity to posterity. This is the only good reason for

the continuance of the race. But a generation does nothing except

through its individual members; hence, it all comes back to the

personal effort for happiness.

But the moralist will object, Is not this doctrine one of absolute

egotism, of stark selfishness?

This objection is what has nullified and cast into disfavor every

essay ever written, from the Nichomachean Ethics downward, which

attempted a reasoned and practical art of increasing personal

happiness. They have all been frowned down as selfish and, therefore,

immoral.

It is time for this opposition to cease. It rests on a misunderstanding

of terms, on a confusion of different sensations, on the bad books of

some writers, but mostly on ancient prejudice and an ignorance of

facts. Let the subject be approached with a mind free from bias; let

the false beacons hung out by some schools be disregarded; above all,

let a clear understanding of what happiness consists in be gained; and

this potent objection will be dismissed from the case.

Let us turn, then, to the definition of happiness.

II. _The Definition of Happiness._

In science a definition is not a resting-place, but a stepping-stone.

It is needless, therefore, to call the catalogue of obsolete and

obscure definitions of happiness. Some, indeed, say that the

definition, like the thing itself, is still unfound.

I do not think this is so. Between the physiologists and the

psychologists, I believe we are in a position to explain what

happiness is; and if in parts the explanation is a trifle subtle, it

is not really obscure.

Happiness is not the same as pleasure, but it is generally built upon

or grows out of pleasurable feelings. We must begin, therefore, our

analysis with these, and with their opposites――the painful feelings.

Pleasure and pain are both ultimate and undefinable experiences of the

mind. We cannot resolve them further; but we can note certain

unfailing relations they bear to the organism, which explain their

significance. Pleasure characterizes the normal and unimpeded exercise

of physiological functions of all kinds. There are as many elementary

pleasures as there are sensations. Pain is present only in the reverse

conditions. Modern physiologists have established, therefore, the

fundamental law, that pleasure connects itself with vital energy, pain

with its opposite; in which they have not gone beyond, even if they

have caught up to, the maxim of Spinoza: “Pleasure is an affection

whereby the mind passes to a greater perfection; pain is an affection

whereby it passes to a lesser perfection.”

Such is the meaning of pleasure or of pleasurable feelings; and there

is no lack of writers, and weighty ones, too, who maintain that

happiness is merely the excess of pleasure over pain; or the utmost

pleasure we are capable of; or the aggregate of continued pleasurable

feelings. All such phrases are wide of the mark. They confound

distinct things, and ignore the boundaries between the different

realms of mental action.

We must leave the physiologists and turn to profound analysts of

purely mental action, such as Hume and Kant, for the right

understanding of the meaning of happiness. For these, its inseparable

factors, are the Will and Self-consciousness. As Kant expresses

it,――“The Desire of Happiness is the general title for all subjective

motives of the Will.” Desire is really stimulated, not by the image of

past pleasure, as Locke and his followers teach, but by the conception

of Self. The satisfaction of desire is not merely such, but is the

satisfaction of the Self, in thus reaching a greater perfection, to

use Spinoza’s phrase. Only by discriminating the object from the Self

can the pleasure of the subject become an end in itself. Hence the

real aim of the pleasure-seeker, though he is rarely intellectually

conscious of it, is to feel his own Self, his own being, more keenly.

Aristotle expressed this when he wrote,――“Pleasure is the feeling

which accompanies Self-realization.”

To the extent, therefore, that pleasure develops the sense of

Self-consciousness it partakes of a higher nature than mere sensation,

which man shares in common with the brutes; and to that extent it can

claim the name of Happiness, a feeling inseparable from free will and

conscious individuality. In man a true pleasure must always be a

pleasure in something else than the pleasure itself; that is, it must

heighten the sense of personal existence.

It is only the conception of Self as a permanent subject to be

pleased, that stimulates man to fresh endeavors, that makes him seek

knowledge and freedom, that lifts him above the beast, contented with

the satisfaction of its appetites. This is what Fichte meant when he

said that the consciousness of Self alone enables us to understand

life and enjoy it. Nothing is truer than the motto, “_Être heureux,

c’est vivre_,”――to be happy is to live.

Here, again, some uneasy moralist will point the finger and raise the

cry of “selfishness.” It is time to have done with this purblind, this

high-gravel-blind moralist, who refuses to distinguish between

self-feeling and self-seeking. There are two self-loves. The one is

inseparable from personal existence, the necessary point of departure

of every conscious action, whose activity and whose end are alike in

the object outside of the self; the other is that egoism which directs

both the action and its end toward itself. The former is fecund,

ennobling, inspiring; the latter is sterile and enfeebling. Rightly

understood, nothing is so admirable as self-love; but love yourself,

not for what you are, but for what you may be. The wisest of teachers

set no higher mark for duty than, “Love thy neighbor _as thyself_.” It

was a modern and unphilosophical derogation which substituted for it,

“_Vivre pour autrui_.” In living the best for ourselves, we live the

best for others.

The conclusion which we have now arrived at, that happiness is the

increasing consciousness of Self, leads us to reflect whether this

mental state is brought about solely by what is generally known as

“pleasures,” or whether some other feeling, not usually classed as

such, may not have the same effect. Man can enjoy only through action,

and all his happiness depends on action; but there may be a great deal

and very intense activity in spheres of experience to which the terms

pleasure and pain, in their physiological sense, do not apply. Indeed,

such activities may be present along with physical pain and mental

suffering, and yet the law hold good: that if these are of a nature to

exalt the consciousness of self, they may be a well-spring of

happiness under circumstances the most unfavorable. This explains a

passage of Epictetus which I thought over a long time before I

mastered its significance,――“Happiness is an _equivalent_ for all

troublesome things;” not that it excludes or abolishes them, but that

it is a compensation for them. This puts the whole art of happiness in

a different light. It may teach us to avoid some pains and troubles,

and this is well; but the best of it will ever be to give us an

_equivalent_ for the many that remain. Any text-book of felicity which

leaves this out of account may as well be burned by Monsieur de Paris.

Now we can understand what Plato meant when he said that the right aim

of living should stand out of relation to pleasure or pain. He had in

mind these other activities which give in some natures an intenser

sense to self-consciousness than any mere nerve reaction. The ancient

ideal was the greatness of the individual, the richness of his

imagination, the reach of his intellect, the strength of his will, the

firmness of his friendship, the devotion of his patriotism, the

singleness of his life and purpose in some noble aim. This it was that

floated before the intellectual vision of Plato and led him to scorn

the pleasures of the sense and the charms of tranquillity.

Let us applaud him; for we moderns are not ignorant of the luxury of

toil and the joy of strong endeavor; we too, like Othello, “do agnize

an alacrity for hardness;” with Seneca we can say, “_Res severa est

verum gaudium_.” But we hold it needless and unwise to leave any sunny

field uncultured on whose soil may be trained to bloom the fragrant

flower of pleasure.

The yearning for joy is a cry of nature which can never be stifled.

Give heed to it and obey it. It calls you to wider horizons, to warmer

sympathies, to a fuller growth, to a completer development. It holds

the secret of Evolution. It is the incessant prompter to a higher form

of existence. Biologists have discovered that the avoidance of painful

and the search for pleasurable sensations are the first principles of

organic animal life, and are those which have developed the amœba into

the man. In him, this general consciousness has blossomed into

Self-consciousness, and to this he owes all the growth of his higher

nature, his essentially human powers. To the extent that this is

brought into harmony with the sum of his faculties and with his

surroundings, he wins that something greater than pleasure which we

call happiness. From the culture of this, if from any source, he must

look for the advent of those new spirit-powers which more fortunate

generations in the hereafter may enjoy. Who knows but those, our dear

children of after days, may gain a still higher form of consciousness,

one through which they will be brought into harmony with the perfect

working of the Cosmos, and the ancient fable be realized, of men who

walked the earth as gods?

III. _The Relative Value of Pleasures._

The learned have established what they call “a hierarchy of the

sciences,” a scheme which shows the relative value and scope of the

various departments of knowledge, and how the one rises upon the

other. So in the Science of Happiness there is a series of degrees, a

_gradus ad gaudium_, which measures the relative value of human

enjoyments and the dependence of the higher upon the lower.

The ignorance or the disregard of this fact has led to the ruin of

more individual lives, and to more fatal misfortunes to the race, than

any other error whatsoever. The poison of all false religions and

philosophies lies either in condemning pleasure or in commending low

forms of it; and the one is as hurtful as the other. The religion

which to-day numbers more believers than any other, Buddhism, aims its

loftiest aspirations to the extinction of all desire and the abolition

of all enjoyment. These are the words of Buddha himself:――

“Let no man look for what is pleasant; for not to find it is

pain.

“Let no man love anything; for the loss of the beloved is

sorrow.

“After pleasure follows grief, and from affection comes

fear.

“I have run through many births, and painful it is to be

born again and again; but now, O Thou Builder of this house,

Thou hast been seen, and not again shalt Thou rebuild it.

The mind has attained to the extinction of all desire.”

This is the ideal of happiness that four hundred millions of human

beings hold before their minds to-day. If there is any truth in the

modern philosophy which teaches that pleasure lies in functional

activity, no more pernicious message could be commended to mankind

than that which Buddha brought.

He is far from the only preacher of such a gospel. “To rest in peace,”

“to sleep in the Lord,”――is not this the religious hope and aspiration

of millions of Christians? It is not a whit higher than the Nirvana of

the Buddhist.

The avoidance of pain is the lowest form of happiness; more correctly,

it is its mere negative, and scarcely deserves to rank as one of its

grades. Yet, alas! to how many millions is it the highest form

imagined! To how many is the only escape from unhappiness to forget

themselves! This is the cause of that thirst for intoxicants and

narcotics which undermines and infects modern society. Dr. Johnson

would still find the multitude agree with him in his opinion, that a

man is never happy except when he is drunk!

Those Quietists who preach tranquillity and contentment as the goal

which all should seek are but one step higher. Indifference to

pleasure, or a reduction of the number of pleasures, is a sign of

weakening of the reason and of a retrogression in development. No man

has a right to be happy because he is contented; though he may well be

contented because he is happy. To be “void of strong desire,” set free

from hope and fear, snugly harbored from all storms of feeling, so far

from being the condition of the sage, is the aspiration of the fool.

Keen sensations awaken the sentiments, emotions fertilize the

intellect, passions educate the reason. The brute goes through life

without a smile or a tear; man’s proud privilege is to weep and to

laugh.

The ancients taught that philosophical happiness is to want little,

and that it is the error of the vulgar to want much and to enjoy many

things. The truer doctrine is that happiness is expansion and growth,

the enriching of our natures by manifold experiences, and the securing

this by the multiplication of our desires. The avoidance of pain and

the limitation of our hopes to our powers are sometimes valuable

preliminaries to the pursuit of happiness, but are not always

essential to it, and in many instances an over-solicitude about them

destroys all chance for a higher felicity. Happiness does not come of

itself. It has to be worked for, fought for; and courage and endurance

are as necessary in this as in any other struggle. In the path of

every pilgrim to the Celestial City stand from time to time the giant

figures of Death and Pain, and shake their spears, saying, “Wilt thou

dare?”

The sources of pleasure should, therefore, be multiplied to the

utmost, and they should be classified, so that undue value should not

be assigned any one class. Theoretically, there is nothing troublesome

about this; practically, it is often an insurmountable difficulty. The

pleasures of the senses are inferior to those of the emotions, and

these in turn are ranked by the enjoyments which pertain to the

exercise of the intellectual powers. No one of these can wholly

exclude the others. They are all inseparably united in the individual

entity; but the individual can enjoy only with the faculties he

possesses, and in proportion to their relative strength. It is as

absurd to ask more of him, as it were to invite the gouty to a foot

race, or the blind to admire the colors in a painting.

It is well to establish and to recognize this hierarchy of enjoyments,

beginning with those of the sensations common to animal life

everywhere and culminating in those of pure reason, whose crowning

felicity is the pursuit of truth; it has been done, and well done, by

many writers; but what has been generally overlooked is that this

scheme can have small practical application to the conduct of life if

it is not fully recognized that no one of these roads to happiness can

be successfully pursued while the others are neglected, or branded

with the sign, “Entrance forbidden.”

This is where Asceticism has committed its fatal blunder, and for

thousands of years has made miserable the lives of millions. Instead

of self-control, it has demanded self-abnegation; instead of the due

and proportioned exercise of all the powers, it has ordered the

absolute disuse of some of them; quite as often of the highest as of

the lowest, of reason as often as lust. Under this baleful doctrine

nations have become misshapen in mind, atrophied in culture, distorted

from honest nature’s rule, mean, miserable, and inefficient. Yet this

same doctrine is preached to-day from thousands of pulpits in lands of

highest civilization. Is it not time for the common sense of most to

rise in protest against such a survival from the Dark Ages of the life

of the race? Reason blushes only for pleasures which she cannot

explain, and he who acquaints himself with the whole nature of man

knows that all his powers and faculties have their appropriate use.

The ascetic may claim a happiness all his own; but so do the

extravagant and the vicious; both stand condemned before the results

of their own successes.

The intellect has no right to chide the enjoyments of the senses.

Pleasures differ in degree and permanence, but not in kind. _As

pleasures_ they are on a par, whether derived from objects of sense,

from the emotions, or from the understanding. Such analysts of mind as

Kant and Epictetus agree that there is no _essential_ distinction

between the most refined and the coarsest gratifications. “It is one

and the same vital force expressing itself in the Desires, which is

affected by all objects which cause Pleasure.”

IV. _The Distribution of Happiness._

Having reached an understanding about what happiness means, and some

notion as to its various grades, it will next be worth while to study

its distribution in the several classes of society, in contrasting

grades of civilization, in the two sexes, and at various ages. This

will be dealing with the subject according to the methods of natural

science, and it ought to lead to some interesting conclusions.

One might expect to find a general agreement as to the main facts. Far

from it. The common belief is that happiness increases with the means,

or at least with the capacity, for happiness. It is this belief which

inspires men to labor for the means and improve their capacities. But

the philosophers nowise concede its correctness. Hume argued that all

who are happy are equally happy; and Paley maintained that happiness

is about equally distributed among all orders of the community; that

the plowman gets as much real enjoyment out of life as the

philosopher, and the beggar at the gate as much as the monarch on the

throne. To which Dr. Johnson replied that a small glass and a large

one might be equally full, but the latter holds more. The capacity, he

justly argued, of the philosopher to receive a multiplicity of

agreeable impressions is greater than that of the peasant, and

therefore, other things being equal, the quantity of his enjoyment

will be greater.

The learned Doctor, indeed, sometimes insisted that felicity increases

directly with the means of enjoyment. Representing the latter by

money, he would say that a man with six thousand pounds a year should

be ten times as happy as the one with six hundred a year; and if he is

not, it is because he is an ass.

Here he was certainly wrong. Some of the main elements of ordinary

happiness are in the possession of every class of society, high and

low, poor and rich; such as the means of self-preservation, family

ties, friendship, amusement, and repose. What wealth and power add to

this common stock becomes less and less at each remove. This

consideration led Bentham to question whether the prince is twice as

happy as the laborer, and to doubt whether ten thousand times the

wealth brings with it twice the enjoyment. His followers have

attempted to frame the relation in a mathematical formula, and have

expressed it in the maxim, “The rate of increase of pleasure decreases

as its means increase.”

The conclusion is a satisfactory one for several reasons, and appears

to be borne out by the experience of mankind. Gibbon quotes the saying

of the potent Sultan Abderrahman, who at the close of his brilliant

reign of forty years asserted that during the whole of that time he

had had but fourteen days of happiness; on which the historian

comments that he himself could claim many more than the famous Prince.

The moral of the story is, that it is not the multiplication of the

_means_, but of the _sources_ of pleasure which is the secret of

happiness.

The extremes of the social conditions are almost equally unfavorable,

the one through the privations it entails, the other through the

burdens it imposes and the distractions it brings. Both are

unpropitious to self-culture, and this alone lays substantial

foundations for a considerable enjoyment of life.

A similar debate has taken place in reference to the distribution of

happiness in the different grades of civilization. Rousseau and his

followers never tired of portraying the delights of the savage state.

Like the ancient Greeks, he placed the Golden Age in some Arcadia of

untutored shepherds and lawless huntsmen. It is the fashion to smile

at his notion as the vagary of a crank; but the scientist of our own

day whose studies of the conditions of savage tribes stand ahead of

all others, has deliberately expressed almost the same opinion as the

result of his long researches. “Civilization,” writes Dr. Theodore

Waitz, “has proved itself impotent to increase the sum of human

enjoyment.”

What a sad conclusion to reach! And what a comment on the jubilant

shouts of those optimistic philosophers who have been telling us how

vastly better off we are than any of our ancestors!

Yet these also are right in a certain sense. The most careless reader

of history must hug himself for joy to think of the multitude of

miseries and oppressions which have disappeared from society in the

last few centuries. The inquisition, slavery, trial by torture, the

press gang, are but a few of them. At that time the fate and the

happiness of the individual were in the hands of priests and kings and

nobles; now, thank Heaven! in most countries, especially in our own,

they are chiefly in the control of the individual himself.

Nevertheless, it is quite possible in a given state of society that

general evils may diminish while personal suffering increases, owing

to an undue exaltation of sensitiveness, a sort of moral

hyperesthesia, together with the multiplication of desires beyond the

means of satisfying them. This is, in fact, the condition of modern

society; and these traits, together with its instability and rapid

changes, and the bitter competition instigated by its enlarged

freedom, have unquestionably very greatly diminished the amount of

happiness which might have been expected from the ameliorations of the

last few centuries.

There is but one remedy which will be of permanent avail, and that is

to educate the individual into some other ideal of happiness than that

which is filled by the acquisition of property or the gratification of

the senses. The main purpose of all social institutions which have

been created up to the present time has been the getting and the

keeping of property; the motive of the higher civilization which is to

come will be the preparation of the race for a life which will be

filled and sustained by its intellectual and spiritual contents.

The Greek philosopher thanked the gods especially for two

blessings,――that they had created him a Greek and not a barbarian, and

a man and not a woman. Evidently he held strongly to the opinion that

in his own country, at least, the men had the better part in life.

Though woman held an honorable position in Greek society, it was

inferior to what she enjoys in the United States to-day; yet the

philosopher, were he among us, would probably repeat his thanks. It is

quite certain that in the distribution of happiness the stronger sex

has seized the lion’s share.

To be sure, there are certain advantages in the struggle for life

which a woman seems to be conceded, and others which she by nature

possesses. She is less exposed to dangers than men; she escapes

avocations of the greatest hardship and risk; she is generally

supported by the labor of others, and she is allowed privileges in

many small matters of daily life which are denied the other sex. Of

her own nature she is less the slave of passion, less reckless, less

of an egotist, less inclined to deeds of violence and crime. In all

civilized countries the convictions of women for criminal offenses are

less than one-third those of men.

These points are in favor of her securing a larger share of happiness;

but they are checked by many and serious countervails. She is born an

invalid. Her periodic sickness, the burden of pregnancy, the pains of

childbed, the years of distress at her climacteric age, place her for

the best part of her life at a fearful disadvantage. Enter the library

of a physician and turn the leaves of his thick volumes on obstetrics

and the diseases of women if you would have your sympathies harrowed

by a long list of dreadful maladies of which men know nothing.

Another thought disables a woman, and must lessen and darken the

enjoyment of her life in every rank and condition of society. Unless

under immediate protection, she is always exposed to the possibility

of insult and assault, and no general safeguards will ever entirely

remove this danger.

Outside of these inevitable disabilities, the unfortunate elements in

the modern condition of women are owing to the legal and religious

tyranny of men. The dogmas of Christianity distinctly lowered her

position compared to what it was in the Roman Republic or the cities

of Etruria. At Delphi, the thoughts of the gods found expression

through the mouth of the priestess; but the founder of Christian

institutions forbade women to speak in the churches. The ancient Greek

prayed to the goddesses, Minerva, Aphrodite, and Demeter, as the

givers of the good things of life, of wisdom, of love, and the fruits

of the field; but to the Christian, evil and death and pain were what

the first mother of the race brought as a dower to her husband and

left as a legacy to her children.

These pernicious teachings led to a steady oppression of woman in all

ages of Christianity, our own included. So thoroughly did they become

ingrained in the minds of men that the most liberal scarcely

recognized their presence. The priest laid on the bride the obligation

of obedience to her husband; and the philosopher, Rousseau, servile in

this to the ideas of his time, when he has completed the education of

his Emile, contents himself with saying to Sophie, “This is the man

whom it is your duty _to endeavor to please_!” Not until a man arose

emancipated from all tradition, did the teaching of Plato that the

sexes should be socially and politically equal find a modern

philosopher to echo it; that was when John Stuart Mill wrote his essay

on the freedom of woman; though it would be unfair to the growth of

religious thought not to add that he had been anticipated in most

practical points by the despised dissenter, George Fox. Only when the

spirit of teachers such as these will have permeated the institutions,

the religions, and the social traditions of the day, will women have a

fair chance with men at the common stock of happiness possible for the

race.

Most fatal of all measures to the happiness of woman has been the

unceasing effort of ecclesiasticism to make marriage, for her, an

indissoluble sacrament of servitude, instead of an equal civil

contract, in which no obligation is assumed on the one side which is

not as fully accepted on the other. Mill well remarks that the

miseries produced in the lives of individual women by subjection to

individual men are simply incalculable. Guarantee the wife every right

and every privilege that the husband has, and the increased happiness

of both will be sure to crown the concession.

The remedy for this state of things is the proper education of girls

and women. But it is a remedy not likely to be administered soon, in

spite of the talk about it. Men prefer ignorance in women, as women

admire blind devotion in men; because these enable each sex to cheat

the other more easily. Nothing is more essential to her happiness than

that she should be taught the hygiene of her sex early in life; but

the popular voice says ignorance means innocence, and thousands of

women are condemned to life-long misery in consequence. I had a

medical friend who wrote a volume of excellent advice to mothers, and

his profession almost ostracized him for it. Beyond all things, a

girl’s education should be directed toward manual training and

exercises of the understanding; instead of that, she is taught the

fine arts and regaled with poetry and fiction. Her imagination is

fostered by lectures on esthetics, and her memory crammed with moral

platitudes which have no place in real life; while the principles of

business and the maintenance of her own rights are left out of her

training. I cannot but attribute to this the most common and fatal

defect of the female mind,――its lack of the sense of abstract justice.

Men are so selfish and ignorant that they do not understand how much

they themselves forfeit by thus reducing the position of woman. In my

studies of ethnology, I first inquire the position occupied by woman

in a given tribe or nation; for I have discovered no better common

measure of civilization. The profoundest thinkers of the age have

recognized the principle here involved. Goethe closes the second part

of Faust――which is a poetic presentation of the evolution of European

culture――with the significant words,――“The forever feminine leads us

onward.” His friend, Wilhelm von Humboldt, expressed a double fact in

the phrase,――“The Woman stands nearer the ideal of Humanity than the

Man; but she more rarely attains it.” She does not, because she is

prevented by prejudice, by dogmas, and by laws. Until these weeds are

scorched to ashes by the growing flame of free intelligence, neither

will she secure the meed of happiness which is her due, nor will man

have found the right road to his best prosperity.

Plato proposed to banish poets from his ideal Republic because they

are such liars. The prevalent notion that childhood and youth are the

happiest periods of life is largely owing to this mendacious crew. I

have rarely met an intelligent person of years who held the opinion.

It arises from forgetfulness of early sorrows, from false pictures of

youthful joys, and from undue attention to present pains. Most of

those who really feel such regret are the moral or literal prodigals,

who have wasted their substance in riotous living, and bewail, not the

lost happiness, but their inability to repeat their follies.

The rule of honest nature is that enjoyment should steadily increase

up to the full maturity of the powers, mental and physical. This,

under favorable circumstances, is between forty-five and fifty years

of age. After that, physical decadence sets in, and only by

exceptional strength or by increased effort can its fatal progress be

for a while stayed. From inquiry of many persons, I am persuaded that

the rule of the increase of enjoyment up to this turning-point is on

the average correct.

That old age is synonymous with wisdom is a comical deception which

the graybeards have palmed off on the world, because by laws and

customs they hold most of the property, and want most of the power as

well. In fact, diminution of the physical powers means decay all

round. “As we grow old,” observes Thoreau, “we cease to obey our finer

instincts.” It is an error to talk of the accumulated wisdom of years.

The experience of youth serves but to lead old age astray; and this is

seen nowhere so plainly as when an old man pretends a zest for the

pleasures of the young. “No fool like an old fool” is the proverb.

Such men are “out of their class,” as a trainer of athletes would say.

Every age has pleasures sufficient, which are appropriate to it, and

these alone should be sought for. To those who know and respect these

laws of nature, old age is very tolerable. It brings many

compensations for its inevitable losses; and though not likely to be

so happy as the best of middle life, it should be and often is

superior in this respect to youth. Probably it would generally be so

were it more willing to learn the lessons appropriate to it.

Bonstetten goes so far as to say, “No one can be happy till he is past

sixty;” but the proverb of the ancient Rabbis holds forever good,――“He

who teacheth the old, is like one who writes on blotted paper.”

V. _Principles of a Self-Education for the Promotion of One’s Own

Happiness._

The purpose of this chapter is not to enter into practical details of

an education for happiness――that is the mission of the rest of the

book,――but to establish certain general theoretical principles on

which such an education must be carried out in order to be successful.

And first, I must repeat what I have already intimated, that any

permanent and even moderate stock of happiness does not fall into the

open mouth, like the roasted quails in the fairy story, but can be

obtained only by methodical pursuit and constant watchfulness. Eternal

vigilance is said to be the price of liberty; and liberty is only one

of the necessary elements of happiness. Meditation, forethought, and

the formation of a clearly defined Plan of Life are all required, and

even then success is far from certain.

At the outset, I must attack as unsound a maxim which has been

assiduously disseminated by the school of economists of which Herbert

Spencer is the leader. It is put in the form,――“The greatest

efficiency is the greatest happiness.” It would be a calamity if this

were true. The pursuit of happiness would be hopelessly circumscribed,

as but few in the world can attain maximum efficiency in anything.

Fortunately, it is historically false. Those men who have won fame by

their enormous personal capacity have certainly not been the happiest

of their kind. Far from it. They have been men of one idea, absorbed

by some “ruling passion,” to which they have sacrificed all else, and

consequently, so far from gaining happiness, have usually ended by

wrecking their own and others’. It is not the reach of a man’s

abilities, but the use he makes of them, that decides his fortune.

Spencer’s maxim is precisely the reverse of the principle which should

govern an education intended to secure the utmost enjoyment for the

individual and those around him. Such an education should not be

concentrated on one faculty of the mind nor on one subject of study,

but should extend in all directions, be broad and many-sided. It is an

education within the reach of every one, which requires no

schoolmaster but oneself; and yet confers a degree on its graduates

more valuable than any university can bestow.

Its leading theoretical principles may be grouped under five

propositions:――

I. The multiplication of the sources of pleasure and the diminution of

those of pain.

II. The maintenance of a high sensibility to pleasurable impressions.

III. The search for novelty and variety of impressions.

IV. The establishment of a proper relation between desires and

pleasures.

V. The subjection of all pleasures to the increase of happiness.

These principles are not speculative or doctrinal, but are based on

the physiology of the nervous system and the constitution of the human

mind.

I. Let us begin with the first, for it is the basis of the whole Art

of Pleasure. Differently expressed, it means that the sum of our

enjoyment must be enlarged by increasing our sources of enjoyment. In

other words, we must set to work to acquire tastes in addition to

those which we already have by nature or previous education. The most

useful instruction is that which teaches us to profit by all our

chances. People are never so unhappy as they think they are, because

at the moment they forget how many sources of pleasure remain for

them.

Review the field. Take an “account of stock.” Most people have five

senses in tolerably good order. How many have seriously calculated the

number of different gratifications each of these senses is capable of

yielding? Beyond these lie the inviting fields of the Agreeable

Emotions, whose prolific soil needs but to be stirred to teem with

flower and fruit; and still beyond, but in easy reach, the uplands of

Reason and Thought rise into the purer air, and offer perspectives of

entrancing beauty.

All these resources are, to some extent, open to every one. But most

sit like a peasant at the table of a prince, refusing to taste the

choice viands which are before him, because he cares only for the

beans and hodge-podge of his daily fare.

Along with the multiplication of the sources of enjoyment must go the

studied avoidance of profitless pain. I say _profitless_ pain, because

there is pain which is profitable, and to avoid that would be to miss

the best of life, as I shall try to show on a later page,――a

distinction too often forgotten by those political economists who are

preparing the race for the era of universal happiness.

All pain is profitless which is incurred by a deliberate violation of

natural law, such as needless neglect of health or disregard of social

custom. When we confess that we have “made fools of ourselves,” we

suffer what our knowledge could have prevented, and we recognize it.

The part of wisdom is to avoid such suffering.

Here lies the incalculable value of knowledge in this pursuit. I do

not mean extensive learning or erudition, but knowledge of ourselves,

of our immediate natural surroundings, and of our own sphere of

probable activity. The chief value of Knowledge, says Epictetus, is

that it destroys Fear. We do not dread the known, but the unknown. Its

worth does not stop there. It enables us to escape disasters, to

lessen pain, to mitigate suffering in ourselves and others, and to

secure many joys. Three verbs, observes the philosophical Littré,

express the ideal perfection of human happiness――to know, to love, and

to serve.

The true end of what is called “culture,” or a “liberal education,” is

not to store the mind with a variety of facts useful in managing men

or in making money, but to expand our sympathies, to bring us in touch

with all that is beautiful and enjoyable in our lives; it is to

increase the sensitiveness of our finer instincts, so that they will

respond more readily to the delicate stimuli of pleasurable

impressions. Thoreau, walking behind the farmer’s cart, claimed to

have stolen the best part of the load of apples when he inhaled the

fragrant aroma from the fruit. To him it was more gratifying than to

have filled his stomach with the acid pippins.

Of all false maxims for happiness, that to be “content with little” is

the falsest. We should want immensely, but want wisely. To supply such

wants there is no need of the revenue of a kingdom or the lore of a

pedagogue. Not one man in a thousand exhausts the means of wise

enjoyment which are daily within the reach of his hand. Why go far

a-field to seek the treasure buried neath his own hearth-stone? What

he needs is to study himself and his environment, so as to protect

himself from the dangers to which he is exposed, and to draw from such

circumstances as he is placed in, and from such faculties as he is

possessed of, the maximum of gratification which they can render him.

If all persons acted consistently on this principle, the general sum

of human happiness would be indefinitely increased.

The kind of knowledge which is most serviceable to this end is by no

means difficult to acquire. It falls within the range of a common

school education, and ought to be made a part of it, with the definite

aim of promoting personal happiness. Professor Alexander Bain, who

belongs to the Scotch common-sense school of philosophers, and who

treats all questions in a business-like manner, has drawn up a scheme

of such an education, which any one can carry out for himself. It is

so excellent that I present its main features, with amplifications of

my own.

_a._ A Knowledge of the Bodily Constitution.

This means an acquaintance with the outlines of anatomy and

physiology, the rules of personal and general hygiene, some

understanding of the most prevalent diseases in the locality in which

we live and those to which we are individually most liable, and the

simplest means for their prevention and treatment; what best to do in

cases of sudden accidents and emergencies; and last, though not least,

the precepts for training, strengthening, and beautifying the body and

the features.

_b._ The Elements of the principal Physical and Chemical Sciences.

Even a rudimentary knowledge of the sciences of chemistry, geology,

geography, astronomy, of mechanics, steam, electricity, etc., such as

can be acquired from primary text-books, increases wonderfully our

interest in the world around us and in what we see and hear every day

of our lives, and thus furnishes a thousand sources of enjoyment,

besides being certain to find numerous practical applications of

utility.

_c._ The Study of the Mind.

This is at once a delightful pastime and an indispensable art for

success in many lines of business. It means an acquaintance with the

motives which actuate men in their decisions, the personal traits

which make up their characters, their passions and their ambitions,

their weaknesses and their prejudices. Men distinguished for what is

called “executive ability,” statesmen, diplomatists, promoters and

managers of great enterprises, all either possess by nature or have

acquired by study this insight, and to it they owe their success. To

some degree, all can attain it by observation of those around them,

and by the perusal of works which explain the constitution of the mind

and the dominant motives of human action. To this should be added an

unprejudiced reading of modern politics and history, especially of

one’s own country and State.

_d._ A Knowledge of the Principles of Business.

Worry about business affairs is probably the commonest cause of

unhappiness. A great deal of it is inevitable; but a large share of it

would be prevented were both sexes taught early in life the general

rules and customs of business, and those principles of financial

management, investment, prudence, and economy, which are nearly as

fixed in their operation as those of the motions of the stars. There

are many popular handbooks on this subject, and one such ought to be

in every household.

_e._ A Study of the Value of Evidence.

A remarkable writer, De Senancour, who under the name of Obermann

composed some strange books early in this century, maintained that if

men would tell the truth and could predict the weather, nearly all the

sufferings which afflict humanity would disappear. There is a great

deal in his opinion. At present, all men have a rooted aversion to

truth, and neither wish to tell it nor to hear it beyond a strictly

limited amount. But as a knowledge of facts is essential to right

action, the estimation of evidence and the calculation of

probabilities are necessary to a prosperous life. A man who has this

faculty is said to be gifted with “sound judgment,” but it is quite as

much an acquirement as a gift. There are well-known principles by

which the value of testimony is balanced and the weight of evidence

decided. They are in daily application in our courts, and can be

applied at least as successfully to affairs outside.

Such are the outlines of an education directed toward increasing the

sources of enjoyment and diminishing the causes of suffering; and what

remains to be said is little more than an extension of the principles

thus laid down.

II. The second principle is the maintenance of a high sensibility to

pleasurable impressions.

To reach the right meaning of this we must begin with physiology. All

impressions of the nervous system, that is to say, all feelings, may

be compared or studied with reference to three criteria, their

Quality, their Intensity, and their Persistence. Feelings of the same

quality, as a rule, heighten each other’s intensity, but persistence

is usually inversely to intensity. The keener the sensation, the

shorter its duration. The story is told of a French scholar who, for

suspected heresy, was subjected to judicial torture on the rack. When

the instrument was extended the first time, dislocating several of his

joints, he uttered a cry of agony; but at the second extension he

burst into laughter. “At my own ignorance,” he explained, “to suppose

that I could feel such suffering twice.”

It is essential to anything like a constant flow of pleasurable

feelings that we maintain a high state of vigor in the organs of

sensibility; and this can only be accomplished by a careful limitation

of intensity in favor of persistence of feeling. Occasional nervous

impressions of a very high degree of intensity are not only consistent

with health, but increase it; but their frequent repetition, and

especially the determined effort to maintain them for long periods,

inevitably result in a deadening of the sensibility and a lack of

response to ordinary and healthful stimuli.

The ignorance or disregard of these physiological laws explains some

of the most disastrous and conspicuous failures to attain happiness

where every circumstance seems propitious. The neglect of them is the

origin of that morbid condition of the mind which has been called “the

disease of the century,” _la maladie de la siècle_,――Ennui.

The bitter pessimist, Schopenhauer, delighted to show the

worthlessness of life, whose only variety is from the toil of pursuit

to the ennui of possession; while the sweet mystic, Pascal,

discovering in the same feeling the greatest misery of man, saw in it

that which would prove his salvation, for it would lead him to

renounce the vanities of the world and give himself unto God. The one

opinion is worth as much as the other.

If we make an anatomy of Ennui, as Burton made an anatomy of

Melancholy, we shall find that two different, though allied, mental

conditions have been grouped under the name.

The one is that sense of immeasurable boredom which we feel when

placed in uncongenial conditions, especially such as ought to be

welcome to us, as listening to good advice, or hearing instructive

lectures, or reading useful books,――like this one. We are driven to

any revolt by such inflictions. The scholar will turn gypsy and the

virtuous youth a vagrant to escape them. As a boy, at stiff company

dinners, I used to suffer from a keen desire to throw a plate through

the window, or commit some other outrageous breach of decorum.

What is the meaning of this innate revolt against conventionalism and

formality and respectability? The divines are ready to tell you that

it is a clear case of original sin. It is nothing of the kind. It is

the inherited and unquenchable thirst for freedom in the human heart,

and in some temperaments the strength of this passion for liberty is

such that any sacrifice is cheap to purchase it.

Perhaps these have not the worst of the bargain. “Who is the happiest

man in France?” some one asked the academician, D’Alembert. _Quelque

misérable_, “Some wretched fellow,” he replied. There is infinite

philosophy in his answer. Browning, in _Fifine at the Fair_, discusses

the question with amazing insight into human motive. He demands,――

“What compensating joy, unknown and infinite,

Turns lawlessness to law, makes destitution――wealth,

Vice――virtue, and disease of mind and body――health?”

He finds the answer in the “frenzy to be free” which is the ruling

passion in such characters as he describes. He is right, for ennui of

this kind is unknown in conditions of the largest personal freedom, as

in the savage state and among the vagabonds of society.

The other form of ennui arises not from external conditions, but from

those which are within. It is a species of dissatisfaction with self.

A man is generally his own stupidest companion. According to the

proverb, “Poor company is better than none;” because the poorest of

all is oneself. A curious paradox that has been noted is that the more

a man thinks about himself, the less he cares to be alone with

himself! We no longer shun solitude from the dread of bandits or

ghosts, but to escape the sight of the specters which arise within

ourselves. How many of us can boast of the “sessions of sweet silent

thought” which the poet praises as the crown of felicity? Amid the gay

throng of pleasure-seekers at Ranelagh, Dr. Johnson felt himself

distressed by the reflection, “That there was not one in all that

brilliant circle who was not afraid to go home and think.”

There is a moral virtue which the Roman philosophers called

_sufficientia_ and the Germans _Selbstgenügsamkeit_, which terms are

not at all translated by the English “self-sufficiency.” Let the word

go; the thing is what is needed. Make yourself an agreeable companion

to yourself, and this form of ennui will be known to you no longer.

This can only be accomplished by the constant and well-directed

exercise of your personal activities, and by the maintenance of a high

degree of sensibility to pleasurable impressions.

III. The search for novelty and variety of impressions.

The Art of Happiness prescribes that instead of cultivating a limited

number of pleasurable impressions up to a high degree of intensity, we

should seek a large variety, diverse in quality, moderate in

intensity, considerable in persistence. This precept, properly

understood, is consistent not only with a high, but perhaps with the

highest degree of gratification, for it is supported by another

physiological law of the greatest interest. This is, that the utmost

zest of pleasure is invariably conditioned on the entire novelty of

the sensation. This fact is so familiar that it is embalmed in common

proverbs, as that “Variety is the spice of life,” and the like. But

the deep significance and the manifold applications of these sayings

are rarely considered.

Entire novelties are within the reach of few, and come of themselves

but seldom. Fortunately, their agreeable effect can be closely

imitated by influences quite within our own control; that is, by the

remission and alternation of the pleasures already our own. This alone

will maintain the efficacy of any pleasure, for it is a sad fact that

in impressions on the nervous system, persistence can never become

permanence. Remission and reaction in all sensations are demanded by

that eternal and infinite law of Periodicity, or Rhythmical

Recurrence, which is the last and highest in the Universe of mind or

matter. This in turn enforces on us the importance of aiming for a

multiplicity of sources of pleasure, so that we may heighten their

impressions by frequent variety.

Here again we come into conflict with that cherished delusion which

makes contentment and tranquillity the chief elements of happiness.

With political economists, it often arises from a confusion of the

spheres of the State and the Individual. The State properly aims at

peace, established order, routine, and material ends; but the

Individual should seek variety and activity, he should try untrodden

paths and risk unknown crises. This alone will make him a many-sided,

strong character, responsive up to the full measure of his powers to

all impressions of natural enjoyment.

The foe he has to guard against in this joyous quest is Habit. This is

the tyrant whose iron scepter enslaves most men. The promptings of

pleasure and pain are far from being the only incentives; probably

they are by no means the most numerous or potent. The “ruling motives”

of most persons are simply the associations, customs, ideas, and aims

with which they have been longest in contact. A given mental tendency

soon becomes predominant, its easy yoke becomes adjusted to the neck,

and the man pursues his way in life without more resistance than the

ox to the wain. Vain the attempt to break his fetters and sever the

bonds of his habits. He is satisfied to reply, as the Arab to the

visitor, who would teach him a better agriculture――“Thus did my father

before me and thus my mother taught me; and in this manner shall I

continue.”

All attempts to make men happier on a large scale have been shattered

against the rock of this stubborn conservatism. Only at rare intervals

has it been riven by the shock of some mighty emotion which has swept,

tornado-like, over the soul of a nation, uprooting the tangled growths

of bigotry and routine. The only hope is that here and there an

individual will arise and say to himself, “I shall believe nothing

merely because those around me believe it; I shall do nothing merely

because I am accustomed to do it; I shall render to myself a reason

for my every decision and act.”

If some one asks, Why this invective against Habit, easy Habit, soft

as a padded chair, comfortable as an old shoe? the answer must come

from an analysis of mind. I have before shown that all true motives of

the Will are directed toward the avoidance of pain or the attainment

of pleasure. These alone are clearly conscious motives, distinguishing

between Self and Object, and therefore heightening to the sense of

individual life. Whatever we do “by habit,” on the other hand, we do,

in a greater or less degree, by what physiologists call “unconscious

cerebration,” and through the involuntary action of our nervous and

muscular systems. This automatic action of our organism is constantly

encroaching on our consciousness, submerging it, like the tide the

shore; darkening it, like the night the landscape; swallowing it inch

by inch, like the boa his prey. The struggle against Habit, therefore,

and all that Habit means, prejudice, bias, bigotry, authority, is a

struggle for life, and the nation, the society, the individual, who

succumbs in the contest is, by the very fact, bound hand and foot and

cast into utter darkness.

IV. The establishment of a proper proportion between desire and

pleasure.

Through the mouth of Hamlet Shakespeare makes the philosophical

reflection――“There is nothing either good or bad but _thinking_ makes

it so;” in other words, the value of anything reckoned in the currency

of enjoyment, lies not in the thing itself but in the strength of our

wish for it. Most of the aims of effort are like curios, whose price

is gauged entirely by the anxiety of the amateur to obtain them, and

not by any intrinsic quality.

In life there is no more useful faculty than to be able to put the

right price on pleasures. The best of prudential maxims is “Count the

cost.” The outlay of effort should be in a just relation to the return

which can be reasonably reckoned upon. A given pleasure should be

sought with an energy strictly in proportion to the gratification

which it can actually yield,――not in proportion to a false ideal of

that gratification as portrayed by the exaggerations of passion or

morbid desire. When infatuation or fascination or an over-heated

imagination leads the chase, horse and rider will be soon landed in

the ditch. Pain and disappointment ever follow an end sought in excess

of its real value. Again to quote the great dramatist, the “expense of

passion” is sure to be succeeded by “a waste of shame.”

The precept of education which is thus enforced is the regulation of

desire by reflection and deliberation. Proceed to an appraisement, as

in business affairs. Ask yourself the grounds of your desire. Is it

from experience, or merely on hearsay, and from a groundless imagining

of what the object might yield if attained? If it is from experience,

and the tasted sweet whets anew the appetite, recall the reaction and

the consequences, and if they were unpleasant, present them fully

before the bar of your judgment. If imagination alone influences you,

remember that you are playing the children’s game of “swapping in the

dark,” and are liable to exchange solid value for dross. “Depraved

affections,” observes Lord Bacon, “are false valuations.”

V. The last of the five principles stated is the crown of all of

them,――Make all pleasures a part of happiness.

I have already explained the difference between mere pleasurable

sensation and happiness in the true sense of the term. While the

former belongs to man’s animal nature, the latter is intimately

associated with the consciousness of Self. The power of

discriminating one’s Self from the rest of the universe, and

making one’s Self the subject of one’s own observation is a

faculty peculiar to man alone. There is nothing which lends him

more potent aid to accomplish this than his pleasurable

sensations. This alone imparts to them any real value in the

history of the individual or the race, and through this their

value becomes inestimable.

This has always been recognized as true of some of them; but the error

of most teachers has been that they have refused to acknowledge the

value of all pleasure to this end, the excellence of all enjoyment,

when it is brought into relation to the full nature of man. Some have

claimed that the charms derived from the esthetic and benevolent

emotions are enough to fill our lives; others advocate intellectual

joys; many preach that the religious sentiment offers all that man

needs; while counselors of an opposite tendency cry, “Eat, drink, and

be merry, for to-morrow ye die.”

All are wrong. The spirit of sound culture will recognize the whole

nature of man and the solidarity of all his parts, and will insist on

respecting that unity, if his true development is to be accomplished.

For this reason it will strive to render the pleasures of the senses

and emotions as intellectual as possible; and with not less

earnestness will aim to keep the pleasures of the intellect in touch

with the emotions and the senses. Its principle will be that the more

intimately the gratifications of sense are infused with emotion and

thought, the more they will be both purified and strengthened; and the

closer the web into which we can weave the austere joys of the reason

along with the emotions and the feelings, the more sympathetic,

wide-reaching, and ennobling will those joys become. As the ancient

mason mingled water from the sky with clay from the earth to make the

bricks wherewith to build the temple, so the permanent structure of

human progress can be erected only by combining in due proportion the

extremes of man’s delights.

A real though mysterious bond unites sense with that which is above

and beyond sense. Toward this Unknown it is ever striving, though

blindly and unconsciously. In lower forms of life this has led to that

marvelous series of transformations which, at last, have reached their

culmination in man. In him the struggle no longer expends itself in

physical changes, but frames the ideals which float before his mind,

constantly spurring him to attempt the impossible. Rest assured that

the analogy which holds good throughout all organic nature fails not

in him, its most perfect production. Somehow, by unknown ways and

under the guidance of unseen laws, his unwearying effort to discover

the invisible in the visible, the permanent in the transient, the

ideal in the real, will infallibly lead him in triumph to the final

goal of all Life. Whenever, without ulterior aim and for its own sake,

we give ourselves up to the admiration of some grand scene in nature

or masterful production of human art, we feel and recognize how near

to us, how much a part of us, is that invisible and ideal world in

which are set up the goals of man’s noblest aspirations. To unite

these opposites, to illuminate the pleasures of sense with the light

of the ideal, and, on the other hand, to capture its evanescent rays

by entangling them in material enjoyments, is the final precept of the

Art of Happiness.

* * * * *

Anthropology, the Science of Man, is the point of convergence of all

the other sciences; and the one aim of the Science of Man is the

Happiness of man; thus the Pursuit of Happiness is the end of all

pursuits. Pope displayed the inspiration of the poet when he devoted

the final epistle of the Essay on Man to a discussion of,

“Happiness, our being’s end and aim.”

* * * * *

The study of Philosophy, said Socrates, is the studying how to die. I

add, that the study of Happiness is the studying how to live; and that

he who acquires either, possesses both.

* * * * *

Rules for happiness are worth studying, even if they are no better

than the rules for writing poetry: which are said to prevent ill

poets, if they never make good ones.

* * * * *

Fortunately, happiness is a tree with many roots. It does not depend

entirely on outward circumstances; nor entirely on temperament or

health; nor entirely on ourselves or on others; nor entirely on

prudence or study. By cultivating any one of these, the tree will bear

some fruit. So bounteous are the gifts of nature, that if we simply

reduce the evils of life to something manageable, our happiness will

often take care of itself.

* * * * *

All history teaches that those who renounce pleasure for themselves

are least scrupulous about inflicting pain on others.

* * * * *

Genuine pleasure has this unique trait: the more you get for yourself,

the more you provide for others.

* * * * *

Pleasure and pain are common to all animals; and man’s most exalted

joys and sorrows bear a family likeness to these universal sensations.

* * * * *

In a certain sense, every pleasure is a victory, every pain a defeat;

the former is allied to movements of attack, the latter to those of

defense or submission.

* * * * *

Pains are pains to all; while there are many pleasures which are such

to but a few; though there is no reason but ignorance why they are not

shared by the many.

* * * * *

The bliss of ignorance consists in not knowing how much we never had,

and in living unaware of the worst of our mistakes.

* * * * *

Spiritualize your senses; the lowest of them may become first in the

kingdom of culture. Sensualize your intellect; only thus can you

attain the companionship of those noble brethren, Humanity and

Urbanity.

* * * * *

Our happiest moments are those in which we believe we can realize our

ideals.

* * * * *

Those who condemn the pursuit of Happiness reveal the baseness of

their own conception of it.

* * * * *

The doctrine that we should get rid of our wants by extinguishing our

desires is suited to the clown in the story, who cut off his ears

because they were cold.

* * * * *

Self-realization is widely different from self-manifestation.

* * * * *

An error that persuades us we are happy is more welcome than a truth

which shows us we are not.

* * * * *

Life is a sphere with an infinite number of sides; but, like the

terrestrial globe, to each individual it seems a plain, bounded by his

own horizon, with himself in its center.