^appinc^^ THE WORKS OF HUGH BLACK THE FRIENDSHIP SERIES Friendship Work Comfort Happiness Culture and Restraint Listening to God Christ's Service of Love The Gift of Influence HAPPINESS BY HUGH BLACK CHICAGO -NEW YORK •TORONTO FLEMING H.REVELL COMPANY LONDON • EDINBURGH i t i 1 I J i > i J J ) • .» J -a • ) >JJjJ*j 3 -i i i J Copyright, 1911 Bt Fleiunq H. Revelx, Company. New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street t c t TO Sir WILLIAM ROBERTSON NICOLL My Dear Nicoll: I sometimes feel as if I owed you a grudge that you made me write books, but it has been a comfort that therefore you have shared the responsibility. You are even responsible for the kind of book ; for I remember that years ago in your study in London, when I outlined to you an ambitious and learned piece of work I meant to do, you said that plenty of men were writing serious books for the few and hardly any writing for the many. You begged me to give up my scheme. I do not know if it is a justification, but each volume of the Friendship Series in which this book appears has received a welcome from a larger public than even you anticipated. As you know, it is a temptation to a professor to write a book of learned appearance, with scholastic 5 ^■ii},ntr.y^ words and large foot-notes. I have tried to resist that temptation, and in this case it has meant writing a book on Happiness without once using words like Hedonism and Utilitarianism. As Traddles says in David Copperfield, it has been a " pull ". I have longed to write a book worthy to dedicate to you, and in despair I choose this one. At any rate I feel that it is appropriate to associate your name with this subject, as no one has written more wisely than you on the art of living, which is the art of happiness. Also, one of the elements of happi- ness to me is that, though separated farther than in the old days, you permit me to call myself your friend. HUGH BLACK. New York Citx" ^oiiteni^ I The Right to Happiness • • II The Duty of Happiness ... 29 III The Soukces of Happiness . . 55 IV The Secret of Happiness . . 85 V The Art of Happiness . . . Ill VI The Grades of Happiness . . 14S VII The Shadow on Happiness . . 175 VIII The Foes of Happiness . . . 203 IX The Heart of Happiness . . . 229 If a man is unhappy, this must be his own fault; for God made all men to be happy. — Epictetus. THINGS have come to such a pass, both in the theory and prac- tice of life, that it is almost bold doctrine to declare that men possess the right to happiness. For one thing, men are not so sure about inalienable rights as they have sometimes been. There is a famous sentence in the Declaration of Independence of The United States of America, " 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 eight- eenth century was inclined to make a gospel of what it called the rights of man, and assumed that nature endowed men with certain abstract rights. It 3 '©Kc ^i0hi to was a great gospel, and led to some great results. But it is more accurate to say that nature endows man with de- sires and capacities. Rights are the creation of society, of law. A man may have a desire to be happy in a particu- lar way, but if society thinks that this way is wrong it will not grant him the right. Yet the assertion of inherent claim to certain things, often denied in some forms of government, has blazed a path of progress. Freedom of speech, liberty of religion, security of person under the common law, whether we call them abstract rights or not, have justi- fied themselves in fact. The only point worth making in the criticism of in- alienable rights is that they are not mysterious gifts from nature, and so cannot be assumed without proof that they will minister to the general social welfare. Edmund Burke's criticism on this point puts the emphasis where it ought 4 ^ appmc^^ to be put — " This sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally for- gotten his nature." It is idle to speak of man's right to anything, if it be con- trary to fundamental facts rooted in his nature. He may possess the right to live till the age of the patriarchs, but the question is, Can he? So in this subject of happiness it is more important to know what man's nature calls for, than what we think is his due. There have been many wordy battles among philos- ophers as to whether happiness could be accepted as an adequate end of life. Aristotle said, " Since all knowledge and all purpose aim at some good, what is the highest of all realisable goods? As to its name I suppose nearly all men are agreed ; for the masses and the men of culture alike declare that it is happi- ness." Men of culture have by no means been agreed to accept this definition, and indeed for centuries philosophy has di- 5 ^hc ^isKi fo vided itself into two hostile camps on this very point. The purpose of this book is not to discuss the rival philosophies which have divided the world. One of these asserts that the end of human life can be summed up in the desire for happiness. It may appear in a refined or in a gross form, but in any case the one powerful motive of ethics is what will make for the wel- fare of the individual. We are told that if we analyse carefully we will dis- cover that somewhere lies pleasure as the motive of an act. Pleasure is the index of the normal healthy conscious- ness, as pain is the index of the abnor- mal ; and life cannot help choosing along the line of pleasure. The principle of choice is often obscured, but in one form or other it is always the same. Sopho- cles in Antigone makes a messenger who brings bad news moralise: — "When a man hath forfeited his pleasures, I count 6 Sdajpifiixxc&s> him not as living — I hold him but a breathing corpse. Heap up riches in thy house if thou wilt ; live in kingly state ; yet if there be no gladness there- in, I would not give the shadow of a vapour for all the rest, compared with joy-" On the other side stand all the ideal- ists of the world, asserting that there is something higher than happiness. In the intellectual sphere they enthrone Truth, which its lovers are to follow at any cost. Last, if upon the cold green mantling sea Thou cling, along with Truth, to the last spar Both castaway And one must perish — let it not be he Whom thou art sworn to obey. In the moral sphere they point to Righteousness and speak of a moral imperative, a commanding voice of conscience summoning the high soul to duty, though every pleasure die. In the social sphere they raise aloft Justice, 7 '®Ke 9Jli0ht fo Avhich a man must do even if the heavens fall. Wrong does not cease to be wrong though it be on a throne, and right re- mains right even on a scaffold. In the spiritual sphere there is a vision of per- fection, a Kingdom of ends, a land of ideals, and " lovers of pleasure " seem in a lower scale of being than " lovers of God." The standard of all ethics is within the soul, and a man at his best is deaf to all other voices. So deep has this line of cleavage run through human thought, so persistent has been the rivalry of these two theo- ries, that we are compelled to admit that each has emphasised facts of life. The world is so built that man must ask what will advance and secure his welfare. He himself is so constructed that he cannot avoid doing what makes for his happi- ness. Yet again, every man has known his godlike hours, when no hope of gain or dread of loss, no consideration of expediency could be credited as the mo- 8 ^appine^^s tive of a great act, or a generous pas- sion, or a true sacrifice. After all, there is no necessity to try to sum up life in a single sentence, or to put the end of life into a single term. Philosophy sooner or later has to get down to facts. Certainly one of the facts is that the desire for happiness is too deep-seated to be argued away by logic. The yearn- ing for happiness is one of nature, and may be thwarted, but can never be killed while life lasts. It needs to be directed, not to be stifled. It is nature's call to larger growth, and has been the dynamic of evolution. Sentient life has been led upward by trusting to the plain teaching of sensation, seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. No single mood should be looked on as the final and complete answer to the meaning of life. It may be that this answer of happiness is after all only a single mood. It is probably only a par- tial ideal and is the voice of youth assert- 9 '©he H^iqU ia ing the truth of its vivid experience, rejoicing in the beauty of the world and the joy of hfe. Even so, this mood has its rights, all the more because it is the fresh temper of youth, surely as likely to be true as the blase philosophy of jaded men. The counsel of Ecclesiastes, " Walk in the ways of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes," cannot of course be adopted as the rule of life, but 1 1 ^ /i it expresses the instinctive faith of youth that life is a great gift and that the world is good. It undertakes with cour- age and hope the adventure of life, as the countless objects of the world press in through open doors of sense and mind, fascinated by the thought of what unknown delights await in far-off years and places. There is a sense also in which youth is not so blind and heedless as we often imagine. It knows instinct- ively that this vivid experience does not, and will not, last. The very brevity gives a zest to the new joy. There is 10 ^appmcsis a pathos in the eager grasp of youth after ever richer experience, but that is only felt by those who know that no permanent satisfaction comes that way. All forms of philosophy, which have made happiness the end of life, have come sadly to the conclusion that it can only be attained through temperance and moderation and self-control. This question of happiness is funda- mental, and is in many forms intensely modern. To many the great problem of the education of the young is the prob- lem of their play ; and the great prob- lem of city life is that of the amusement of the people. To-day also with the quickening of the social sense there are many who are haunted by the feeling that they have no right to be happy, even when they have the sources of hap- piness at their command, so long as there is so much evident misery on all sides. More than ever we realise that no man 11 ^he IJiishi la liveth to himself, and we know more of our social debt for even our commonest blessings. Every gift we possess has come to us through society, and on that account there is a keener sense of obli- gation. Then, the more developed the finer feelings are, the more the doubt arises whether we have any right to per- sonal joy when hfe to so many is joy- less. The true way out of this trouble is to extend the right into a duty. True democracy means that a man is willing to grant to others all that he claims for himself. He refuses to draw circles of exclusion. This is not so simple as it appears, and will lead to far results in legislation and in economic conditions. It is no less than the assertion of the |j j/ ■' right of others to happiness. In this connection it may be said that the universe is too often viewed from the point of view of the sentimental specta- tor who gathers up in imagination all the pain of the world into a heap. He 12 ^ajypmc^si views it in the mass, and sometimes tries to deal with the whole subject as a ques- tion of statistics. He tries to calculate whether pleasure is in excess over pain. Apart from the fact that arithmetic does not apply in such a subject, there is usu- ally a wrong perspective, as the daily newspapers give a wrong perspective by filling up columns of disaster. With a murder, and two acts of violence, and three reports of burglary, and so many cases of petty theft, and the beginning of a scandal in high life, we forget the unrecorded millions of good and gentle deeds. Beauty is everywhere, and life on the whole is a great blessing, and is full of joy, simple, natural, healthy joy. The fact that men are willing to go on living is proof that they receive on the whole sufficient satisfaction from life. Whether life is worth living can never be settled by adding up the sum of pleasures and pains and striking a hsil- ance. Many will assent to the argument 13 '©he aaight la in John Davidson's poem in " Fleet Street Eclogues," I think that I am still in Nature's debt, Scorned, disappointed, starving, bankrupt, old. Because I loved a lady in my youth. And was beloved in sooth. There are many teachers who assert positions, which logically lead to pessi- mism. Some declare that happiness is a will-of-the-wisp ever deluding the eager grasp, and it is better not to attempt the impossible. Others see life lived un- der a leaden sky and on a sodden earth. They agree that to some, and under some conditions, happiness of a kind would be possible, but it is so rare a chance that it is not worth counting on ourselves becoming the fortunate ex- ceptions. There is not enough happi- ness to go round. Others assert that the sure way to lose happiness is to seek it. If you aim at it at all, it must be indirectly. You may have it at the back of your mind, but you must not 14 ib applTTC^^S have your eye on it. Still another ob- jection to the pursuit of happiness is that it is selfish. Yet everybody would admit that a world of happy human be- ings is an ideal worth while. How is this even to begin to be possible, if nobody is ever to try to be happy himself,'' All these objections are really due to confusion of terms. To denounce happi- ness as selfish, for example, is because it is defined merely in terms of pleasure, and pleasure is defined merely in terms of sense. It is true that pleasure is built on sense and that happiness is built on pleasure, as the acorn is rooted in the soil and the oak grows from the acorn. But you cannot explain the oak by call- ing attention to the process, still less is the oak degraded by the connection ; and happiness is neither explained nor de- graded because of its natural history being traced back to sense. If we had no feeling of satisfaction there could be no reason for calling anything good. 15 '©he ISiiQhi ia One condition would be as significant as another. All the values we give to things have their roots in sensibility. Even the worth of things of intellect lies in the special satisfaction these afford. Many frown on the idea of happiness because in their minds it is associated with pleas- ure, and pleasure has to them a low sound. It stands for the ruthless grati- fication of selfish impulses. This is the easy method of giving a dog a bad name and then hanging him. The quarrel, as often happens, is largely one about words. We are tempted to waste on philosophy what might be given to mankind. Life is more than meat, and it is also . more than theory. It may be obvious that this world has not been made merely for the ease and happiness of men, and obvious that we are not made to inhabit an earthly paradise, but the human heart can never cease to long for satisfaction of desire. This primal need has been the 16 ib appine;55i driving power to transform society and to improve the conditions of life. Even when men miss happiness as an experi- ence, they feel they were made for it. The capacity for joy, which is their natural human instinct, demands frui- tion. To ask them to abandon the quest for happiness and to acknowledge it a phantom would be to make a mock of life. When we ask if we have the right to be happy, the true answer is got by ask- ing another question, whether the facts of our nature permit it. We have the right to be what we can be. The trouble with the theory that makes happiness the end of life is not that it is false, but that it does not carry us anywhere till we know in what happiness consists. If we ceased to fight about words, the one word happiness might be accepted by both sides in the immemorial dispute, if only the word were defined in a large 17 '©he ISa^hl la enough sense to include all the facts of human experience. Certainly, no theory of ethics can be right which leaves hap- piness out. There is danger on either side, but danger ever companies with life. On the one side an emphasis on pleasure scatters life in frivolity, or swamps it in grossness. On the other side to deny a place for pleasure is to attempt the impossible. If the theory which makes happiness the " being's end and aim " comes to grief, it is equally true that the theory which leaves happi- ness out comes to grief. It sins against human nature, and either leaves life dry and barren, or drives it into revolt. Each new soul that enters the world claims its share of its birthright of joy. To leave out happiness from the moral ideal means to an earnest man as- ceticism of the worst sort. It means pain for its own sake, a different thing from self-discipline which may willingly undergo pain for the sake of a larger 18 .5bajrpinc5i5i good to self or others. From the denial of happiness as a good, it is only a step to view pain as itself a good, and many religious teachers come perilously near taking that step. Fenelon begins a letter to Madame de Maintenon, " I was told yesterday evening, madame, that you are suffering very much from tooth-ache. God be praised for it; He afflicts those whom he loves. Pain is the heritage of His good children, and I am rejoiced that you are one of them. They are at peace in the midst of pain, and they are happy in suffering, whilst the world is really miserable in its joys." Any theory which leaves out happiness as an essential part of its end leads to a false and strained morbidness, and sometimes even is a menace to the best things in human life. It would open the door to cruelty the most inhuman in the supposed interests of dogma. It is a calamity when religion is looked on as the foe of human happiness, even 19 !^rv trTn IL^ mhc QUiaht ia though it is meant in the interests of a higher happiness. Too often men have tried to shut the door of the world's beauty and truth and joy, as if these were evil in themselves. Heine tells the story of the nightingale of Basle which illustrates a common enough thought. One day in May 1443 at the time of the Council of Basle a company of prelates and monks were walking in a wood near the to\\ni. They were disputing about theological controversies, but suddenly they became silent and remained as if /il rooted to the spot before a blossoming lime-tree, wherein sat a nightingale car- rolling and sobbing forth her tenderest and sweetest melodies. These learned men began to feel in a strangely blessed mood, as the warm spring notes of the bird penetrated their scholastic and mo- nastic hearts. But at last one of them ^ shrewdly remarked that herein must be some wile of the devil, seeking to divert them by its seductive strains from their 20 ^appmcsis Christian conversation. He proceeded to exorcise the evil spirit, and it is said that the bird rephed, " Yes, I am an evil spirit," and flew away laughing. Those, however, who had listened to its song fell sick that same day and died shortly thereafter ! In our deepest thinking we usually underestimate the place and value of joy in life. Even in the matter of tem- perament, we are inclined to think that the bright and sunny nature must be shallow, and that the melancholy temper- ament is more likely to be the deepest and greatest. It is a prejudice which has been fastened on our mind by much writing about certain attributes of genius, of a piece with the modem theory that genius is a sort of affection of the nerves and is therefore closely allied with insanity. It is stated in many books that most men of real and indisputable genius have been melancholy. Well, the 21 '©he K^ishi ia standard of natural genius for the Eng- lish-speaking world is Shakespeare, ab- solutely sane, absolutely healthy, with no mawkishness of feeling so common in pinchbeck genius, of cheerful tempera- ment, and a bright sunny view of life. It is really confusion of thought which is responsible for the opposite opinion. We assume that if Shakespeare, or any other, sees below the surface of things, and recognises the tragedy of life and all the sin and sorrow of men, there- fore his temperament must be melan- choly. Schiller's judgment is a pro- found one and a true one, "A gay serene spirit is the source of all that is noblest and good. Whatever is accomplished of the greatest and noblest sort flows from such a disposition. Petty gloomy souls, that only mourn the past and dread the future, are not capable of seizing on the holiest moments of life." The affectation of sentiment and the spurious pathos, so easy to do and so 22 1 ^appirxcsis common in our literature, have made it easy for us to believe the opposite of Schiller's judgment. Further, our common view of religion has greatly helped in the growth of the error. Is it not spoken of in many quarters as the sorrowful way, and the melancholy inn, and the like.'^ The Christian faith even has been succinctly defined by a great master of literature as " the worship of sorrow." We know the element of profound truth in this exaggeration, as we know that in every deep soul probably sorrow of some kind has had much to do with its making; but it is to put the emphasis on the wrong thing when we disparage joy and exalt mere sorrow as a sign of either greatness or goodness. It is not even an infallible instrument of grace. It can come to a life and leave it poorer than before. It can come to a heart and leave it only the harder. It can engulf a mind, and only take from it its strength; whereas 23 "^he ISiishi ia .-»- \ joy may be a source of insight, and a secret of wisdom, and a fountain of strength. ]Mere sorrow, the sorrow of the world, is a narrowing, weakening thing. It dams back the natural forces. It shuts a man up within himself. It gives a jaundiced eye which sees the world clothed in drab, making nothing worth striving for, nothing worth living for. It robs the soul of its native force, killing aspiration as the rain puts out the kindling beacon. We need to free our mind from cant here also. There is a shallow cheerfulness, but there is also a shallow melancholy. We speak glibly of the refining fire of sorrow, but in itself it is only a fire that can consume as well as refine. It altogether depends on the way it is received, the spirit in which it is met, and that can be said of every other experience in life. Our common talk is even an injustice to God, and a libel on His character, as if all natural joy were but lures of the /k, 24 ^appincs^ devil, and only grief were a divine mes- senger. The companions of the sorrow- ful way may have much to teach us ; but when we walk with them we may be looking only at the stones among our feet and never at the blue sky above us. We may learn much at the melancholy inn, but the company there may be pretty poor after all, as at any other inn. Rather, we should realise that joy is strength. It is the fundamental prin- ciple of life, and the condition of growth. It is the expansive enlarging force, as sorrow is the narrowing, weakening force. We only need to look at the child opening out in every power through the joy of youth, as the flowers open out in the sunshine. Great work is done with something of the spontaneity and ex- pansion of joy, done because it is a de- light to do it. Sorrow rightly used may often give insight, forcing the mind to think and the eye to see; just as disease may read us many a lesson. At the 25 '©he ^^iqU la same time joy is the normal, as health is the normal, and life all disease would only be death. Is there no opportunity for a keener insight through the uplift- ing exulting power of happiness ? With the " deep power of joy," said Words- worth, " we see into the heart of things." Should this not be true, if there is at the heart of things, as we believe, perfect life, perfect joy, perfect love.'' This message of the right to happi- ness is one still needed to-day. There remains much of the Pagan idea that joy only comes to us with a grudge. We are almost afraid to be happy, and we accept some of life's best blessings tremblingly. We say that good news is too good to be true, and when it comes true we assert that it is too good to last. " I was too happy " one will say, " and I knew I would have to pay for it." The truest joys of life are accepted with foreboding, and the implication is that 26 ^appmcsis God grudges happiness to His children. It needs to be said that to the Christian joy should be the habit of his mind, the temper of his faith. Sorrows come and will come, but faith is not made perfect till they are dri^-en out by the strong hand of joy. The one and only cure for sorrow is joy. Anything else is a half- cure at the best; resignation is only a palliative. If we are to-day doubting and timid, anxious about the present and fearful about the future, is it not because we have not accepted the full consequences of our faith, have not plucked the rich fniits of believing .'' Also, it is a misfortune, to say the least, that the young should have so much cause to imagine that religion means gloom and darkness, instead of joy and light. Dr. Johnson compared the sour narrowness of some men to the neck of a vinegar bottle. We know with what measure of truth the comparison can be applied to some forms of religion. 27 ^ctpjrinc^^ It is a calamity when the good news should be perverted in what is its essen- tial features. Instead of being narrow and dismal, religion is the biggest and brightest thing that can come into a man's life, transforming every power and inspiring every energy, bathing it in peace and flooding it with joy. 28 'Si^uig of ^ctppirrcissi J There is an idea abroad among moral people that they should make their neigh- bours good. One person I have to make good: myself. But my duty to my neigh- bour is much more nearly expressed by say- ing that I have to make him happy — if I may. R. L. Stevenson. /b,r ^ ^. cv^ "©Kc "^ui^ of IF we can be said with any truth to possess a right to happiness, the right can be stated as a duty. It is even a duty to self. The mere exercise and cultivation of any faculty is a source of pleasure, and such cultivation is surely also a duty, unless it conflicts with some still higher duty. Society punishes wil- ful self-mutilation, and looks on suicide as a crime. We pity the man who is his own worst enemy, as the saying goes, who throws away his chance for a happy life and does violence to his own bless- ings. Some people suck pleasure from melancholy, as some "enjoy" poor health. It is even a common notion that duty is precisely what we do not like. If there is any doubt, the safe rule is to find out what will be pleas- 31 ^hc "^vA:^ of ant, and do the opposite ! It does often happen that duty asks for sacri- fice and demands the hard thing rather than the easy one, but to make pain a test of duty is to turn the world topsy- turvy. Much sickly sentiment has passed for wisdom and passed for religion, as if life was only a vale of tears, and man was made to mourn, and the world was but a scene of woe. In such a universe it would be a duty to be unhappy, even if by a freak of fortune it were possible to avoid the regular lot. Disease and sorrow exist, but health is the normal, and joy is the natural, and it is a privi- lege to live. Problems abound, but the manly and healthy view is that they exist to be bravely faced, and if pos- sible solved. The world with all its mystery spells opportunity. It means opportunity to be, as well as to do ; and opportunity for the personal life as well as for the general. 32 ,N il I J ^ctppincsis The duty of happiness becomes clearer when we see how it affects others. It is the merry heart that makes the cheer- ful countenance, and it is the cheerful countenance that spreads cheer to make other hearts merry. The sunny soul brings sunshine everywhere. A bright and happy temperament is a great social asset, adding to the happi- ness of the world. There is a prejudice, much encouraged by solemn wiseacres, that gravity of demeanour must betoken wisdom, and that a genial and sprightly manner is an offence. " Let 's be grave, here comes a fool," said a wise man, knowing that the fool would misunder- stand brightness for levit}'. One has known a man who pulled his brows with the weight of thought, till one felt sure that no man could really be as wise as he looked. He overacted the part. To most of us cheerfulness is wonderfully attractive and invigorating. Some people bring with them a balmy and 33 ^Kc "^ul^ of gracious air, which gives to others a sense of ampler skies. We have even known a gracious old age, with the blitheness and cheerful peace of one who has kept his youth. Life has its dreary days, its depress- ing hours, when the spirits flag. It looks as if the sky would never clear, as if gaiety were a lost mood. A brave and cheering soul carries a magic, that seems to dispel the gloom and make the sun to shine. Such an one comes into a dispirited company like a breath from a wide moor or the heather hills, and in- stantly dejection is charmed away. The dreary tone departs, and each can take up his burden again with a light heart. A cheerful friend makes us forget cares, and worries, and anxieties, and disap- pointments ; and the reprieve rests us and strengthens us. We take a brighter view of life. We lose the sense of strain, and a new courage restores the soul. There are some who have the 34 ^ctppirtcisi^ gift of putting moral oxygen into the atmosphere, so that all can breathe more freely. We habitually underestimate these buoyant and vivacious souls, who do so much to brighten the lot of their friends. We often take it as a matter of course, and sometimes do not realise how they warmed, and cheered, and comforted us, till it is too late to acknowledge our debt. The best way to acknowledge it is to turn it into a duty for ourselves,^ and to take our share in the task. We too can learn to be a little less morose, and grudging, and selfish. We say that our friend's gift is merely a matter of temperament, and we do not think that his courage and brightness may need an effort from him sometimes. We welcome his cheerful spirit, but it may cover an inner weariness. His smile may be hid- ing his own depression. Why should not we too join the goodly company of the encouragers .'' Why should not we 35 "©he 3uig of learn a little of the large tolerance and the blithe courage and the genial out- look, which would contribute to the joy of others? This temper, whether natural or cul- tivated, does much to ensure the best kind of success. Happiness is a real power in the world, and often is the secret of influence. All great doctors seem to possess the gift of communicat- ing hope and courage to their patients. Everyone with any knowledge of human nature knows that faith and cheerfulness and courage are powerful agents in re- storing and maintaining even bodily health. To revive the will to live is sometimes half the battle, especially in all nervous disorders. The genial na- ture, which we often associate with a kind of weakness, is really a mark of strength. It means that a new quality has been driven into every activity of life. It is allied to the broad tolerance, which may be the last triumph of the 36 ^appmcsisi victorious soul. It is the fruit of the deep insight which makes a man tender with those who have fallen on life's battlefield, or who are in danger of fall- ing. We see enough to know that we do not see all the conflict through which each soul passes, and all the burden it has carried. We must learn, however, not to limit this duty of happiness to the little inner circle. The great lesson of life is co- ordination and co-operation — all that we mean by citizenship. The duty of happiness means the insistence of the same rights for others that we claim for ourselves. All the more if a man makes happiness the key to the meaning of life is he bound to accept this duty ; for life is not lived alone, one by one, but is a social affair. He cannot live to himself if he tried ; and so the acceptance of this fact carries with it an implica- tion, if not an obligation. Even self- 37 J// f 55 7 "©he "^ul^ of ■t » interest demands the creation of a world, which will not be a constant check to happiness by sights and sounds of mis- ery. It cannot add to the comfort of Dives, though clothed in fine linen and faring sumptuously every day, if the beggar Lazarus is at his door hungry, unkempt, with the dogs licking his sores. There is surely on any ethics a duty to one's self to aid in the happiness of ^\ J others. Just as a man discovers that he owes most of his happiness to others, he discovers also that there is a new and sweeter pleasure in paying back some of his social debt. As a mat- ter of experience, unselfishness reaps a reward in the satisfaction of the i[ higher feelings. Conversely, a self- ish action brings a sense of being out of relation with life. We have played a traitor's part. It may seem only natu- ral to a man that he should seek the happiness of those nearest him, kith and 38 ^ctpjrmcsfli kin, wife, and children, and friends. It will become more and more natural for him to draw bigger circles, and desire the welfare of his village or town or city, the welfare of other little children be- sides his own, the group of his o^ti workmen perhaps, the safety and pros- perity of the nation, happiness and peace for other nations — until he feels hi \k J the great tide of the world's life. Char- ' ' ' ity may begin at home, but it cannot end there. The love, which seeks to live only for itself, begins to die at the heart. The ordinary man does not need to be convinced that his own happiness depends largely on the happiness of his own home circle, and is willing to ac- knowledge that there lies for him much of the ideal of his life as well as his duty. The object of his thought and work has already ceased to be selfish, and he assents to Robert Burns' noble lines : 39 "©he 3uiB of To make a happy fireside clime For weans and wife Is the true pathos and sublime Of human life. But the ordinary man needs to broaden his sense of duty, and to see obligation and opportunity in the wider relations. This duty of happiness will have its bearing in politics both civic and na- tional. He will share in every effort to make conditions sweet and wholesome, in which men can live a reasonable and happy life, enjoying the same blessings he seeks for himself, the fruits of work and leisure and social intercourse. He will take his part both in creating pub- lic opinion and in enforcing it concern- ing conditions of industry, to banish the nameless evils of the modem city. He will even look wider and further afield in international politics to work for the amity of nations. Whatever our theory of life be, we cannot avoid the conclu- sion that if it could be proved that the 40 'Sbctpfiina&i^ average man is unhappy and suffers misery in work and life, it is an indict- ment on that society, and is a proof of its failure. Practically all are agreed that we ought to give what contribution we can to the world, and that we should take our share in the task of adding to the happiness of other men. This is accepted even by some who will not admit that we have any right to be happy ourselves. That position is due to repulsion from the doctrine that pleasure is the end of human life, and the only object of man is to be happy. It is also partly due to a discovery made long ago that the way to miss permanent happiness was to seek it with avidity. In some mysteri- ous manner the goal eluded the pursu- ing feet. The most bored of men were seen to be those who sought pleasure with a single eye. So the doctrine of happiness was amended to mean the 41 \ 'StKc 3uig of greatest good of the greatest number. Personal happiness, it was claimed, would be the result of seeking the happi- ness of others. It would come as a by- product. Without criticising this posi- tion, the point here made is that even on that philosophy men are compelled to fall into line with what we have called the duty of happiness. It does not mean that we are to give ourselves to personal happiness, and then try to give it to others. Happiness is not something that can be accumu- il\ lated as wealth can be and represented in a store of solid coin. One of the sure methods of being happy is by a frank and open intercourse with other life. If we seek our own things to the exclu- sion of the things of others, we will lose even our own. If we separate our- selves in any way from the social life, refusing for the time sympathy and interest, we lose the truest and sweetest joys. To seek to make others happy 42 !i r J >> ^ajrpinc^s is one of the ways of happiness for one- self. The purest joy of life comes through society, and can never be at- tained alone. To taste the happiness of duty is one of the ways to equip one- self for the duty of happiness. It does not make much difference whether a man holds the theory that life V J I is governed by self-interest, if he prac- tically defines it so as to include the whole sphere of morality demanded by social living, if he is a good son and husband and father, if he is fair minded and large hearted in all the natural re- lations, if he finds pleasure in civic and national duty. He is really under laws wider than any law of selfishness. There are times when he acts without thought of self, when he is satisfying pi'ofounder instincts than that of self-preservation. When the fireman risks life to save a child from a burning house, we mis- judge human nature if we try to explain its heroism as due to a desire for praise 43 ItKc 3u{g of or recognition or reward. There are elemental depths which cannot be fath- omed by our little measuring lines. Above all struggles for the life of self, there is a struggle for the life of others. Some systems speak of man in terms of mechanics as if he were a sort of ma- chine, which if you pull the same lever will always do the same thing. Political economy speaks of the economic man as invariably doing certain things in con- nection with rigid laws of supply and demand, always buying in the cheap market and selling in the dear. No such men exist, or ever have existed. There is red blood in men's veins, and at times all calculations are knocked out. There is always the personal equation when we are dealing with human life. For this reason there is always room for ideals. As a fact of observation and experi- ence we everywhere find, besides the com- 44 ^Sbajrpmcss mon selfish motive, a social motive at work. They are not essentially op- posed; for we can say that the one leads to the other, and also finds its highest fruition in the other. The selfish motive with which life begins, as seen in animal and child, is found in man melt- ing into a larger motive. What has been called enlightened selfishness dis- covers that it cannot fulfil itself except as it ministers to the common social good. It is more than a play on words to say that wealth is only made possible by the commonwealth. Even business, which is often frankly described as purely selfish, is the creation of social instinct. Trade is for mutual advan- tage, and serves social ends. It would be impossible in a world of rogues, where no sort of good faith was prac- tised. In spite of ourselves we are forced to minister to some extent to the welfare of others, but if this ideal were consciously accepted as a duty, 45 ^hc "^ul^ of the end would be gained much more rapidly. Our rights are conditioned by duties. The individual right is always limited by the rights of others. Have I not a right to do what I like with my own? Well, it depends on what you like and what you want to do. In civilised life both rights and duties are complicated by our increasingly complex society. A right which injures others should not be enforced, and should not even be de- manded. Any man's right to the pur- suit of happiness must be curbed, if it is contrary to the common good. If the chief source of happiness comes from the social life and from true relation with others, it follows that a man loses his best joy if his conduct injures others. To refuse the duty implied here is to destroy his own right to happiness. The real controversies before the world to-day are not speculative but jSi)ix:p:pirxe^iu> practical, — questions of social duty rather than questions of abstract truth. Of course, lying back of all practical problems are ultimate views of life and of human nature, and every proposed practical solution implies a speculative position. But our chief difficulties have to do with social duty, problems of cap- ital and labour, of economic conditions, of poverty and wealth, of the relation of classes and races and nations. What ideals ought we to place before us.^* Wherein would consist the truest and best human life for a community? How can we build the City of God for our own age and our place in the world's history? Whatever practical plans may be tried, they will be along the line of increasing the happiness of the whole people and making life more tolerable. This is accepted on all hands as at least part of the ideal. All forms of govern- ment assert that one purpose is to ex- tend and preserve the welfare of those 47 "Sthc 3u{g of governed, to give protection and safety, and to promote the general happiness. For a brotherhood of men worth the name there will always be needed the virtues and graces and loving nature, which the word brother at its best has come to mean. We think of social duty as ambitious schemes for affecting life in the mass. If a man cannot reconstruct society, he is inclined to imagine that nothing is expected or demanded of him. There are theoretical socialists who do not lift a little finger in the smaller oppor- tunities for service. Surely conditions can meanwhile be amehorated, and life can be made easier for some. Everyone can begin somewhere, and to the ordi- nary person the first task is to bring some light and joy to a small circle. Many refuse their natural field of usefulness because it seems too narrow. If, as Chalmers said, the grand essentials of happiness are something to do, some- 48 ^appincsis thing to love, and something to hope for, there is no lot so confined and no corner of life so cramped that these oppor- tunities cannot be found. All have it in their power to add brightness and joy to the lives of some. A common objection is that true life is from within, that if man were better the environment would be better, that it is useless to work from the outside, and that even in the matter of happiness one man's meat is another man's poison. So we are told that the poor are happier in slums than they would be in palaces, and that they prefer dirt to cleanliness. In the face of every proposal to decrease misery and improve conditions, we are advised that on the whole it is better to do nothing. It is fatalism of the worst kind, besides being a display of arrogance. It is said of Frederick the Great that when an eager supporter of the popular doctrine of the time spoke 49 "^he "^ul^ of enthusiastically of what education would do if we accepted the assumption of the goodness of the human race, he replied, " You don't know the race." Many with less excuse take the same imperial tone. They speak as if they themselves belonged to another race, with other and finer qualities. They are made of a different clay ! They forget that they were digged from the same pit, and hewn from the same rock. In their minds the people exist merely to be ruled, and governed, and policed, and /;! now and again used as food for powder in war, or as pawns in a game of com- merce. As a matter of fact the whole superior attitude is an argument in favour of the value of environment, and education, and opportunity, and what are called the advantages of life. If 4 these things can do so much for them that they can feel as if they belonged to another race, why should the same things not do as much for others .f* If 50 \ V J ^appinc^Si/Si congenial work, and leisure, and art, and knowledge can set them on such a pinnacle, will not the same uplifting forces be as powerful with others? It is arrogance of the worst sort when from the seats of privilege comes the objec- tion, " You don't know the race," made to every hopeful effort to lighten the lives spent in misery and joylessness. The arrogance is the same, whether it ./ be heard in a military aristocracy or in an industrial plutocracy. The duty of happiness is not fulfilled till we make it stand for the right of others to happiness. It is true that life is more than meat, and that the life of a man does not con- sist in the abundance of the things that he possesseth. It is true that the mind '' can be a kingdom, and that no mere gospel of the dinner-pail can save so- ciety. If all men were as angels and had a perfect interior life, there would 51 tw "Uhe 1>ul^ of be no social problem. It is equally true that if all men lived out perfectly the golden rule and sought the things of others rather than of self, there would be no problem. If life everywhere were perfectly adjusted, external conditions would be negligible. But the whole task of life is one of adjustment, and it is futile to argue what would be if the facts were other than they are. The facts clearly indicate that to multitudes the higher life is practically impossible be- cause of intolerable conditions. With sweated labour and crowded slums and hopeless poverty, how can spiritual in- terests find entrance to many.'' With the degradation of home and the conta- gion of example, which is the environ- ment of so many children, what chance have they to live the life wliich should be their birthright.'' The very existence of some of the evils of our modern city is a challenge to all who accept the duty of happiness. 52 ^ctppincsiSi We do not wonder that some re- formers put all the emphasis on material conditions. We do not wonder that many speak as if the millennium would begin when material blessings were better distributed. If they exagger- ate the redeeming power of physical comfort in their passion to help the socially distressed, we can sympathise with even the narrowness of their out- look. Also, we must not forget the truth that their program contains, remember- ing as we do how much the best in our own life we can credit to our happy cir- cumstances. Grinding poverty, the sting of hunger, a bare and crowded home, sordid cares, the lack of the ordi- nary amenities of life and sometimes even of its decencies, justify the re- former's zeal. He may well think that it is useless to speak of higher needs to be satisfied, and higher instincts to be nourished, until the primal needs are met. If wherever there is need we can 53 ■ ■ " »- find our neighbour, it is not hard to see where at least part of our duty Hes, and it may be that our first duty is to seek to make our neighbour happy before we try to make him good. 54 Sources- of ^ctppmciSi^ v-^ '■^r^^l ^J To watch the com grow, or the blossoms set; to draw hard breath over the plough- share or spade; to read, to thmk, to love, to pray, are the thuigs that make men happy. Ruskin. \ '^- ff ^ ^hc .Syourcc^ of FORTUNATELY the common sources of happiness correspond with the elemental needs of life. When we have found out the natural things which man needs in order to live the truly human life of the best sort, we have discovered the ordinary sources of happiness. These are first the primal necessities for physical well-being — food and shelter and activity. The largest menu crowded with French names is only an elaboration of the com- mon need that men have to eat. The variety and refinements of dress and the establishments of a palace are only elab- orations of the need of shelter. The most expensive games and sports, polo- playing and yachting, or the particular sport that happens to be most fashion- 57 ,[^^ -.71 ^hc Sources oj" ^: 'i^ able, are only elaborations of the need of exercise. We create artificial needs, and desire grows by what it feeds on ; but we soon discover that happiness does not depend on the number of men's wants. According to a man's income and tastes he lives in a certain style, and feels he needs a certain size of house, and must wear a certain manner of dress, and have a certain kind of cooking. Servants, horses, automobiles, and what not, get to be looked on as necessities, merely because it is thought that a certain way of living is required. We develop wants, and begin to think that they are needs. A little observation convinces us that there is no end to that method of attain- ing happiness. We see that those who look on life as a game of grab never reach a point of contentment. They are like the daughters of the horse-leech ever crying, " Give, give." There is always room for Carlyle's satire that the black spot in our sunshine is the shadow 58 &auvcc^ of fibre communicates itself to mental and moral states. Bodily conditions influ- ence the whole life. Noldeke quotes a saying in connection with some of the disgusting neglect of body of a pillar- saint like St. Simon Stylites : " Where the skin has little feeling, so also has the mind and soul." An invalid can be happy, and a weakling can be noble, but it is in spite of their disabilities. The complete functions of life can only be adequately performed in health, and so we rightly make the first substantial factor of happiness a wholesome physi- cal nature. s^ This naturally leads to the second \ source of happiness, to be found in work.^ We should naturally expect this, if modem psychology is correct in relating pleasure to vital energy. Pleasure marks the normal exercise of function, and pain is the impeding of a function. It used to be explained as a purely pas- 68 JSbctfipina^i^ sive thing, a satisfaction received from outside stimulus. We now see that it is connected with activity, the outgoing of energy, the exercise of faculty. This explains a fact often noted, that there is a pleasure which comes through what can only be called pain, if we were com- pelled to classify every state of feehng. There is a pleasure in poetic pains Which only poets know. It is sometimes hard to disentangle the strands of the cord, though one of them is a scarlet strand. Looking on pleasure as a passive thing, some very humble teachers have defined happiness as merely the cessa- tion of pain, or the slight balance of pleasure over pain — if indeed that ever is possible. So, the saying of the Greek sage has been repeated scores of times, " Call no man happy till he is dead," the meaning being that however much good there has been in life there may yet come 69 "©he ^ouvcc^ of more evil to counterbalance it. The crreat truth, that it is more blessed to give than to receive, is only nonsense to this view of happiness. The idea that pleasure could itself be cradled in pain has no place in a scheme, which makes happiness merely the result of the cessa- tion of pain. In this view the best we can do is to minimise unhappiness, and so the effort should be to forget self and drown sorrow in a cup of forget- fulness. The narcotic plan of life is common enough. Dr. Johnson believed that man desired happiness, but thought it a craving that was doomed ever to failure, and roundly asserted that no man could be happy except when he is drunk! All such views are due to the failure to understand the true source of pleasure — as output not income. There is a joy in overcoming, of being in the very stress and strain of life, so long as we are fit for the task. There is pleasure in battling in the teeth of the 70 ^appincsis hard glad weather. The strong man does not ask for the shelter of a snug nest as his permanent environment. Work if it is at all congenial is a source of great happiness, and this is in line with the statement of psychology that pleasure comes from function in healthful action. This does not mean that only when there is a strong natural J bent will a man enjoy his work. The average man has no special aptitude for one kind of work above another. The secret of happiness in work does not lie in only doing; the kind of work we like, but in learning to like the kind of work we do. In any case, whether we get much enjoyment from actual work, it is a fact of experience that without it / happiness cannot be kept. The aimless / lives are the most miserable, and the \busy ones the most happy. Life loses its flavour if the salt of work be left out. Carlyle, it may be, exaggerates the gos- pel of work, but he is surely right in 71 ^hc Sources of > essence in asserting that " work is the grand cure of all maladies and miseries that beset mankind — honest work which you intend getting done." The hope- less classes at both ends of the scale are ^ the idle, who have no serious purpose. A life of idle luxury and selfish ease is haunted by the hell of ennui. At the same time praise of work for U ^ its own sake sounds like satire to many, il ^ who feel that work to them is often ^-^ drudgery. It would be different if work were always congenial and full of in- terest. As a matter of fact, however, '| ||\ work in itself is often not a joyful thing, and has sometimes more pain than pleas- ure connected with it. If it were a con- stant source of happiness, it is remark- H 11 able that men should seek everywhere to avoid it, and that so many of us should make our ideal a blessed time when we may be able to be idle. Of course some of this is due to the over- strain and overwork of much modern 72 ^ctppmeiSid industry. But we should clear our minds of cant here also ; and while it is true that a happy life must have a pur- pose in it and therefore must have work, yet work after all is not an end but a means. To most it is a means to earn one's living, and to some to earn the right to do something else. Most men work for the leisure which enables them to do what they like better than work itself. We feel instinctively that to live only for one's work would be life with- out a Sabbath. The next great source of happiness is to be found in the region of the natural relations of life — the satisfaction of the affections. It includes home life, friendship, and the varied associations with others. We are bound up in a bundle of life, and the purest joys come from the connection. Human life has never been, and can never be, lived in isolation. Social intercourse has made 73 ^hc ^ouvcc^ of us what we are. Chief among these forces is the family, and there hes for most the great opportunity for happi- ness. So great is this that it outweighs all other sources of felicity, and failure here gives a bitterness to the whole of life. The family represents the first duty of the normal man, and in it he /^ finds his true happiness. The chief source of satisfaction is found in the mutual love of husband and wife, par- ents and children, brothers and sisters. The cultivation of the domestic joys should be the chief aim in the art of giving and receiving happiness. As a matter of fact life is spoiled for many not because of great troubles, but by the petty pricks. Home life, the source of the sweetest pleasure and the most per- manent joy, is often ruined by little stupidities, foolish disputes, childish misunderstandings. There is a pure pleasure that older people can have in the joy of children. 74 ^appincsi^ Marcus Cornelius Fronto, one of the teachers of the Emperor Marcus Aure- lius, writes in his serene old age to the emperor about his children : " Well, I have seen the little ones — the pleasant- est sight of my life ; for they are as like yourself as could possibly be. It has well repaid me for my journey over that slippery road and up those steep rocks ; for I beheld you, not simply face to face before me, but more generously which- ever way I turned, to the right or left of me. For the rest, I found them, heaven be thanked ! with healthy cheeks and lusty voices. One was holding a slice of white bread like a king's son ; the other a crust of brown bread as be- comes the offspring of a philosopher. I pray the gods to have the sower and the seed alike in their keeping ; to watch over this field wherein the ears of corn are so kindly alike. Ah ! I heard, too, their pretty voices, so sweet that in the childish prattle of one and the other I 75 ^ ^hc .-Sources of seemed somehow to be listening — yes, in that chirping of your pretty chickens — to the limpid and harmonious notes of your own oratory. Take care ! you will find me growing independent, having those I could love in your place — love on the surety of my eyes and ears." There is more than a courtier's touch in this letter, — the touch of a philoso- pher, with an eye to the great human relations. If the home is the sphere of a man's sweetest happiness, much more is it true of the normal woman ; for the necessities of life drive him from home during much of his time. Pleasure in children is not confined to the earliest stages when their weakness and winsome ways so easily touch every heart. There is a greater interest, if not a greater pleasure, in the growth of faculty and character which comes in later years. Indeed the sad- dest thing in life often is that a son's success comes too late to rejoice the heart 76 ^appmcs^s of father or mother, to whom it would have been the richest gladness. This source of happiness, like the others mentioned, is one that is independent of wealth or station. Often great wealth or high station cut people off from the joy that the poorest here have. Burns in his Cotter's Saturday Night de- scribes a labouring man's home-coming, At length his lonely cot appears in view. Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin' stacher thro' To meet their dad, wi' flichterin noise and glee. His wee bit ingle, blinking bonnily. His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smUe, The lisping infant prattling on his knee, Does a' his weary carking cares beguile, An' makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil. Such love, with hardly else beyond the work which makes the home possible, is itself enough to make life worth living. 77 ^\ie ^ourcc^ of There are other relations, which con- tribute to happiness, the wider circles which sweep through our common life, with the home as a centre. Civilised society consists of more than a series of unrelated homes, each a separate unit. There are all the associations which men make through their work, or their per- sonal tastes, or their purposes. Oppor- tunities abound for the cultivation of sympathy and helpfulness and mutual service, through the groups which com- pose social life. Here also happiness awaits the natural and generous outflow of sympathetic feeling and action. Re- membering our principle that the com- mon sources of happiness correspond with the elemental needs of life, it follows that here we would expect true satis- faction, since social life is the natural condition. First among these outside relations, especially to the young, is friendship, which sometimes comes as the greatest gift in the world. It comes 78 ^appinc/ss into many a life like a miracle, bringing- spring to the heart. All things seem possible to men who feel themselves be- longing to each other. There is a thrill in the words Shakespeare puts into the mouth of King Henry V. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. Friendship is training for the larger social life, and should point the way to the wider interests. The loyalty of com- rade to comrade is needed for every as- sociation of men who seek to serve the community, and this loyalty is itself a strength and an abiding joy. There is another natural source of happiness in the exercise of the faculties of the mind, but this will be dealt with in speaking of the Grades of Happiness. No reference to the sources of happiness could be complete, which entirely left out the intellectual satisfaction which man can have through the use of reason 79 *®Kc ^auvcc^ of and thought and imagination. We have seen that pleasure accompanies the out- flow of energy, and naturally we would look to this further source. But our chief purpose here is to show that the greatest happiness lies in the humbler spheres open practically to all men, and not merely to the favourites of fortune or the most gifted sons of men. Indeed ,> these special gifts bring special burdens, i\ J and often lay the heart open to special sorrows. Even those men who have trod high paths, who have attempted great ;/[) labours and achieved great ambitions, have looked for their real happiness in the humbler spheres which are common to all. Men, who have climbed high or who have devoted their lives to great public service, have confessed that their best joy has come not in success or fame, but in the simpler regions — their home or their friendships, the love of nature or of children, the pleasure of reading or of human intercourse. It is a com- 80 ^afrpinCiS^ mon experience that the exceptional gives little real j oy . The things men struggle for, the prizes of ambition, are often barren of pleasure, and certainly are dwarfed beside the common human sources of happiness. It is a great comfort to realise that some of the chief sources of happiness are open to all. We do not forget that any or all of these things cannot assure us of complete satisfaction ; and we do not forget that being all to some extent at the command of fortune no man can guarantee them. Health may be broken by accident, work may be a constant pain or even become an impos- sibility, the delights of home may be de- nied or may be shattered by the weak- ness of others. In any case these sources are more or less insecure and sooner or later must dry up, so that life needs a more secure refuge. Yet with all allowance there is comfort in the 81 ®Kc .-Sources of thought that in ordinary circumstances the best happiness is denied to none. For example, wealth does not add to happiness in arithmetical progression. Ten times a man's income will not give him ten times the pleasure. A modem school of philosophy, which frankly accepts pleasure as the end of life, has also accepted the dictum that the rate of increase of pleasure decreases as it means increase. We cannot put any- thing that relates to human life into mathematical formulas like that, but ' ' there is an immense truth in it. Great position or wealth or power or fame only adds new burdens. We think we will banish care and build up security, \\ l\ and we discover we have only exchanged our cares. The lesson for us is to lay hold of ,, these natural sources which lie at our command. The eyes of the fool are on the ends of the earth, and we are all more or less foolish in this respect. We 82 /•i l'/\ ^ctppmc/ss do not recognise and use all our present opportunities. We are always going to be happy in some other situation when other and distant joys are possessed by us. " Man never is but always to be blessed." Many a man possesses the true sources of this wealth of joy, but persistently turns his back on them, sighing for an El Dorado that never is possible. We spend money for that which is not bread and despise the home- made fare that really can satisf3% We neglect our own garden, which could grow flowers and fruit as fair and as good as the product of far off climes. A foreign wine may be as inferior too, as it is more costly than, the vintage of our own vineyard. We hunger for the unknown, when we might simply rise and break our fast. It should be to us a great lesson to realise that the true sources of ordinary human happiness are so common, and that the opportuni- ties are scattered at our feet. Health, 83 jSi)ct:pj^inc^^ and work, and rest, and love, and the simple exercise of all the gifts of human nature are the fountains that quench the thirst of man for the joy of life. There is much to be said for the Gipsy philosophy in the conversation recorded by George Borrow in " La- vengro " : " ' Life is sweet, brother.' " ' Do you think so? ' " ' Think so ! — there 's night and day, brother, both sweet things ; sun, moon and stars, brother, all sweet things: there 's hkewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother: who would wish to die ? ' " ' In sickness, Jasper? ' " ' There 'sthe sun and stars, brother.' " ' In blindness, Jasper? ' " ' There 's the wind on the heath, brother. . . . Dosta, we '11 now go to the tents and put on the gloves, and I '11 try to make you feel what a sweet thing it is to be alive, brother 1 ' " 84 <-2)Ccrct of ^ctpjrinc^^ ^- Ssi/ Many and subtle are my lays, The latest better than the first, For I can mend the happiest days And charm the anguish of the worst. — Emerson. // ^Kc /-2)ccrci of IT is no disparagement of the com- mon human joy, which is afforded by the ordinary sources of happi- ness, to say that the heart cannot be completely and permanently satisfied thus. There are indeed earthly waters which quench thirst, but whoso drinketh of them thirsteth again ; and the heart of man has longed for waters, which if a man drink he shall never thirst but find a living well springing up within. The ordinary happiness is unstable at the best, and can be lost by a disaster. We may lose it through forces and events, over which we have no control. We cannot boast ourselves of even to- morrow's joy; for we know not what shall be on the morrow. It is imperfect while it lasts, and it is uncertain of last- 87 '^hc ^ecrci of ing at all. This precarious nature of all human pleasure has ever added pathos to life. We are dependent on the world for ordinary happiness, and have to wrest it with effort from the barren fields of life and even compel life to give us it against the very forces of nature. That is an unequal conflict, and how- ever successful we may be, it is a con- test in which we must ultimately be vanquished. Sooner or later we must loosen our grasp on the common sources of joy; for that which is against us becomes stronger than all that is with us. Any day may be the day when the grasshopper is a burden, and one day even desire shall fail. This is not to say that it was not worth while. Even at the worst it is worth while to put up a good fight with life. There is joy itself in plucking joy from the clutches of the enemy, in snatching success from the very teeth of failure. Life is a great and glorious 88 ^crppincs^ venture, and a man may rejoice in the mere battle. We do not forget also that discontent and unhappiness have served a useful function in the education of man. Men have been driven out, as well as tempted out, to try their fortunes in unknown shores. But it only adds to the pathos of our lot to discover, not only that shipwreck is possible, but that we never reach the longed-for land. It often dashes the zeal of an eager re- former when he realises that there are more foes to joy than poverty. There are more sources of human misery than want, and the way to happiness is harder to find than the way to prosper- ity. There is a Kingdom into which it is not easy for a rich man to enter, and there are conditions sometimes which make it seemingly as hard for the poor to enter. With all that may be said of the joy of struggle, every soul of man must sometimes long for a place where he can entrench himself and know that 89 ^hc /Secret of what is with us is more than all that can be against us. Some have held that to admit the imperfection of ordinary happiness is to deny that it can be. They say that these common sources, where we profess to have found a substantial measure of happiness, really play us false. The satisfaction of sense and mind and heart are admittedly incomplete, and so it is futile to count on them at all. Better confess the failure of life to measure up to man's needs. That is hke saying that half a loaf is no bread, or even worse than no bread. As a matter of fact — to take once more the way of courage — it adds an interest to life that happiness is incomplete and uncer- tain. If we could always predict our good and bad fortune, and could tell the issue of each day, we would lose often what is the real joy of surprise. Hobbes stated a fact of experience when he de- clared that men are never less at ease 90 ^appinesjSi than when most at ease, and the progress of the race has depended on that fact. If the common sources of happiness are imperfect and precarious, it is a call not to despise them, but to seek if there has been left out another element, and to ask if there may be a secret of happiness which may turn the very imperfection into a deeper source of joy and peace. To look back over the way by which man has come, we see that life begins with the primitive instinct of self which drives to satisfy desire, to seek food and the other needs of life. On that has grown the social sense, bringing new en- joyments, fuller life and a larger self. It has been practically discovered that even enlightened selfishness will take into account this social sense and cannot for its own sake neglect social duty. But human nature just as truly shows signs of moving under the impulse of some- thing higher than the impulse of pleas- 91 ^he Secret of ure. Men are driven to make choices often against self-interest, against mani- fest personal gain. The great problem of life arises out of this dual nature, and there is conflict between an ideal which we acknowledge and a desire which we feel. There is a higher against which the lower wages incessant warfare, de- scribed in classic form as flesh lusting against spirit. When we make deliber- ate choice of the lower, we feel somehow that we have sinned against a law of our own nature, and done violence to our own true self, and so we suffer a sense of loss. We taste something of the real sin of sacrilege. If on the other hand we choose the higher at any cost, at loss of immediate pleasure or gain, and re- spond to the urgency of conscience, we enter into peace and feel that it was for this we were born. This imperative passes under many names — duty, justice, right, truth — • and the noblest souls of the race have 92 ^appinc5i!8i known, and have acted under the knowl- edge that Because right is right, to follow right Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence. What makes it not only possible but sometimes inevitable that one man should die for the people? That was said by a worldly ecclesiastic who used it as an argument for crucifying Christ; but the strange thing is that he bowed to the principle in words, as Christ did in effect. Why should men willingly suffer for others? Why should a true man make sacrifice for love of truth? It is playing with words to try to de- scribe the noblest acts in history in terms of selfishness, however refined and enliffhtened we make selfishness. Gener- osity, sympathy, sacrifice, devoted love are not explained by any principle that the whole duty of man is to live and let live. It is quite true that civilised so- ciety demands virtues, which in the main 93 ^hc /-Secret of and in the long run are identical with those which a wise regard for personal happiness will also produce. Justice, temperance, consideration for others, even mercy and kindness would be the common product of both theories. But in every life there come times of crisis when a man must deliberately choose be- tween the advantage of self and the welfare of others, when he must risk everything at the call of conscience. It is precisely by such ventures that the world has been lifted forward in its steep ascent. There can be no true or permanent happiness so long as we believe that this demand of our liigher life is unnatural. All the lower fountains of earthly hap- piness are poisoned at their source, if we can believe that here life plays us false. Sooner or later we are thrown back on our fundamental faith about the world and our fundamental attitude towards 94 ^crppme^ss life. The great cleavage of men Is not along the line of our common divisions into rich and poor ; nor into learned and Ignorant ; nor into believing and unbe- lieving. Some of our common divisions are accidental, and some are merely ap- parent. All men have to walk and live by faith. All are compelled to make certain presuppositions before they can begin to think or to act. When our thoughts or actions are based on judg- ments of probability merely, as happens with much scientific investigation and much practical business, we are building on faith as truly as the religious man does In his worship. It is not a question of faith or unbelief. It is faith anyway, and the only question is what kind of faith and on what it builds. We can see how In the long run the whole problem of happiness depends on where the foundation of life Is laid. The ultimate division of mankind is into optimists and pessimists. This Is 95 ^hc ^ccrci of obscured to us by the fact that both words are used for surface moods. There is a surface sort of optimism, got by shutting the eyes to facts, and which whistles to keep its courage up. It is a common trick for men, both in prac- tice and in speculation, to purchase peace by eliminating all the things that would disturb peace. Much of our practical materialism, content with what the hands can gather and the senses enjoy, is born of this surface optimism. When there is trouble in life or in the business world its plan is to create a spurious confidence by declaring that all is well and all will be well. On the other hand there is a surface pessimism which is merely cynical criticism of men and events. It is sometimes an affecta- tion, and sometimes simply a mood of mind. But this ultimate division means something deeper and goes down to the roots of life. When we are done with verbiage and are done with clouding the 96 rSbccj^pinc&si issue, we realise that either life is some- thing that we have the right to be hope- ful about, or something of which we have the right to despair. It has to do with the kind of world we can conceive our- selves to be living in — or, if you like, the kind of world we will ourselves to live in. On one side, the world with all its mystery and its unreadable riddles is accepted as rational and with something in it we can speak of as purpose. We do not see the end from the beginning, or rather from our place in the process, but an end we believe there is. We be- lieve that the world means something and means something good. We have a firm basis on which to stand, and have faith in the moral order of the world. Human life becomes something other than a game of chance, or than a struggle of cunning or force. On this footing we can trust the world ; we can trust life ; 97 ^hc ^ecrcl of we can trust ourselves. We can believe in the future. We can see meaning in the past and purpose in the present. The great words of human history — conscience, duty, sacrifice — are justi- fied by the nature of things and by the nature of man. The common sources of happiness in the activities of life, in the performance of work, in the natural re- lations and ties of affection, in the out- flow of all the powers and capacities — these common sources become assured by this central faith. The water from these fountains would be bitter, if there were no perennial fountain from which they are fed. They are not illusion, because the world is not illusion. With this cen- tral faith in the moral order, we enter into peace and find the secret of per- manent joy. On the other side, whether we talk of chance or the fortuitous concourse of atoms, or a series of fortunate coinci- dences to explain the world and man, it 98 ^appincs^ei means a universe that has no sense to it, no purpose, no rational meaning or end. It may well have an end in time — and indeed the sooner the better — but there is no end in purpose. There is no understanding in it, and so nothing real on which we can stand. It is a sort of nightmare, a weird welter under the pitiless stars, going nowhere, mean- ing nothing. Human life is made of stuff that such dreams are made of. It too can have nothing that we have the right to speak of as purpose. We are only as bubbles that appear on the surface of a silly stream — appear and burst. We may well be pessimists in such a plight. The common joy from life is poisoned. We see with clear eyes how precarious it is, and when it fails there is nothing left. It is haunted by vanity while it lasts, and the only sure thing about it is that it cannot last. Without faith in the moral order of the world, there is no world at all. How can 99 ^Kc ^ccrci of #^ a rational man be happy in such an irra- tional universe ? Why should we learn to move to duty as a ship turns to the steersman's touch? There is no steers- man, and the ship has no haven. The best we can do is to cultivate a cynical J attitude. The last word on life is Thomas Hardy' s last word in his great i novel, " The President of the Immortals had ended his sport with Tess." Both optimism and pessimism can produce an array of facts and argu- ments. Optimism begins with a healthy faith in experience and finds satisfac- tion in the lower reaches. From that it moves to faith in the higher forms of human nature, and faith in the whole scheme of things. Pessimism can point to disease and death, the injustice and oppression of man, the callousness and often the cruelty of nature. It seems to want to prove a malignant principle in the universe. There is justification in either position. In neither case is it 100 a matter of formal proof. It is a mat- ter of faith, which in one of its aspects is a venture of the soul on life. We are practically saying that this is the kind of world we give ourselves to live in. It is the great presupposition we make for life. We can see how closely the question of happiness depends on this ultimate faith. If the world be as pes- simism paints it, the only logical out- come is practical materialism in life and a brutal reahsm in theory. There is no room for those higher sentiments, which will make it only harder for one to get his share in the scramble. If the whole can be pictured in the figure of an anvil and a hammer, the chief care should be to make sure that one will not play the part of the anvil. One can at least try to do the striking. The only adequate motto for such a world is the one at the entrance to Dante's hell : AH hope abandon, ye who enter here. 101 ^hc Secret of This faith that the world means good may not be able to be proved formally, but it is the secret of happiness, and it justifies itself. It provides its own proof in experience, which after all is the only conclusive proof of anything. The common wisdom of men declares that even in this world things have a way of righting themselves. The harsh and unforgiving get back what they give, so that we believe the world is built that way. History discloses retributive functions, and there is an instinct in the race which can only be satisfied thus. The loveless man does not find his life grow richer by a fuller dower of love. Idealism is born of the inward conviction that the spiritual side of life is true. This faith proves itself when it is put to the proof. Thus the true secret of happiness is alone found by religion. All the age-long contrasts be- tween the inner and the outer find their explanation here, and if we are right in 102 'Sbctfcpine^iS- seeing the final division of life as we have described it, it remains true now as ever that to be without God is to be without hope in the world. Without something which we can call religious faith in the meaning of life there is no chance for happiness, and at the best all our efforts are a pathetic make-belief of jo J- ^ It is natural that we should look here for the secret of happiness. Happiness after all is an inward feeling, a state of the soul, an attitude of the life. Even if we define it as produced by pleasur- able sensation we are in another realm, that of self-consciousness. It is more than satisfaction of desire; it is satis- faction of self. So it is not merely a matter of excess of pleasure over pain, as so many writers have asserted. Even the pleasure-seeker is blindly seeking something bigger, to realise self as Aris- totle taught. This is another thing than mere satisfaction of appetite, and 103 ^Kc Secret of that is why bc^'ond the common sources of happiness wc are forced to look for this secret of happiness in the inward life. When wc have exhausted the natu- ral sources, we still are unsatisfied be- cause we are built on a plan too big that we could find complete peace there. A Frenchman saw a ragged pauper spend his last few centimes on a lottery ticket and asked him how he could coimnit such a folly, " In order to have something to hope for," he replied. Man is more, as Carlyle said, than a vulture flying through the universe seeking something to cat and shrieking tlolefully because carrion enough is not given. There is no way out that way. " Love not pleas- ure; love God. This is the Everlasting Yea, wherein all contradiction is solved: wherein whoso walks and works, it is well with him." In the early fairy tales of almost all nations there is one, in which an ointment is put on one eye in the abode of the 104 Sdctpfiirxe^^ fairies by which things are seen quite differently. Sometimes a seeming hovel is seen to be a palace, and ugliness be- comes beauty, and all things become rich and rare with gold and precious stones; sometimes it is the opposite, and what appears a palace is transformed into a dismal abode of wretchedness. It is true that the mind can be a kingdom inde- pendent of outside fortune, and that the quality of happiness depends on this inward quality of the soul. Also, noth- ing less than this radical change of the whole point of view towards life can solve the problem of human unhappiness. As Jeremy Taylor said wittily, you can- not cure a colic by brushing a man's clothes. Faith is sometimes looked on as if it were mere opinion, of no special value, and with no vital connection with the rest of life. That can only be when it is not faith, not the principle by which we 105 ^hc .Sccrci of live, and on which our world is standing. True creed and conduct have a way of approaching each other and affecting each other, till they reach harmony. In Augustine we see a keen spirit drowning itself in the pleasure of sense. The story of his life in his Confessions re- veals the close connection between a man's moral life and his intellectual position. His life drove him to seek a philosophy in which he could rest, and for long he tried to satisfy himself intel- lectually with a dualism which would permit the tragic dualism of his nature, giving a place for his eager spirit and for his sense-loving flesh. He never got away from the memory of his mother and the ideal of purity and love which her gracious Christian life had revealed, and again he saw the same ideal in Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. When the crisis came, his conversion was a change of life and a change of view. It is not possible to separate the two, 106 ^crppine^^ and to say which is the deciding factor. Real creed affects conduct; and the manner of life affects the view of life. But in any case a man's faith is central; for it means the principles in which his life is run, the ground on which he stands. It is often unconscious, but it is none the less a force, though not brought out into definite form and stated in particular words. Most men really believe in the world as religion conceives it ; for they act as if they believed. When the faith becomes conscious, they experience a new joy, and they add to life a new security and a new motive. Pleasures may be possible in any view of the universe, but happiness can only persist if we believe that life does not play us false. It reflects itself in our view of the outward world and gives a foundation for Wordsworth's cheerful faith. Nature never did betray The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, 107 ^hc .-Secret of Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy: for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues. Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men. Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold Is full of blessings. Religion takes a deeper note still from its faith in the worth of life and in the purpose of the world, born of its faith in the love of God. This is the essence of the teaching of Jesus on God's Fatherhood, It means that love is the redeeming power of the world, and is also the clue to the maze of life. It means that we are not here in a world of unreason, the hapless victims of blind chance or blinder fate — most hapless of all earthly things, because we alone are conscious of our doom. Christ has given the lie to all godless creeds that 108 JSi)ctpfiine&^ shut us out from love and hope. It means that we are in a spiritual world, a world of reason and right. Nay more, we are in the hands of eternal love. This is the deep down source of the never- ending ministry of Christian consola- tion. This is how Christ dries the tears of humanity, not by healing the hurt lightly on the surface, but by an essen- tial revelation of God's nature which floods light and joy over all the world. If we have lost the joy, it is because we have not taken possession of our kingdom of love, and the passion and wonder of it have not taken possession of us. If we are living under a leaden sky, it is because our faith is not flower- ing out in the sunshine of God's love, radiant with the joy of possessing that love. 109 "©he ^!^rt of ^ctppmcd5S ^ — ^ God gives the birds their food, but He does not throw it into their nests. Greek Proverb. i H I. ^ ,^ i^" 1^/" -'-i w '^hc "^vi of x^' THERE is an art of happiness, which is like the art of Hving. No Hst of rules can cover all the ground ; for life does not go in straight lines, and never runs exactly accord- ing to schedule. There is also a per- sonal equation, a peculiar angle from which each looks at life. It is a question if any art can be taught, beyond certain broad principles and general rules. The rest has to come through constant prac- tice and through the enrichment of the mind, aided by inspiration and example and a little counsel. Some get more from teaching than others, though all can get something, if only through the opportu- nity to reconsider methods and examine results. Everyone will probably ac- knowledge that he has not completely 113 'Uhe 'MH of mastered the art of happiness, and that he might have made more of life if he had known better. So, there are some general rules which may be stated, each of which may apply to some though not to all. There is a wisdom which is rather joyless; for it comes too late. Experi- ence manages to get the lessons in some- how, but often it costs too much. " If youth only knew : if age only could ! " is a French saying, almost as sad as it is wise. It suggests that life is exhausted before the art of living is learned, and that men find out how they might have been happy rather than how they can be. Not only is this art different with dif- ferent people, but it is different with the same people at different times. Each period of life has its own peculiar pleas- ures, as it has its own tasks and its own ,ij ideal. A happy childhood is a precious possession and carries a light through all the subsequent years, but it is largely the creation of others, though it is more 114 / happiness independent of circumstances than many imagine. Of all gifts there is none more gracious than a happy childhood. Many a man is held all his life by the memory of a paradise lying back in his life. We may well seek to give children that Eden to which they can look back, even though we know it will become a lost Eden. By a right instinct we seek to make young life happy, not only because it is their birthright, but also for its moral power over all the years to come. We are not always wise in the methods we employ, and indeed it is a separate art in itself, and the only way to learn it is to go to the child himself to learn. Give children love, and they will create their own beau- tiful world out of the simple and natural. After childhood is youth with its hopes and enthusiasms, themselves the source of much happiness often more than when the hopes are realised. The problem here is to save the waste of power, to keep youth from recklessly squandering 115 '®Kc "Mvl of its gifts, and throwing away its oppor- tunities. The art of happiness depends much on the formation of habits and the regulation of desires. The next stage is manhood and womanhood with their serious tasks. The art to be learned then is how to carry the burdens, and do the work of life, and stand up under the responsibilities. Then comes old age, that may be serene and gracious, having learned to " see hfe steadily and see it whole." It dught to be the harvest time of the soul, laden with the spoils of Hfe. Perhaps the first lesson is to learn to accept limitations, not only the limita- tions of each stage of life, but also the limitations of one's own lot and nature. The virtues of one age may be the vices of another. It makes the judicious grieve to see youth prematurely old, or to see age affecting the airs and follies of youth, playing with burnt-out pas- 116 jSi)ctpfincs!& sions. Half the secret of an art is learned when we know its limits. The sculptor, who never seems to accept the limitations of statuary, who thinks he can make it do what oil painting does naturally, bites his nails fruitlessly and never learns his job. Yet, this counsel to accept limitations and recognise facts is not so simple as it looks ; for the very things that are not sure to us are facts, and we never know the limits till we try. All the time the boundaries get pushed out, and old records are smashed, and new limits are set. The world moves by a disdain of mediocrity and the restless launching of the soul for unknown worlds. True, there is often the mistake which assumes that the common is the commonplace, but as often men lose the large because they never try for it. Many lose happiness because they think JJ it is not for them. They seem to look ' upon it as like wealth, of a limited amount and most unequally distributed. 117 '®;hc atCrf of The whole problem of the art of hap- piness lies here in this simple rule to learn to accept limitations. But what are the limits of happiness itself, and what are our own personal and special limitations? A man may be satisfied by one of two methods — either by getting what he wants, or by wanting what he gets. The former method is the first natural one for man — to reach out the hands for everything which the heart craves. It is a method without any end to it, insati- able, like filling a sack with holes. The method has its place in evolution ; for progress comes along the line of desire, and a certain divine discontent has led men out from the safe and the known to make great ventures and explore new shores. But its limits are certain. The second method must come in sooner or later to save a life from dissipation. It means the acceptance of the inevitable, to recognise the limits, to acknowledge con- 118 JSi>ctfifiirte&Sf ditions and the stern facts. It only wounds the feet to kick against the pricks of necessity. This method means the education of desire, and some dis- cipline of the will. " Is it not better," asked the great Stoic Emperor, " to use what is in thy power like a free man, than to desire in a slavish and abject way what is not in thy power ? " In this view the ideal becomes, not that we should have what we want, but that we should want what we ought to have. We all learn more or less to moderate desires. It sounds like a sad confession to make, but we cannot advance in the art of happiness till we are prepared to do this. It may not be so sad as it sounds ; for many desires are foolish and impossible, from the time when the child cries for the moon. If nothing but the moon will satisfy him, there can be no end to the crying. It is not that we set the goal too high, but that often it is no true goal at all. When we accept our 119 '©Kc 'Mvl of limitations, we at least have a chanee of really achieving something. When we get down from our high horse, we at least have our feet on realities. If we let expectations run too far ahead, any- thing will be a disappointment. If we look for high ecstasy and endless exal- tation in any condition of life, we are sure of some dark moments when the world turns black. Carlyle's sardonic humour may have a lesson for us in this matter, " Fancy thou deservest to be hanged (as is most likely) thou wilt feel it happiness to be only shot : fancy thou deservest to be hanged in a hairhalter, it will be a luxury to die in hemp." This suggests a very simple piece of practical wisdom — to learn to appre- ciate the compensations of life. Every- body has to bow to the inevitable — or break — but not everybody learns to make use of the inevitable. When we do, we often find that the shutting of one 120 JSi)ctfifiinei^^ tested in endless ways in every region of life, not only in philosophy, but in practise. Parsimony is bad policy. The rich joyous outgoing and outgiving life is the life that is ever receiving. Even ' in such a practical sphere as courage, the paradox holds the key to safety — the man who is afraid is the man who is hit. A paradox is the very opposite of U / a proverb. The proverb crystallises the practical wisdom of common life, and sums it up in a caution. The paradox cuts below the surface, and reveals a principle that is seen to explain a lot of seemingly disconnected facts. Man creates a proverb: he can only see a paradox. |1 The profound paradox of Jesus, that he that loveth his life shall lose it, reveals the foundation of human life; and the paradox of happiness is only part of the ,/ larger one. As a matter of experience the selfish life fails : it is cursed with barrenness. The life that spends it- 129 ^hc iSiivi of self in service reaps a daily harvest of joy. You cannot store up happiness, as you can gather wheat into a bam. This, because it is not a passive state, receiv- ing joy from without, but a condition of activity. It is not a matter of in- come, but of output. If that is its very nature, we can see why selfishness in- variably fails. It fails also because it is sure to look upon happiness as merely a question of pleasure, whereas hap- piness may come through what the selfish would call pain. The proof of the paradox is seen in life. One man sets himself to get. Self is to him the first dog in the hunt. His life may not be stained by any gross evil or made hateful by any great cruelty, but it is frankly, if not brutally, selfish. He is ever thinking of that sweet gentle- man self, to give him a soft nest and an easy lot. On the face of it such a life is menaced at every point by pitfalls, all of which he cannot possibly escape. He 130 ^«ppme«« will find It harder to satisfy and please his exacting self. The early thrills can- not be repeated. The pleasurable sen- sations and experiences grow poorer and thinner. He can reap none of the fruits of the generous heart. He Is sucked In by the hell of selfishness. In loving his life he has lost It. Another man has simply been doing his duty, and not only fulfilling daily tasks, but spending him- self In service. Every good cause has commanded him. He has given of strength, and time, and love, and money. He has not been searching for pleasure, but without fear or self-seeking, has sought the good of others. Such a life grows richer with years, richer In peace and strength within, and dowered with light and love at every step. In losing his life he has found it, and found hap- piness with it. From this paradox of happiness two further rules in the art of happiness 131 '©he "Mvi of emerge. It is thus we explain the golden rule of moderation. Happiness is to be judged, as life itself is to be judged, by its purpose. Excess is evil, chiefly because it destroys higher faculty and unfits for the larger life. It kills the very function and devours itself, and so destroys even its own happiness. The senses make the intellectual life possible, and for the sake of that life they need to be restrained and kept as the servant of the mind. Moderation is the condi- tion of even preserving a faculty. In- dulgence will ruin the power to which a man is looking for happiness. " I want your eye to be so sensitive," says Ham- erton, " that it shall discern the faintest tones of a grey cloud, and yet so strong that it shall bear to gaze on a white one in the dazzling glory of sunshine. I would have your hearing sharp enough to de- tect the music of the spheres, if it were but audible, and yet your nervous system robust enough to endure the shock of the 132 V ^«ppmc«« guns on an ironclad. To have and keep these powers we need a firmness of self- government that is rare." If modera- tion be a rule for the healthful exercise of a faculty, to preserve its freshness, and if it be necessary for a full and pro- longed intellectual life, still more is it necessary for the largest life of the complete man. The senses need to be kept not only as the servant of the mind, but also as the servant of the soul. The quality of a life's happiness depends on its purpose. If a man's ends transcend mere personal pleasure, of course he must be prepared for discipline there, and if need be for sacrifice. Where he puts the weight of his life, is the place where he will find his joy. Where the treasure is, there will the heart be also. Just because we seek a man's life in the fullest sense, we will not waste on sense what was meant for life. Said Fuller, " Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl-chain of all virtues." 133 '©he "Mvi of The other rule is that in bringing happiness to others a man will find it for himself also. We cannot live a human life alone. So much of our life consists of our relations with others, that if these relations are wrong there is bound to be unhappiness. Selfishness therefore can never really succeed. If our best joy comes from the common life, it is impos- sible to one who has no real share in the common life. In the exercise of love, in the overflow of good-will, comes natural joy. Find out men's want and will And meet them there. All worldly joys go less To the one joy of doing kradnesses. Once more we see how happiness is allied to the purpose of a life. If a man's pur- pose is bigger than any possible per- sonal success or ambition or culture, if he too dreams the dream of the Kingdom of God which sums up the highest social ideal, his happiness lies in bringing 134 ^appincsid righteousness, and peace, and love, and joy to the whole world. To say that the highest purpose is to give happiness to others does not mean what we often make it mean, as if it were only a bread and butter scheme. The ideal is more than health, and pros- perity, and plenty. The ideal for others is the same as the ideal for self, a fully rounded life. Our contribution to the world's welfare must be more than min- istering to it in material things. The counsel to find our happiness in giving it to others means that we must seek the best for them. A father finds his joy in making his children happy, but he would be a poor father who construed this as indulging every whim and providing for every wish. It is the best and highest happiness of his children he desires, and this may include restraint and correction where they are needed, as well as giving pleasure in the usual ways. A friend finds joy in making his friend happy, 135 '©he l&ivi of but he would be a poor friend who thought he must do this by flattery. He loves the best in his friend, and wishes the best for him. He will give encour- agement without stint, and be generous in estimate, and kind in all things, but he will not betray true friendship by choosing the soft and easy way. The leader of men — in affairs, or states- manship, or teaching — finds joy in in- creasing the happiness of the people, but he would be a poor leader who only spoke smooth words, or who was content to see the people satisfied with bread and games. He will speak the truth in love, and will point to great ends. The King- dom of God is more than meat and drink — and nothing less is good enough for the sons of men. V—^'^ f . . ^ There are two other subjects which ought to be referred to, however briefly, subjects of immense importance in this connection — that of habit and that of 136 jSbct:pj^lrtei^i^ temperament. The value of right habits is evident for the art of happiness, as for the art of life. We cannot trust to instincts and chance desires. Habit is built up by repeated action till it has become as we say a second nature, and when once established the circle is com- plete — the acts strengthening the habit, and the habit producing the acts. To be the sport of every whim and the creature of wayward desires is to become the mere victim of pleasure, and that must be the end of any chance of hap- piness ; for it really means the forma- tion of habits that kill the true life. Even when good habits are formed, in- cluding habits of mind, there will be eruptions of desires that are idle or evil, frivolous or vicious ; but these have ever less and less power against the panoply of moral habit. After a time a man moves to duty like a well-handled ship, and he chooses the best without com- motion of soul at each decision. He 137 '^Kc ^vl of learns to turn his mind and his life where happiness alone is found. When such habits are formed there comes a sense of security, which itself brings a measure of peace. This whole subject is often ruled out of court as merely a matter of tempera- ment. One man is of a cheerful happy disposition, another is naturally melan- choly or gloomy. For the one the so- called art is merely nature, and for the other it is impossible. It is true that men differ in bodily constitution and mental make-up. A Mark Tapley finds it hard to be anything but jolly, and needs to look for opportunities to show his jolly disposition and to come out strong. Whereas a man like Amiel easily settles into a rooted melancholy, which may be partly physical and partly from the disease of thought. Such a man may even know his temptation, and may strive vainly against it. Amiel tells us that on reading over part of his 138 ^appmc)$d Journal, on which his fame rests, he felt ashamed of the languid complaining tone of so much of it. He finds that with him sadness takes up the pen more readily than joy. Nothing could be fur- ther removed from the cheerful man of affairs. Perhaps the best that could be asked of him would be to keep a stiff upper lip and a brave face before the world, though there was no sort of gaiety within — but even that he did not do or could not do. A good deal of silly stuff has been written about temperament, coming down to us from the ancient psychology which gave the world the four classical types of Temperament, dividing man- kind into the sanguine, the choleric, the phlegmatic, and the melancholy. Like some other divisions, it may be prac- tically convenient, so long as we do not look upon it as scientific. The mistake usually made is to think of temperament as a single and fixed condition. As a 139 ^hc '2H:iri of fact the elements of human nature are mixed, and all sorts of capacities are bound up in the one bundle. No one man is all feeling, or all soul, or all sen- sibility, though we speak thus popularly. The only truth about the types of Tem- perament is that in the jarring medley there emerges a certain quality which seems to preponderate. Often a little thing will alter the proportion. A great faith has turned a melancholy man into the most choleric, as he buckled on his armour for a noble fight against evil conditions. The most phlegmatic man in bodily constitution I happen to know is also the most sanguine. The solemn books on the Four Temperaments are usually belated specimens of an effete psychology. If even Amiel had a faith which made him in tune with the general order, or had given himself up in the service of a great purpose, he would have known peace and gathered hope. Even taking this question of tempera- 140 ^ctppmcsd ment at its worst, there always remains the opportunity and the duty of making the most of the particular type. The melancholy man, who may despise the sanguine as shallow, does not need him- self to be peevish or morose. He need not think that his superior type of tem- perament excuses him for being a wet blanket in every company. The phleg- matic man, who prides himself on his solidity, could be less stolid, and indif- ferent to the pleasures and pains of others. The choleric man need not see red everywhere, and let his hot blood surge in his veins, and boil over on all occasions. The sanguine need not be a child in levity, and cackle with cheap wit like thorns under a pot. Something can always be done to cultivate habit and train temperament. Progress in art means more than recognising limitations : it means working within the limits and making the best of them. 141 ©traces of ^appineiSiS ^ The secret pleasure of a generous act is a great mind's great bribe. Dryden. I// \ ' (--.. V\ Jj i^'^ ^hc (S)tra&C55 of i SENTIENT life has developed through the simple teaching of sensation. The animal quite natu- vabe^ of a heart that asks for love, a conscience that urges to ever nobler constraints. Normal man as we find him does hunger and thirst after things that we generalise as truth, beauty, righteousness. If need be, he is willing to go without something in the lower sphere, in order to satisfy some higher desire. Men have been happy — confessedly and obviously happy — who yet have known privation, and hardship, and want. That is to say, they have received satisfaction in the regions where they counted it alone worth while. Even the philosophy, which accepts happiness as the end of life and which seems to have little room for conscience or soul;, makes distinctions in the quality of the happiness, and seeks to give life a motive by advocating the higher pleas- ures as better and more lasting than the lower. John Stuart Mill states this gradation of pleasure in what is almost its classic form. " It is an unquestion- 148 JSi)ctfifiirte&& able fact that those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying both, do give a marked preference to the manner of existence which employs their higher faculties. Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures ; no intelligent human being would consent to 1 1 be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would consent to be selfish and base, even though they should be per- suaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs. ... A being of U \\ high faculties requires more to make him happy, is capable probably of more acute suffering, and is certainly accessible to it at more points than one of an inferior type; but in spite of these liabilities he can never really wish to sink into what he feels to be a lower grade of existence." 149 f^.. ^hc (B>rabes> of Apart from all question why this should be, Mill was stating a fact that there is a distinction in quality and that in our estimates we rise in a sort of crescendo from faculties we consider lower to faculties we accept as higher. It does not follow that pleasure increases in exact ratio to the value of the sphere where we look for it. Often indeed the judgment of men has been that increase of knowledge has meant increase of sorrow. Some confusion has been created here by a false definition of hap- piness and a lack of understanding of its true nature. If happiness is merely the satisfaction of desire it might be, in spite of Mill's eloquent contention, that the pleasures of a sot would be as valid as the pleasures of a philosopher. If hap- piness is the satisfaction of desire it might seem wise to curtail desire, to re- fuse new ventures and be content with the lowest plane of life. This would give room for a new beatitude. Blessed are 150 ^appmc«« they who desire nothing and expect little ; for they shall not be disappointed. But if happiness depends, as psychology suggests, on the exercise of all kinds of human function and is connected with vital energy, then the ideal is wrong which looks to the extinction of desire. The mere avoidance of pain is only the negative pole, and by itself would make the end of life the extinction of hfe. We have to confess that the further out man dares to go, the more he risks, and the more chance there is to experi- ence danger and even shipwreck. Pascal said that misfortunes befall men because they do not know enough to stay quietly at home. To most men that would be impossible anyway ; for the needs of life and the work of life force them out. The life that is wrapped in cotton-wool and sheltered in a hot-house can vegetate in peace, but that is no ideal for man. It is true that the cultivation of sensation 151 ^hc (S)rabc5i of makes the feelings more sensitive, and therefore adds the risk of pain as well as pleasure. It is true that the cultivation of feeling reacts on the intellect, and therefore brings new sources of unhap- piness as well as of happiness and new diseases of thought as well as new vigour of thought. It is true that the cultiva- tion of reason increases the complete jf I ! life, and therefore can drown the soul in sorrow as well as lift it up in the fulness of joy. But after all the way of a man is to seek a man's life. To circumscribe life and limit desires and reduce hopes is necessary for happiness as it is neces- sary to accomplish anything, but to elevate that practical piece of wisdom into the chief place would reduce itself to absurdity. A brave soul can do with little, and a noble mind can dispense with much, but they can also use every- thing. They know how to abound, and how to suffer want. The highest hap- piness is not passive contentment, but 152 '3 ^appmc/Sifli comes from a certain divine discontent. It is the fruit of the expanding life, the enrichment of nature through new experience. This discovery that there are grades of happiness and that some rank higher than others does not mean a denial of the relative worth of those which we frankly class as lower. The " worldly joys " do dwindle in comparison with the finer and rarer happiness, but they have their place in human life. In dealing with the sources of happiness we saw that the satisfaction of sense was valid not only in itself, but as the basis for all other possible activity. All who make any distinction place the social pleasures above physical appetite, and even above the intellectual delights of personal cul- ture. At any rate, from our very na- ture, true human happiness is impossible ji in isolation. The self-centred life loses the expansion of joy which comes from frank intercourse and from simple ser- 153 -^ ^hc (S)trabcs of vice. It is part of the essential paradox of the spiritual life that the soul grows poorer, the more we clutch happiness to our own bosom. The richer the giving, the richer the giver. As a matter of common experience we learn that the purest joys are found in the satisfaction of the affections, in the home-life, in friendship, and in the other relations and associations and mutual service which make up so much of life. A true man learns to subordinate private interest and personal pleasure to these wider in- terests, and he finds much of his happi- ness there. If pleasure accompanies the outflow of energy, we would expect that the quality of the energy will affect the quality of the pleasure. A high place will there- fore be given to intellectual satisfaction. There are pleasures of imagination and mind, joys that await every candidate who seeks to enter the world of thought. 154 >.^ ^appmc0;9 Even the labour of intellectual tasks, ar- duous as it is and endless as it ever seems, is intensely attractive. It is as if we needed to be tempted to higher things ; for it seems a law that the higher the power the keener the pleasure. Too often this whole subject is treated as if the intellectual life meant the passive absorption of knowledge. The ideal seems to be a sponge that can soak in erudition. There is no outgoing of en- ergy, no activity, no exercise of skill, no growth. There is little wonder that to most people these vaunted joys of knowledge are a dreadful bore. If we keep hold of our principle that happi- ness comes from activity, we will not look for it except as there is some ex- pansion of energy. This explains the pleasure of the artist in creating, which is more than the enjoyment of natural beauty. The intellectual life does not consist in simply gathering a store of facts and truths, but in the effort to 155 ^Kc (S>vabc^ of understand, and to know, and to build a world of thought. " It is not eru- dition that makes the intellectual man, but a sort of virtue which delights in vigorous and beautiful thoughts just as moral virtue delights in vigorous and beautiful conduct." It is a natural law, which ordains pleasure for the sweat of brain as for the sweat of brow. Fail- ure to understand this explains why people tire even of the pleasure of read- ing. To many, reading is merely a re- laxation from other work, and there is a place for tliis as mere recreation. If most readers, however, were candid they would declare that this method of at- taining happiness so widely recom- mended, is greatly overrated. The re- sult is that most reading consists of pretty light stuff and is treated frankly as a mere pastime. Most do not really believe the judgments that have so often been passed that the pleasures of knowl- edge far exceed all other pleasures. The 156 f! .^'Trfi ^«ppmc«« reason is that for them it does not go anywhere or do anything. Of course there is a legitimate place for recreation, and in our hardly-driven modern life this is more of a necessity than ever. Much depends on where we look for recreation. A pursuit of intel- lectual interests is a safeguard to life. Much of the moral danger associated // j j with recreation comes from vacancy of ^i\ J life. Many of the sins of youth are due to sheer emptiness, and the lack of intellectual interests. If young men had something better to do, they would not spend their evenings aimlessly tramping the streets or stewing in billiard saloons. A life without resources and a mind with- out interests are the easy prey of temp- tation. Many a man has kept his foot on the neck of evil passion by his love of intellectual pursuits. In the Auto- biography of Mark Rutherford there is the story of his struggle against the growing temptation of wine. He had 157 V ^hc (S)rabe55 of been suffering bodily and mentally, and a doctor recommended stimulants, which at first gave relief, but soon created a craving which was getting the better of him. He resolved never to touch wine except at night, and kept his vow, but he found that he looked forward to the night and waited for it with eagerness. He was becoming almost a helpless vic- tim. " But one day, feeling more than usual the tyranny of my master, I re- ceived strength to make a sudden reso- lution to cast him off utterly. Whatever be the consequence, I said, I will not be the victim of this shame. If I am to go down to the grave, it shall be as a man, and I will bear what I have to bear honestly and without resort to the base evasion of stupefaction." It needed a hard and prolonged struggle, and his judgment was that he was able to con- quer because of his susceptibility to nobler joys. He felt it a degradation that a mind capable of high thoughts 158 ^ ^ct^j^irxc^^ should be chained to lower things. " If we want to make men water-drinkers, we must first of all awaken in them a capac- ity for being tempted by delights which water-drinking intensifies." INlany an- other has confessed that these higher pleasures have saved their lives from bondage. The common methods of culture are usually stated as observing, reading, and thinking. Most of us could do more in i one or in all of these lines, and thereby add immensely to our resources. Many r a door that is now shut to us would be opened, with entrance into new worlds of beauty and truth, bringing rich re- wards in both wisdom and joy. The I man, for example, who has exercised ob- I servation has at command a source not [ only of knowledge but of increasing de- \ light. An alert observer will come from a country walk, more than merely re- freshed in body, with a mind stored with 159 ; ^Kc (S>vvabc^ of And withal, dear brother, God be praised, in myself and in my real aims in life I am quite happy." Rising higher still in the scale of being, we reach the region where the great religious motive works. Here human nature can enjoy a state of happiness so complete that by com- parison nothing else counts. It enters into peace, which is the satisfaction of the soul. This state also reacts on the whole life, so that all the other sources of happiness receive a new validity, and give a new sweetness. Complete hap- piness would be a perfect harmony of all the powers and faculties, as com- plete health is the harmony of all the senses. Religion has often been de- fined as, and is usually confined to, " the life of God in the soul of man." It smacks of the time when the nature of man was divided in thought, and the body was looked on as the seat and source of evil. Religion needs to be 164 ^appmc^jsi broadened to take in the whole nature of the individual and the complete ac- tivities of society. It is rather the life of God in the life of man. The life that is hved in the flesh cannot be sepa- rated from the life lived in the spirit. Everything in the higher nature is rooted in the physical world, and there is nothing common or unclean. Health has as its Saxon counterpart wholeness, and even the great word holiness comes from the same root idea. The principles by which we would grade the varied states of happiness and by which we would judge any one of them are first according to the purpose, and secondly according to the quality of permanence. To judge a thing by its purpose is to judge it essentially, and therefore religiously. The satis- faction of sense for its own sake, as for example the pleasure of eating and drinking, would tuni a man into a sen- 165 ^\xc (B>vabes> of sualist and a sot. Similarly, the pleas- ures of intellect can become mere self- ishness and a revolting egotism. Even the happiness of worship and religious peace, if not inspired by a true pur- pose, degenerates and lays the life open to the subtlest temptations. The sham spiritualisms and false mysticisms which have cursed religion are due to this cause. It is this standard of purpose also which explains why a life can let go much seeming happiness in other re- gions, but be not poorer but richer from the loss. The man whose heart is full of the purpose of service can use every opportunity and every source of human joy without abusing them, indeed con- secrating them to his high end. The second principle of judgment is according to the quality of permanence. We call some sources lower because they do not last, and because they so easily become excess. Too long pro- longed, or too often repeated, they pro- 166 ^appmciss duce disgust, and even destroy them- selves. The man who Hves to eat has a hard job to fill in his time, and in- deed soon reaches a point where every sense is blunted. Enough is better than a feast. The pleasures of the under- standing are so much higher, for the simple reason that they are so much more permanent. They last, and they continue to satisfy. In the lower pleas- ures there is satiety, and the freshness and bloom are soon lost. But in the pursuit of knowledge the satisfaction creates a new appetite. The highest satisfaction of heart and soul endures, and has in it the seeds of eternity. Some teachers have told us that men were not meant to be happy and have rated the whole subject out of consid- eration. It is declared to be an un- worthy thing even to desire. This is often done in the name of religion, which is declared to promise happiness here- after but never here. Here we are to 167 "©he @)rabc;5 of be good and virtuous and perform duty all as under the lash of a hard task- master, and as an ultimate reward hap- piness will be our portion. It seems never assumed that these things them- selves when viewed in the right light may give pleasure and may be done with joy. Duty is what one dislikes. We are under discipline now and are set to perform drudgery, and in another world we will get paid in happiness. As a mat- ter of fact such teachers are pleasure- lovers of the first water ; for they really look on happiness as the end of life, the only difference being that it is not in this life. Logically that would mean that this is not life at all, for real life could only be where the real end was approached. It is false ethics to sepa- rate happiness from duty. There is a close connection between well-doing and well-being. The ultimate faith on which rational optimism rests is that the world is good, and that experience does not 168 ^ajrpmc^iS contradict the instinct of the heart that happiness and goodness go together. It is not always in the name of re- ligion that we find this teaching. We are told to seek not happiness but blessedness, and much play has been made on these two words. " There is in man," says Carlyle, " higher than love of happiness : he can do without happiness and instead thereof find blessedness." Happiness is a generic word and expresses all grades and man- ners of pleasure. Like many a word, it has voyaged far since its birth. By derivation it means good fortune merely, what comes to a man by hap, and is dependent on pleasant surroundings. The word, however, has grown richer and fuller and the meaning has deepened, till it can express the very state of mind that triumphs over circumstances. So that it is really playing with words to make the distinction between happiness and 109 ^hc (S)vctbc^ of blessedness. Of course if you make arbitrary definitions of words, you can cloud the real issue here. There is a distinction between satisfaction in the outward sphere of life and satis- faction in the inner, between pleas- ure of sense and pleasure of mind or of soul, but they are both happiness, and nothing is gained by calling one sort blessedness. If a man is blessed, we are only saying in another form that he is happy. There would be no harm in the distinction if there were not sug- gested that the higher kind of happi- ness is something supernatural. The only difference lies in the region of hu- man nature where the happiness is sought. When we read " Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God," we are told the sphere in which they find their happi- ness. Carlyle's emphasis on blessedness is only making the distinction between grades of happiness. 170 ^ctppmcsi^ It is by the thought of purpose that we see the reasonableness of sacrifice, and it is in line with what we have seen to be the true nature of happiness. Human life at its highest is full of sac- rifice, but that means the giving up of a lower satisfaction for a higher. Self- denial is necessary for the sake of some larger good, as when a scholar gives up some bodily pleasure in the interests of a mental. Self-repression of one sort or another is the stage of a truer self- expression. There is always a giving up of self for a true finding of self. The end in view is not the shrinkage of life but the fulness of life. Religion has often been misjudged when it speaks of sacrifice ; for it really means that the gain is worth the loss. Even when it looks like life's impoverishment it is seeking life's enrichment, and the re- straint is for the joy of expansion. Sacrifice may even be accepted in a mood of exaltation of soul which itself brings 171 ^hc (B)x:ai>cs> of the profoundest joy. One for the joy set before him may be willing to endure the cross. Such sacrifice is reasonable also, if happiness is found in activity, in the full expression of power, and is meas- ured not by intake but by output. The way to get is to give. The thews and sinews of strength are not got in a sheltered state, but by the exercise of strength. Tissue is built up by the strain. It is the tired nature that en- joys rest, and without the previous labour rest is only a weariness. The outgoing of force, the expansion of energy, the exercise of skill, are the secrets of joy. That is why pain is never far away from pleasure, and there are states which can only be classified as a mixture of both pleasure and pain. Further there are states in which the very pleasure comes through the pain, as the athlete well knows. In a higher region than athletics the supreme joy 172 ^crppme^s of sacrifice Is partly understood thus. The passive enjoyment of the beautiful in art is a slight sensation to the joy of producing the beauty, though it be at much cost. This is true all along the scale of life. The child takes delight in feeling that he is doing something useful, a principle that might govern our education more than it does. It is a commonplace that the pleasure is usu- ally in the quest, not in the conquest ; in the struggle, not in the attainment. In fox-hunting it is not for the death of the fox that a crowd of sportsmen are drawn out, but for the pursuit of the fox. Many a scholar has declared that he was happier in his search for truth than when he ran it to earth and cap- tured it. It is an illustration of the principle which we reached, — that hap- piness depends on purpose, and that the quality of the purpose settles the grade of the happiness. 173 The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear, and with good reason since that passion, in the trouble it causes, exceeds all other accidents. Montaigne. ii \ Jl ■iji^-^ ^hc .S)\ictbotv an IF happiness Is a state of the inward life, we have to look for its chief obstructions not in outward condi- tions but in deeper places. Happiness depends in the last issue, as we saw, on the essential view of life. It is not a matter of distractions, nor even of mere pleasurable sensations. There may be an appearance of great prosperity with incurable sadness hidden at the heart, as there is an outward peace which is only a well-masked despair. The way to hap- piness is indeed harder than the way to success ; for its chief enemies entrench themselves within the soul. If the secret of happiness lies in the region of faith, the greatest cause of failure must be there too. There are many enemies of peace and joy, but the arch-enemy is 177 ^hc ^haboTP on that state of mind which makes joy impossible and casts a shadow on every step of the way. The antithesis of faith is fear. The shadow on the happi- ness of most men is an unspoken dread, and its root is found somewhere in a lack of trust in the foundations of human life. This lack of faith transfers itself even to the aspect of outward nature, which is viewed in a depressing mist. The world is looked on as careless of the best in- terests of her children, or even as malig- nant. The universe, of which we are a part, is declared to be immoral and to favour wrong as much as right. The eternal note of sadness is in much mod- ern writing, and may well be if it is heard everywhere in nature. Even Matthew Arnold, who speaks of a Power seen in history that makes for right- eousness, often gives us in his poetry a view of nature full of melancholy. The turbid ebb and flow of human misery is 178 ^ appmcsi^s transferred in thought even to the tide of the sea on Dover Beach. Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams. So various, so beautiful, so new. Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light. Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and fight. Where ignorant armies clash by night. This is an instance of the pathetic fal- lacy, ascribing to natural scenes the feelings of the observer. Apart from that, if the world is a confusion of dark- ness and ignorance, it is strange that anything of light and intelligence and purpose should fill the hearts of the poet and his love on Dover Beach. If neither joy nor love nor certitude nor peace nor help are to be found in all the universe, it is passing strange that even the thought of them, or the desire for 179 ^hc ^haboTP an them, should be evoked in the souls of observers. Fear is perhaps the greatest source of suffering to children. To some ex- tent, no doubt, it plays a useful part, as nature's way of suggesting danger, or warning from unknown evil. It has also played a useful part as one of the primitive forces, which developed life and built up human history. Society at the beginning was cemented to a large extent by fear, and sometimes is kept by it from falling to pieces. Through it men have gathered together for mutual support and protection. It was at least one of the bonds which bound men into tribes and nations for defence. How- ever it may be justified by its use in early society and even by its instinctive value in education, fear is nevertheless the great shadow on happiness. Victor Hugo in Les Miserables describes little Cosette, who was sent out alone at night 180 ^appmcsi55 to fetch water from a spring in a wood, and says she " felt herself seized by the great enormity of nature. It was not only terror which possessed her, it was something more terrible than terror." The most pathetic thing in the world is a frightened child, who has no refuge of loving arms to still the heart-quakings. Life still knows the menace of fear, though the forms of it may have changed. Every life has its troubles without and fears within, its dark mo- ments, its difficult passes, its dangers and distresses. INIen live in the shadow, oppressed with care and anxiety, bur- dened with loads too heavy, harassed with fears and doubts. The bondage of fear has been the weariest slavery of the race. Fear entered Eden when sin en- tered, and fear has gripped man and held him in spiritual tyranny. j\Ien have been afraid of life and of death, afraid of to-day and of to-morrow, afraid of the living and of the dead, afraid of man 181 ^Kc ^haborp on and of God, afraid of everything and of nothing. The primitive instinct of dread, so forcibly described by Kipling, has its abode still in life in different forms but none the less real. Through the Jungle very softly flits a shadow and a sigh — He is Fear, O little Hunter, he is Fear! Very softly down the glade runs a waiting watching shade, And the whisper spreads and widens far and near; And the sweat is on thy brow, for he passes even now — He is Fear, O little Hunter, he is Fear! We say gaily that knowledge and the spread of education have killed fear. We point to superstition, the dread of unknown powers, the terror of the un- seen, which have been mitigated if not destroyed by knowledge. This is indeed so ; and true knowledge is of God, for God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. But it is not true that fear is 182 ^appmciSiS dead, or that mere knowledge ever can give it its quietus. Knowledge can only glean in the fields after the reapers. The mind of man can only set in terms of reason what the soul of man has dis- covered. Superstition is killed by faith. A false religion is displaced in the world not by criticism but by a true religion. And it is not the case as a matter of fact that fear has ceased to be a bon- dage to men. To think so you must be ignorant of life, must have had your eyes shut to the hunted look on human faces, and never even have faced the spectres of your own mind. There is ever a Death's head at the world's feasts ; and black Care still rides behind many a horseman. It may be that we no longer tremble at mystery and bow down before the idols which represent the forces of nature — but have we solved the mys- tery.'* Has knowledge robbed life and destiny of their unknown elements? Philosophy can sometimes conquer the 183 ^hc ^haboTx> on fear of death; but there is left still the fear of life. A spurious peace can be got from forgetfulness of the problems of life, by shutting the eyes, or by hope- less acquiescence in the sordidness of existence. That sort of peace could always be got in that way. With all our knowledge of natural forces and our command of material re- sources, life has still its appalling changes, its uncertainties. Men can still be mastered by an unspoken dread, a nameless terror. Are there no misgiv- ings in men's minds, no heart-sinkings about the future, no distrust of self even, never an apprehension of evil, never a shiver at the possible? I speak not of the fear of death, though that must al- ways be our portion ; for the love of life is natural and therefore the fear of death is natural. It is only when the spirit is broken, when nerve is lost, when body or mind or heart is diseased, that death can ever seem a gain. If in our 184 ^ctjrpmc^s^ modern world-weariness there Is a school with their morbid high-priests of litera- ture and art, who worship at the shrine of death and speak of it affectedly as our gentle mother, even that is but an- other proof of heart-sickness and the fear of life. Doubt is the disease of thought ; and is twin-sister of fear. We may lay all the ghosts we can, go whis- tling to keep our courage up, to prove that there is nothing but shadows to frighten us. But the ghosts will not be laid. Fear clings to life, elusive as the mist on the mountains. Even when fear for self is beaten back from the gates there remains for every true man fear of self. When we stop to think and look back on the past, we can be afraid of our own base impulses and cravings. We may well be afraid of our own weakness. It may be a wholesome fear, and be to us the mother of safety, as Edmund Burke called it. It may be 185 ^hc ^ha&otp an one of the Hounds of Heaven to drive us from the wilderness into the fold. Our personal fears are deeper than the dread of pain or loss. There is the fear of failure, more than failure in business or work, failure of the higher life of which we feel ourselves capable, failure to keep the heights we are able to gain. We fear that we may fail to measure up to our ideal, and perform faithfully all the duty life lays on us. There have been so many shipwrecks of those who voy- aged forth in sunshine and with favour- ing wind, that a man who knows himself best may fear lest he too end in dis- honour. This may be the fear of fear itself. Life and literature are full of the fear which moral failure always brings ; to one as with Macbeth " the perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart " with its remorse and pain ; to another as with Gloster in King Henry VI, the "suspicion which always haunts the guilty mind." Further, if self can be forgotten, as 186 ^apfrincsiS perhaps it can be, there may be jear for others in our hearts. Perfect love casts out fear ; and even our imperfect human love casts out fear of the loved, but not always fear for them. We would shield our loved ones, and put protecting arms around them. Paul confesses the fear he had for some of his beloved converts lest they should be drawn aside ; and is not ashamed even to confess the fear which sometimes chilled his heart lest he him- self might be a cast-away. There are noble forms of fear, born of love itself. Job is depicted in all his happiness and prosperity rising up early in the morn- ing to pray and make offerings for his sons and daughters ; for Job said. It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. And when the blow fell, he knew that he had been dreading something like this all his life. " The thing which I gi'eatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me." 187 ^hc ^haboTP an The very richness of humar life with its treasures of love only adds new ap- prehensions. The closest human ties can be broken, even those which seem so sat- isfying that it sounds absurd to speak of the lonely life, so long as such com- munion is possible. The keenest sorrow is really born of love, as the finest joy is also. The worst desolation of the heart would be escaped, if we were not bound in ties of love to others. The very thought of some affliction is itself an agony. Edmund Gosse has a sonnet describing the sickening fear, that al- most stops the heart at the thought of life's bitterest desolation to some. Last night I woke and found between us drawn — Between us, where no mortal fear may creep — The vision of Death dividing us in sleep; And suddenly I thought, Ere Hght shall dawn. Some day the substance, not the shadow, of Death, Shall cleave us like a sword. The vision passed, 188 ^appme^s But all its new-born horror held me fast. And till day broke I listened for your breath. Some day to wake, and find that coloured skies, And piping in the woods, and petals wet. Are things for aching memory to forget; And that your living hands, and mouth, and eyes. Are part of all the old world's histories. Dear God! a little longer, ah, not yet! Life is open to fear in other direc- tions. Somewhere or other it can grip us by the throat, if not at this turn of the road at the next possibly, if not at any of the places mentioned yet at some spot our heart knows where. There are fears of the future, fears which find voice in our books about forces at work in society with their pos- sible social changes, the natural timid- ity which looks with shrinking on new and untried paths. We speak glibly of this as a transition period. We per- haps believe that conditions more true and just may emerge; but everywhere 189 ^hc ^haboTP on we find men dreading the plunge, the passage through the cloud. Fear is the sign of evil in the world, the symbol of the mystery of iniquity. We have all to meet it sooner or later in some form or other. It is the great bondage of the race. See it in the tired and start- led eyes of men and women, with care and anxiety marked on their brow. Life is often lived under a grey sky and on a sodden earth. The weight of to- morrow burdens to-day. The troubles of the future kill the joy of the present. It is no unique experience for a man to know that there is a shadow on his happiness. Perfect fearlessness, which can look back and forward and around without a tremor, which has peace for all the past and strength for all the present and hope for all the future, seems only possible to a profound religious faith. If we can say that the cause of our 190 happiness sickness of heart is doubt, doubt of self, of life, of God, the cure for it is faith. The owls and bats and dark night-birds that hoot in our ears are driven from us by one stroke of the flashing sword of the rising sun. As in all the great controversies in religion and life, the battle is to be fought out in the region of presuppositions. That is why every controversy resolves itself into some ultimate and simple phil- osophy of life. So here, if we realise that love is the heart of the universe and the centre of life, fear of all kinds must depart. In proportion as that creed is a living faith with us are all fears maimed or dispelled. If we ac- cept that love, if we apply it to our every need, if we live in it, where is there room for fear? Want of this faith means want of faith in human des- tiny, and the world becomes a riddle and life a terror. But faith in the moral order of the universe and in the 191 ^hc ^haboTP on protecting love of the Father, saves from despair. Even in the valley of the shadow itself men have been enabled to fear no evil, knowing that there was surely a way out, and walking calmly under a sense of protection. This is not something to be argued about, but simply to be stated as ex- j perience and to be tested experimen- tally. We find that we are emanci- pated when we live in this relationship. Courage is born in the soul, which is sure that life has a meaning, and that patience and duty and service and all the discipline of life are not purpose- less. Faith is often spoken of as if it were a weak thing, of a puling whining nature, as if it were a kind of coward- ice that runs to cover as an escape. That is a misrepresentation. From one aspect faith is simply courage, moral courage that will not give in, that re- fuses to be beaten, that will not doubt though everything seems against be- 192 ^appmcsiiSi Heving. In the day when I am afraid, when I have most cause to be afraid, I will trust in Thee. When clouds are heaviest and despair is on the heart, faith clings tenaciously to God. The courageous soul will not be overmas- tered by his fears and coerced by his dangers ; for instinctively he feels that " sudden the worst turns the best to the brave." Of course courage is not always con- sciously allied to this faith. If it be true that to conquer the fear of death is to come into possession of life, it has to be said that the mass of men do con- quer that fear. Every now and again sentimentalists declare that one of the bad symptoms of the modern world is the common fear of death, which they attribute to luxury and the increase of nerves. After all, only a small minor- ity can be classed with the luxurious. There is a deep unconscious faith in the mass of men who are untouched by the 193 *®hc .-SKaborp on doubts of thought. They face hfe bravely, and meet death calmly. They carry heavy loads, and display a sim- ple courage that is profoundly touch- ing. It would do some critics good to visit one of the great hospitals of a city and get to know the patients. They would discover how massive is the cour- age. It is rare to find any weak or morbid fear. Fear there often is, but noble and unselfish — fear of disable- ment, fear of loss of work, fear that wife and children be left without breadwin- ner. Indeed men and women, who never turn coward for their own safety, quail at the thought of the death of those they love. Once more only faith can drive out tliis terror. Apart from what a profound relig- ious faith can do to give courage, there are some things to be said about fear and its effect upon happiness. In the first place, a habit of fearfulness takes 194 ^ajrpmciss the pith out of the present. It can do nothing to prevent the evil dreaded, and only exhausts the strength which might meet it with courage. The fearful soul sees things in false perspective, like ob- jects looming up through a fog. Noth- ing in reality could be so terrible as these dreaded visions. Panic can conjure up unspeakable evils, and see the enemy in every bush. When we come up to it, often it vanishes, and at the worst it is never so terrifying as imagination painted it. Some of our ills never really come upon us, and even when they do come they rarely come in the precise form we foreshadowed. Many a man has been surprised to find that the actual calamity, of which he had lived in dread, was a more tolerable state than his condition of fear. Montaigne wrote an essay in illustration of this point that fear is a strong passion, which will dethrone judgment from its proper seat sooner than any other passion. In it he 195 ^he ^ShaboTP on says, " Such as are in immediate fear of losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas such as are actually poor, slaves, and exiles, ofttimes live as mer- rily as men in a better condition: and so many people, who impatient of the perpetual alarms of fear, have hanged and drowned themselves, give us suffi- ciently to understand that it is more importunate and insupportable than death itself." In the second place, fearfulness is mitigated by a more worthy perspective of the things that really are of account in a life's happiness. Some men live in constant dread of losing something, which may mean very little to them. A man may be afraid of not being able to maintain his popularity if he is a public man, or of not being able to live in a style and on a scale to which he has been accustomed. As a matter of fact if 196 'Sbctj^j^irte^^ he made up his mind as to the true value of things, he would lose much of this fear; for he would know that his hap- piness did not depend on these things at all. jMany of the things men are striving to gain, or fearing they will never gain, are not worth the pains. They can only be gotten by giving up more worthy ends. Also, by a kind of irony the kind of success men covet most often comes to the man who values it least, and comes to him because he values it least. In politictl life, for example, the man who holds by princi- ple, who cannot be bribed and cannot be frightened, commands the highest suc- cess. Even his enemies cannot get hold of him to drag him down. Abler men are outdistanced by him, because he runs light. He is not the slave of opinion, and so from being master of himself becomes the master of others. Thirdly, there is a spirit which per- petually casts a shadow over the happi- 197 ^hc ^habotp on est days to many. It too is a form of the spirit of fear, bom of faithlessness. It is the mood of mind, which thinks a blessing is too good to hope for or to beheve in. One hears people say that they fear they have been too happy, and that they will have to pay for it. They seem to believe in a malignant power, which envies human happiness and will dash the cup from their Ups. Many thus go through life looking upon joy with foreboding. They think it safer to live in the shadow and the gloom, rather than to risk disappointment by stepping into the sunshine. It is a relic of ancient superstition that un- seen powers envied men too much joy, and delighted in plunging men into mis- ery just at the moment of their highest bliss. It is good for us to know the uncertain tenor on which we hold life and Hfe's best gifts, but it is not good to let the shadow of fear fall on every happy hour. Life is spoiled for many 198 ^appmcsid by a morbid melancholy, or by a plain- tive despondency. What has been called the religion of healthy-mindedness has surely its place. The deliberate refusal to live in the shadow is not always the unworthy pol- icy it sometimes looks. Often enough it may be the refuge of the coward, who will not look facts in the face, and who simply ignores everything unpleasant. But as often it may be the way of cour- age. A man may see evil, look at it with- out blinking, and despise its power. He cultivates a mood of mind which kills his fears by giving them no air to breathe. Courage like this braces and tones up the whole nature. He realises that experiences may be made good or evil to him according to how he looks at them and treats them. To indulge in misery is as weak as any other kind of indulgence. Further, it makes life hard for others as well as for oneself. It 199 ^hc ^haboTi:> on adds to the gloom of the world, and de- presses the vitality of all within reach. This attitude may easily be exaggerated into the blind denial of facts which we find in some modern cults, as if to say that there is no pain will make it so. But we should recognise the great truth in this whole point of view. To a large extent we make our own world, and can choose the spirit in which we will live. We can conjure up endless fears to haunt every step of the way, and can darken life by morbid repining. Or we can ig- nore our fears, and even learn to despise them, and can cultivate a cheerfulness which spreads cheer to others and saves our own hearts from many a bitter hour. If we wish to rescue this mood from ultimate failure, we must make it more than a mood. The complete antidote for fear and despondency is to throw the weight of hfe on the simple faith that the universal order is one of love. This faith is not necessarily one in creeds 200 ^ajrpmciS^ or dogmas, but that the world is organ- ised so as to vindicate goodness and the life of good-will. We learn to walk in the light, and we cease to argue whether there be light. The proof comes through experience. It is not from ecstacy or rhapsody we find proof, but as surely as ancient prophet knew we too know that happiness follows right living. Every act of good-will brings us into the universal order of love. There is a life of courage and faith and service, which saves us utterly from a jaundiced view of the world and of hu- man destiny. If we live as if it were God's world, we discover that it is so, and that we need never again cower in the shadow. Health is contagious as well as dis- ease, and hope breeds hope in others, as despondency darkens life for all. Courage not only dispels fear for our- selves, but gives confidence to others. There is an application for life in 201 jSbafipinc^ii Robert Louis Stevenson's story of the storm, that caught a ship off a rocky coast and threatened death for all. In the midst of the terror one daring man went on deck, made the dangerous pas- sage to the pilot house, saw the steers- man lashed fast at his post holding the wheel down and inch by inch turning the ship out to sea. The pilot saw the white face of the watcher, and smiled. Then the passenger went below, and spread his news of cheer. " I have seen the face of the pilot and he smiled. It is all well." 202 3foc^ of ^apj^xnasa We have but one resource for superiority and perfection — to love them. Schiller. \ (I ^ I ^hc Sfoca of happiness HOWEVER we define happiness, and whatever be the source to which we look for it, it is men- aced on every hand. If, as is the case with all, much of our ordinary happi- ness comes from the outside, pleasant experiences, satisfaction with our envi- ronments, we are at the mercy of any untoward event. The more we look for it from the outside amusement and sur- face gaiety, the more dependent we are on circumstances. It languishes with a frown, as it revives with a smile. The thirst for this sort of happiness grows by what it feeds on, and it never can get enough to consume. Everything that does not minister to it is an enemy. There must always be an end to it, and often there will come checks to its pro- r 205 V Y "©he ^ac^ of gress. Our control over circumstances is limited at the best, and so it is com- mon for us to think that all our dis- satisfaction and unrest are due to our uncongenial environment. In city life we think that we would be different if we lived amid the tranquil serenity of nature, as in the country we imagine that all would be well in the larger and more stimulating life of the city. We expect too much from environment, and a time can come when even a cinimpled roseleaf can worry us. We may buy peace, of a sort and for a time, from the world by constant compromise, by base connivance, by ever giving in to its spirit, but sooner or later the world is too much for us, as it is too much with us. In the general scheme of happiness for our fellows, we recognise the duty of sharing in everything that adds to the joy and light and prosperity of men. The modem conscience is touched with 206 ^Sbappincs^ the desire to aid the distressed, and to improve conditions of industry and social hfe. It is good that we should feel this constraint, and we may well insist that the means of happiness should be better distributed. We know how much fortunate circumstances have min- istered to the best there is in our own life. Our first duty may be to try to make our neighbour happy, but even here we are met by many foes of happi- ness. Arguing once more from our- selves, we know that we need not expect the millcnium, even when material op- portunity is fairly equalised. We know that the best welfare of mankind cannot be achieved by social betterment alone. Livelihood at the best is not life, though it is the condition of life. The problem of happiness is more profound and more difficult. It cannot be solved by merely improving the commissariat. The true brotherhood of man would not neces- sarily come, if all enjoyed plenty and 207 "©he Sa^ocsi of prosperity, and each could sit under his own fig-tree, and eat the fruit of his own vineyard. To say this is not to throw cold water on the noble efforts to banish grinding poverty and sordid conditions from modern life. It is merely to say that the foes of happiness are more deeply entrenched than that would make out. Even when the bread is sure and the butter sufficient, the problem of life has only begun. Happiness is the net result of a man's whole reaction to life. It is an inward state, affected no doubt by outward con- ditions, but not completely dependent on them. It is a feeling of the heart, and an attitude of the soul. Life is not a matter of surroundings merely, and a change of environment will not give a change of self. In the busy market, in crowded street, with the roar of life in the ears and brain, men have known an interior peace that nothing could dis- 208 jSi)ctfj^inei&a turb. So, when we speak of the foes of happiness, we are forced to look deeper than to outward fortune. We have to look within, where in the last resort each must find the fountain of good. We discover that happiness or unhappiness depends much on disposi- tion, and disposition means the way we look at things and the way we comport ourselves. In common speech we say of a man that he is his own worst enemy, or that he is the enemy of no one but him- self. It suggests that the problem is a deeper one than one of environment. A man's foes are of his own household. The happy life needs more than happy conditions, and can do with less. It is largely a matter of inward nature. We saw that the chief shadow on hap- piness was cast by fear, a feeling of the mind. The other serious foes of hap- piness are like it in also finding their seat within. Environment is indeed immensely 209 "©he 3focs of important for happiness as it is for life itself, but often we take a surface view of what is a life's environment. It takes its place along with heredity as one of the chief factors in biology, in soci- ology, in the life of everything that Uves, including man. The trend of legisla- tion is toward the amelioration of the outward surroundings of the people, the workshops, and factories, and houses, and towns. The attempt is made to sweeten the conditions of life, and thus to affect the social problems that face society. And the importance of environment is not confined to the purely material lot of the people. It is seen to be capable of treatment as a mental question as well as a physical; and so codes of education are devised, and schools and public libraries and Jl courses of lectures are provided. All h this is well, but environment is a much larger and more subtle thing than is acknowledged by even all this legisla- 210 ^crppinciSijS tion. There is a moral environment as well as a material, a spiritual cli- mate as well as a physical. This as- pect of the forces that play upon life and mould character cannot be so easily embodied in laws and benevolent social schemes. There are two factors often over- looked when dealing with this subject. One is that perhaps the biggest part of a man's environment is himself. After all I have to live with myself, and I may be a difficult person to live with. I have to submit to the influence of my own thoughts, and habits, and gen- eral view of life. We recognise the im- portance for happiness of right ways of thinking, and true expressions of feeling, and generally the whole man- ner of living. The worst foes of hap- piness are to be found within in the qualities of mind which we have culti- vated, in the opinions and feelings to 211 "©he 3Focs of which we have given hospitality. We cannot harbour desires and ambitions and thoughts, without their aifecting our hfe, and therefore our happiness. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Even in the region of opinion our speculative views are important, if our opinions are real and not idle or af- fected. The whole quality of the mind Is influenced. False opinions will dis- tort the whole vision, and turn fair into foul and foul into fair. Rossetti's lines in his Sonnet on Lost Days sug- gests a solemn thought in this con- nection. I do not see them here; but after death God knows I know the faces I shall see. Each one a murdered self, with low last breath. "I am thyself, — what hast thou done to me?" "And I — and I — thyself," (lo! each one saith,) "And thou thyself to all eternity!" 212 ^ctppinc^iS We have indeed to live with ourselves, and every life makes its own environ- ment. The other factor often overlooked is that the chief environment of a human life, which tells most strongly and most constantly on it, does not consist of things, but of persons. Conditions of work, conditions of the houses and streets, and civic arrangements are in- deed powerful agents in influencing habits and character, but they are powerful because they are impregnated with the lives of others. The beginning and the middle and the end of all influence is personal. All the permanent influences of life come from persons. Our real environment consists not of events but of life, not of things but of people. The environment of a child is not the house, its size and furniture, but the home, the quality of the life in it. The environment of education is not the school but the teachers and the pupils ; 213 "Sthc 3focs of not the games but the players. The environment of a man is not the work he does so much as the workers with whom he works ; not the city he lives in so much as the citizens. We are the product and the creators of environment. For good or evil it is with us ever, a gift which we possess, an influence to which we are subject. The higher we go in the faculties of man, the more susceptible and impres- sionable they are seen to be. There is in the world in which we live a spiritual environment, which is the subtle creation of human souls. Over some of it we are powerless. We are bom into our spiritual climate, as we are born into our geographical climate. The thoughts and habits and institutions of our time and place leave their mark on us, with our will or without it. But to this ex- tent we have power over it. Our en- Aaronment, as we know if we analyse it, is not of one colour and character. 214 ^appmc52si5 It is various and composite, with higher and lower, richer and poorer quahties. If we wilfully submit ourselves to the influence of the lower, if we choose to associate with what impoverishes true life, if we let evil intercourse play on us and do its corrupting work on us, pervading and polluting life, then we judge and condcnm ourselves. This is the law of spiritual environment. So the foes of happiness are to be found very largely in false relations with other people. These two neglected factors indicate that we have to look to moral qualities for the failure to make the most of life. Anything that breaks the current of the best social life, anything that hin- ders and impedes true relations is a foe to happiness. For it is a law of life that we cannot be happy in the fullest sense alone. ^lost of our causes of uneasiness are due to sins against good- 215 ^hc "^oe^ of will, failure to play our part in social life. For example, an attitude of sus- picion, which makes a man refuse to enter frankly into society, is bound to cause him unhappiness. He has got to live with others, and if he goes about perpetually as if he expected others to tread on his toes, the chances are that he will get his toes trodden on. With what measure he metes, it is measured to him again — sometimes even in double measure, pressed down, and running over into his bosom. He is always look- ing after number one, and number two lets him look. He has made an inner environment of suspicion, and he has to breathe in it all the time. There can be no real happiness for suspicious men, who live as if they thought others are always waiting to pick their pocket, or to do them some evil turn. Even if they escape some personal injury in -%J their caution, as no doubt they some- times do, they are cutting themselves 216 ^crpjrmciSi« off from the human joy of frank inter- course, and the free outgoing of life which is the source of happiness. There is a turn of mind which it is more happy to possess than to be born to a fortune. The quahties that make for happiness are within, and the foes are found there also. Sir Thomas Brown, who culti- vated his inward life, prayed: "Bless me in this life with but peace of my conscience, command of my affections, the love of thyself and of my dearest friends ; and I shall be happy enough to pity Caesar." A man's foes are in- deed those of his own household. They are all traceable to the same \'ulgar source of selfishness. Wounded vanity, the personal mortification which comes from a slight, the fatigued, complain- ing spirit which has always a long list of grievances, the jealousy which sees everything yellow, and the anger which sees everything red — these make other 217 "©Kc 3foc55 of people miserable, but never so miser- able as they make the possessor. Any place may be good enough to live a life in, but more depends on the kind of life than the kind of place. A great deal even of the anxiety which darkens the world comes often from an undue place to which we give our own importance. We put such value on our own affairs and on our own comfort that we worry to have them exactly to our mind. When we view things in the large and get out into the wider life, we lose some of our fretful cares. A right disposition towards life ensures much quiet happi- ness. We learn the true proportion of things. Happiness is not dependent on the few great occasions of a sudden joy, and is not tried most severely by a great trial. Unhappiness is bred from the little maladjustments of life, the petty cares, the trivial troubles, the small disappointments, the endless oc- casions of discord. The place to fight 218 ^appmc2i« many of the foes of happiness is where they find lodgment in the soul. Nothing will so completely destroy the peace of life as an undue ambition. It is never satisfied, and pants for new worlds to conquer. A self-seeking man can never reach the end he covets. There is, of course, a discontent with present conditions, which is the mother of progress. It dreams of ever higher conquests, and is not satisfied with achievement. There is a noble discon- tent, born of the unappeased hunger and thirst after rigliteousness, which will be satisfied with nothing but the highest. But often it is ignoble, bom of vanity and the restless passion for gratification of stlf. At all costs a man must shine and glitter in some place of power. He covets place for its own sake, not as an opportunity for service. True fame comes to a man simply and naturally from his work and 219 "©he "^foc^ of character, but ambition makes fame the end towards which all efforts are di- rected. The world is full of restless climbers, who are pursuing selfish pur- poses. It is a desperate pursuit, and the chance of success for each is small. There are not enough posts of vantage to give one to each, for there would cease to be vantage if many could oc- cupy them. The whole point lies in superiority and getting the better of other competitors. In the world there are only a few places vacant where greatness can shine, only a few niches in the temple. The Valhalla has room for only a very few heroes. Celebri- ties must be rare from the nature of the case. Only the few can occupy the heights, and each place filled takes away one other chance from the struggling crowd below. If honour comes to a man he can wear it gracefully and use it nobly, but ambition frets the mind and inflames 220 ^«ppme*» the soul. The self-centred life has a fever in it, which wastes it away. Kvery attainmeiit only excites new de- sires, and every failure casts down and mortifies. It is a hopeless task, for the reason that the whole happiness is put into the care of other people, and yet the design is selfish. That is like try- ing to square the circle. The ambitious man cannot be satisfied without the good-will of others, or their praise, or admiration. Yet the instinct of the world is just, and does not give good- will to selfishness. So, it is earning wages to put it into a bag with holes. Why should we expect men to give ap- probation to a selfish life? For every reason selfish ambition ruins happiness. At the best it is short-lived, and needs to be kept going by a succession of sat- isfactions, which in turn becomes a fresh source of disquietude. INIany a time hot ambition may envy the lot of the more humble, who give unselfish service. But 221 "©^Kc 3foes of it is hard for us to see the essential truth of the paradox that the meek really inherit the earth. Augustine has a chapter in which he describes how he panted after the hon- ours and gains and successes of the world. The keenness of his desires only brought most bitter distress. Especially he recalls one day when he was pre- paring to recite a panegyric to the Emperor, wherein he was to utter many a lie and be applauded by those who knew he lied. Passing through one of the streets of Milan, he noticed a poor beggar, who had just had a good meal, and was jocular and joyous. The con- trast between the two states of mind impressed him. One was joyful, the other anxious ; one free from care, the other full of fear. If it was happiness that was sought, the beggar had fore- stalled him. A few pence gave the one what he sought, while the other was consumed with anxieties and feverish 222 JSt)ct:pfine^^ desires, dragging a burden which in- creased by dragging it. Ambition meant constant scheming, and weariful turnings and twistings. Augustine knew that the beggar had not what could be called the true joy, but no more had he with his ambitious designs. The ambitious man gives every one a control over his happiness, and puts it in the power of every malicious tongue to ruin his peace of mind. True happiness comes from self-forgetting work, and from service which does not think too much of reward. All forms of selfishness, though they at first seem the natural way to attain happiness, end in destroying it. In a society torn by ambition in every region, there is raised a brood of pas- sions that ruin tranquillity to the mind that will harbour them. One of the commonest of these is envy, which how- ever natural in a warring community, is 223 "Sthc 3foc5S of ignoble. It is always a mark of in- feriority; for a great mind has neither room nor time for detraction. Addison declared that this passion of envy reigns more among bad poets than among any other set of men. If this is so, the reason is that poets may be more ambitious of fame, and in the scramble men think they make a place for them- jy \\ selves by attacking the reputation of their brother artists. Unfortunately it is not confined to bad poets, but is to be found everywhere. It is surely due to a false view of life. If all sought to give their contribution to the world, we would be glad for every gift and seek to give it opportunity for it to do its best work. If true happiness is social and lives in an atmosphere of good-will, such a passion as envy is one of the worst foes of personal happiness. It does not lower the high, but really lowers the man who gives way to it. For true happiness we must cultivate 224 jSi)ct:jpj^inei^s the spirit which recognises good where- ever it appears. The only thing to do in the presence of excellence is to ac- knowledge it, encourage it, further it, love it. We must avoid the narrowness which denies good because it does not wear our particular badge, and come through our particular channel. How common this narrowness is in every re- gion, business, literature, art, politics, even social service and religious work. We do not like to recognise good, which has not the hall-mark of our school, or party, or class, or Church. We had rather the opposite party in politics would fail than that they should get the credit of passing useful laws for the good of the country. We half resent the success of another Church. Detrac- tion rises easily to our lips, because envy rises easily in our hearts. We must learn to think in terms of the common weal, and in terms of the King- dom of God. When we do, we cleanse 225 WflC "^OCSi of our hearts of malice, and envy, and evil desire, and we enter into peace. The more we consider the causes of unhappiness, the more we realise that in the last issue they have a moral root. Happiness is a state of mind which is the fruit of purpose and of a life in keeping with the purpose. That is why it cannot be gathered from every black- berry bush. There is a real connection between happiness and goodness. Men discover that in the long run it cannot be got through wrongdoing. Men have instinctively felt that happiness must somehow be associated with whatever is looked on as the great end of human life. The good man is not good in order to be happy ; he does not practice virtue for the sake of pleasure. As Seneca stated the Stoic doctrine, a good man does not love virtue because it gives pleasure, but it gives him pleasure be- cause he loves it. We are not to seek the 226 ^ctjrpincsiS liighest life for the sake of happiness, and virtue for the loaves and fishes may well be suspected. At the same time goodness alone can bring true joy. From this point of view we see why happiness is impossible to the man who breaks the law of love. The scheming selfish man can never get peace out of life. He breaks the current of the world's good-will. Malice and liatc of all sorts cloud the intellect, so that things are seen out of their true per- spective. They make a circle of con- tagion till all life is poisoned. These foes of happiness can only be driven out and held at bay by love, by an atti- tude of good-will, and by a purpose of service. 227 '©Kc l&ieavl of Poor world, she cried, so deep accurst That runn'st from pole to pole To seek a draught to slake thy thirst — Go, seek it in thy soul! Matthew Arnold. IM ^ "SCKc JSbectti of AT the heart of happiness lies peace. It is the last and the highest attainment of the soul. A surface view makes it consist of mo- tionlessness like the impotence of death. It is not stagnation, but perfect har- mony, the poise and complete balance of forces. Sometimes the world is visited by a day of calm with a hush in the air and a stillness that seems eternal, so that storai seems impossible. We think of it as mere inertia, where noth- ing is doing, and nothing is happening. Instead, it is the result of measureless forces, the equilibrium of omnipotence. Everything is doing; every incalculable power of nature is at work, and the ef- fect is perfect harmony. There seems a central control which holds everything 231 ^hc ^cctvi of tense. Instead of suggesting weakness, peace should suggest strength. It means control, complete mastery of all that is wayward or unruly. The peace of nature seems like a parable of perfect human life. The soul of man has ever dreamed of a secret of life, which would make a man calm at the heart, and bring everything into a cen- tral control. Men have longed for an inward serenity which would give certi- tude of tread, and give stillness amid all the storms and distresses of an earthly lot. Instinctively we know that this ultimate happiness is not built on pleasures, but on peace. It comes not from enjoyments, but from a mind and heart at rest. We do not always know where to look for it, but we know that we desire something like it. For, peace is the dream of the race. At the bottom of all our strivings, the explanation of all our ceaseless efforts is this dream. All our ambitions and desires have this 232 ^appmciSi« at the root. A man gives himself to pleasure, or he works for money or power. But it is not for the things themselves, but for the supposed satis- faction of heart they will bring. Blindly, instinctively we stretch out our hands, and clutch for the things we think will give us hearts-ease and a satisfied life. Men do not love money ill itself: it is not the mere gold or scrip that men strive and toil for. You do them wrong to think that such a poor thing can be the ultimate aim of even the man who passes for a mone3^-grub- ber. He has a soul above that. He in- vests it with imaginative, almost roman- tic, properties. It is not itself, but what it stands for, what it can do, or is sup- posed to be able to do ; the security it can give from many evils, its power to beat back the distresses of poverty ; the capacity it has for pleasure and the satisfaction of desire. They are not always low desires: they may be even 233 ^hc JSbcccH of very high and noble desires, the oppor- tunity of doing good and carrying for- ward plans of large reach, the oppor- tunity for acquiring knowledge, of enriching the life with all that art and the best thought of man can do. If we are dupes, we are not always ignoble dupes. What all men long for and strive after is the state of blessedness, which these particular things are sup- posed to give. Our aim, beneath all sur- face aims, is to attain to peace, content of heart, a satisfied life. We may be asking for the impossible, but if we ask for it let us at least real- ise what a great boon we crave. It is greater than joy, which is too acute a passion to last. When joy subsides, as it must, we are asking for some per- manent fruits of joy. Peace is like the full tide, after its flow and before its ebb, as the sea holds itself in poise, flooding every inlet and bathing every shore. Our ideal here is no stoical 234 ^ctppmeisd crushing of the natural impulses of the heart, but a power that uplifts and sup- ports and fills the life. If there is an art of peace, it must be the supreme achievement of human nature. The first thing to know is the region where we can look for it, or at least where it is not worth while to look for it. To learn this is itself a real advance. INlost of our mistakes are due to failure to un- derstand this. Every master of the deep things of life assures us that peace must be found within. It is " not as the world giveth." We are often irritated by the profound teachers, because they insist on this, and tell us that all our usual methods are futile. Yet, if there is to be peace at all, it must be not as the world giveth ; for the world has never succeeded in giving it to any son of man. Peace is the dream of the race we have said, but dispeace is the experience of the race. 235 ^Kc JSi>cixvl of For a few years men long for happiness, and perhaps achieve it: for ever they are longing for rest. The world cannot give it with all its good gifts; for it belongs to a region which the world can- not reach. The world can give much, but it cannot give this. The world can give distractions ; it cannot give peace. This is a state of the heart, an inward gift, the water of a fountain that springs up from within, a condition of the soul. To win true peace a man must have his infinite thirst appeased: he needs to have his soul satisfied, and no earthly gifts can bring that appease- ment. We cannot even get near the secret till we give up the belief, or even the hope, that the world can give it. Where- ever else, it is certainly not there ! Let j\ the man most fortunate in his surround- ings, rich in all the possibilities and op- portunities of life, with every avenue of pleasure and power and ambition and 236 jSbctj^j^inei&a knowledge open to him, let him say if the world can give peace. Sometimes it is only when all the gifts of fortune, the world's good things, are torn from a man, that he learns how futile they were, and how little they really did for the satisfaction of life. Shakespeare makes Wolsey in his fall, when his high-blown pride broke under him, realise this. When the killing frost nipped the root of his ripening greatness, he saw how insecure the foundation of his life had been ; and that tliere was a peace he had been losing above all earthly dignities. Dante in exile, driven from all he held dear in life, visited a monastery to leave there the first portion of the Inferno. The story of his visit is told by the prior of the monastery. " As he was unknown to me and my brethren, I asked him What would you? And he answering not a word but gazing at the building, I asked him again what he sought. He then, looking round upon 237 ^hc JSbcctvl of me and my brethren, answered, Peace.^' How typical of man and the whole life of man the incident was, as Dante turned his burning eyes upon the wondering monks, and asked out of his sorrowful heart the one word. Peace. There was no peace for him, except the peace of soul which might come from detach- ment from the vulgar struggles and ambitions of men in Florence. If he could not find it in his Divina Com- media, he could never find it in the fair City of Flowers. At the risk of wearisome iteration, this has to be said, and repeated, that peace is independent of outside condi- tion. We cannot advance one inch towards the secret, till we see and con- fess that it is not as the world giveth. Those who have reached this peace which is the heart of happiness are em- phatic on this point, and their life bears witness that they did not find it in out- ward success. There is the Master, who 238 ^appmcs^ left as his only bequest his regal legacy of peace. With failure behind him in the world's judgment, and before him a cross ; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief — and yet with serenity of soul, and quiet of heart, with peace brooding in his eyes as he looked beyond the tumult to the triumph. It was a quality of soul, not an accident of fortune. There is Paul who had learned the same secret, writing about peace to his fellow-believers. He was in prison, after a life of terrible toil and terrible privation, with the care of all the churches, with troubles on every side, fightings without and fears within ; a broken and scarred life! And yet as he bore on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus, so he carried in his heart the peace of the Lord Jesus. Surely, surely, not as the world giveth. We find it hard to accept this, hard to give up our feverish attempts to reach peace by outside means. We put down 239 ^hc JSi)caA of our unrest and dispeace to our uncon- genial conditions. If only we had a sweeter environment, it would be well with us, we think. It is true that the world sometimes gives a false peace, an appearance of tranquillity of life, when all things go smoothly with a man, and prosperity abounds, and the granaries are full, when health is given and with it capacity for pleasure. The soul sleeps easily in such days of peace and slumberous calm. But spiritual torpor is not peace; for what about the awakening that must come? Or, there may be a spurious peace which is the fruit of ignorance, from a conscience not too enlightened, a taste not too refined, a mind that has never seen the better part of life, from stupid contentment with the lower part, from what Carlyle calls a brutal lethargy. This is the damning fact about all forms of worldly peace that there 240 ^apjrmcsi« is no security, and no permanence of tenure even. It is a capricious thing, accidental. A slight rearrangement of details, and the palace of dream vanishes. What the world gives, the world can take away, and will take away. None of the world's gifts are evil in themselves, and may be good gifts of God. The reason why we must not love the world is not because it is evil, but because it is transient. It passeth away. At the best it is not sufficient, it is not adequate as the stay of life. The most fortunate circum- stances are only fortuitous after all. At the world's banquet, the richest and rarest, there is suspended the fateful sword of Damocles hung by a hair ; and the hair will wear through sometime. It is no despisal of the common sources of human happiness to say that they cannot last. In the nature of the case they are temporary. Even if they did not change, we change, and can no 241 "©Kc ^ectvi of longer be fully satisfied with what once was enough. At each stage of our life there are appropriate pleasures, but they lose their power when we pass out of one stage to another. A man cannot be pleased with a child's toys. Some of the experiences also, which meant the joy of an overflowing cup, pass never to be renewed. The first taste of life's sweet- est joy may well intoxicate the fresh heart that knows it. "O happy world," thought Pelleas, "all me- seems, Are happy; I the happiest of them all." Nor slept that night for pleasm-e in his blood. But life cannot stay at that height of fervour. We soon get used to any state, and cease to be either surprised or rejoiced. The bloom rubs off, and the first flutter can never be renewed. This is the hell of the pleasure-seeker that his pleasures pall, and bring only secret loathing, while the heart is still con- sumed with thirst. 242 ^appmcsi)5 Apart from this transient character of the world's peace, its quality also is poor and threadbare, and men feel its failure even when they possess it. There are few more impressive and more pathetic pages in literature than those in which Count Tolstoi describes in his " Confessions " the emptiness and vanity of worldly things. He was a nobleman, in pre-eminently happy cir- cumstances, with a continually increas- ing income, respected by friends, praised by strangers, happy in his home-life, with a great position and rep- utation as an author, enjoying the best of mental and physical strength ; and yet he, a healthy and happy man, was brought to feel that he could live no longer. He had to fight against the temptation to commit suicide. He gave up carrying a gun, because it offered too easy a way of getting rid of life. The reason was because he felt that life had no meaning for him. He was not 243 "©he JSi)cixvl of content just to exist, and that was all he was doing. His life, viewed from the point of reason, had no reason for con- tinuance. It seemed a foolish and wicked joke played on him by he knew not whom. He gave himself up to knowledge, and studied science, but all in vain; the same torturing sense of meaninglessness remained. He came to see and confess that faith alone gave man an answer as to the mean- ing of life, and the consequent possibility of living. He saw that faith alone could clothe with infinity the finite existence of man, and give a meaning to life which triumphs over suffering, privation, and death. But though he came to under- stand this, his heart was none the lighter for it. He, the rich and learned and illustrious nobleman, envied the peasant for his quiet faith. At last when he came humbly to Jesus and bent his neck to the yoke of Christ, he too entered into the inheritance of peace. In the Intro- 244 ^appmcsis duction to his next book, he wrote, " For thirtj-five years of my life I was a man who beheved in nothing. Five years ago faith came to me; I believed in the doc- trine of Jesus, and my whole life under- went a sudden transformation. What I had wished for I wished for no longer, and I began to desire what I had never desired before. What had once ap- peared to me right now became wrong, and the wrong of the past I beheld as right. . . . My soul, once filled with despair of life and fear of death, is now full of happiness and peace." It is not enough to know that the insatiable heart of man can never reach peace by way of the outward. We may say that we are foredoomed to failure, if we make happiness consist in acquisition. We may even be persuaded that we cannot be satisfied by clutching after things, opening hands and mouths like children of the horseleech. It is not 245 ^hc Sbectvi of enough even to know the true home of happiness as in the soul. We need to know its method as well as its seat. It is good to know that peace is independ- ent of place as it is of fortune. A man can have it in the narrowest corner of life. He can be possessed by it amid distractions and labours, through fiery trials and temptations, even with sorrow and tears. If it cannot be gotten for gold, it cannot be lost through poverty. If the world cannot give it, the world cannot take it away. But how? It is by what looks like a lowly way, through the giving up of self. So long as our scheme of life makes self first in the hunt, so long is peace impossible. All or any of the forms of selfishness at once destroy peace — covetousness, envy, passion, self-will, vanity, ambition, craving of appetite. It is not merely that in the fraction which we call life, the value of the fraction can be added to as easily by reducing the denominator 246 ^crppine^d as by increasing the numerator. It is rather that a new centre is given to the whole life. Some balk at this because they think it means renunciation, tlie old hoarse song of giving up and going without. But before we judge and condenm it, let us put it to the proof of action. Like ever^^thing else, it nmst stand the test of experience. On the one side we have seen the failure of the rival method, that never son of man has reached the still heart of happiness that way. We are troubled guests in an inhospitable world, which refuses us all we ask. On the other side we learn as a matter of experience the tnjth of the profound saying that whosoever will save his life will lose it, and whosoever will lose his life saves it. The man who puts it to the test finds peace, opens up a source of life within that never runs dry. It is discovered to be no self-muti- lation, but the gate to a larger life. The 247 iShc JSbcavi of giving up of the lower self is not a mere negation of desire, but making room for the higher self, opening up the life to a greater desire, a larger hope and a nobler love. It proves itself by finding at last the true equilibrium of life. At the heart of this happiness there is peace. This is no mystical experience, an ecstatic feeling without foothold on fact. In practice it means the life of love and of service. It means finding the life in the larger social life. Love is the fulfill- ing of the whole law. Every act of good-will brings us into relation to the universal order. We can test the tree by its fruits. The selfish, self-centred life fails even in giving joy. What we often misname sacrifice means the out- going of life, and joy comes from the free outpouring of our highest nature. So, to be without love is the crime of life. It is also the beam in the eye that vitiates the whole sight. This law of love proves 248 JSi)ctpfiine&^ its truth as a rule of life — proves itself as even the only way to lasting hap- piness. If a man gives his every effort to getting love, though that is the highest boon of all and the chief source of hap- piness, he fails. He fails not only to get happiness, but fails in the long run even to get love. If a man offers all he is and has, simply expresses his full humanity, pours out his good-will in thought and word and act, he not only gets love, but he gets a joy that never fails. He seems to be at peace with the deepest life of the world. One reason wh}^ we cannot know com- plete happiness in the region of the out- ward is because we long for unity, a centre of control which means a centre of rest. Life otherwise is scattered, and incoherent. It is precisely here that religion shows its power, uniting the broken fragments of life in a supreme purpose. There is a phrase which Paul 249 ^Hc JSbccxvl of uses which indicates this function of faith, " Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts." It is a metaphor from the contests of wrestlers and runners. The word rule is strictly " arbitrate," act as umpire to settle disputes. As a referee takes upon him to decide difficulties which may arise in a contest, and the combatants must submit to his ruling, so this peace may be umpire in our hearts amid the conflict of motives and desires. Paul conceives of it as something which all may have and ought to have. It is not dependent on special providence nor exceptional grace. It is open to all and therefore is a duty incum- bent on all. It is meant as a plain guide of practice. It is too seldom attained, because we keep seeking it where no man can find it. We think it must come through the satisfaction of desire, and no doubt desire is sometimes satisfied. But this can never be the lot of all, nor indeed of any all the time. Some of us 250 ra«i.'~> ^appmciss will never get that which we think would make us perfectly happy. Some of our desires will remain unappeascd. So long as there are pain and sorrow and loss in the world — that is so long as the world lasts — perfect happiness of that sort can never be possible for all men. We need a principle of unit}- amid all the jarring elements of human life, as we need a centre of rest amid the unceasing flux of things around us. In the last issue our only sure stay is in the thought of God. If we would bring coherence into our lives, we nmst bring a definite purpose, and before that pur- pose can bring us perfect peace we must see it related to the very purpose of God. Only thus have we " an anchor of tlie soul both sure and steadfast and which entereth into that within the veil." Even those who feel that they have not found the secret, and who only look at it afar off, confess its need. Amiol, at a time when everything seemed to him arbitrary 251 ^hc JSbcctvi of and fortuitous, although he declared that he had not got for himself this faith, acknowledged his need of it. " To win true peace," he says, " a man needs to feel himself directed, pardoned, and sus- tained by a supreme power, to feel him- self in the right road, at the point where God would have him be, — in order with God and the universe. This faith gives strength and calm." Only here also can be found peace in the heart's worst desolation. A faith in God, which takes into its sweep all the future, lies at the bottom of all perma- nent peace of heart. Though we may ignore the whole question for a time, the day comes when we stand beside an open grave, and either bury our heart with the dust, or else give it wings to mount up like eagles. Our ultimate happiness and peace even here depend on this. Pascal's solemn words are utterly true about the unspeakable tragedy of life 252 JSbctpj^inc^^ apart from this faith, " We need no great elevation of soul to understand that here is no true and solid satisfaction, that all our pleasures are but vanity, our evils infinite, and lastly that death which threatens us every moment, must infal- libly and within a few years come. Noth- ing is more real than this, nothing more terrible. Brave it out as we may, that is yet the end which awaits the fairest life in the world." We reach ultimate peace on this darkest problem not by processes of reasoning, but by accepting the religious presupposition of life. If we believe in the future, it is because we believe in God. Our faith is a strong hand in the dark, and we move in peace to its leading. To every man in some solemn hour comes the question which he must ask as he looks out into the dark, " Whether 't is ampler day divinelier lit, or homeless night without." 253 UNIVERSITY OF -^ATj^ORNIA. 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