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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.