Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of Ethics Part 16

There is, however, a real danger in this method, of a discouragement and demoralization resulting from the collapse of enthusiastic hopes.

And there is the further danger that a man will excuse indulgence in such hours of discouragement, on the ground that he is going to turn over another new leaf to-morrow and might as well have a good fling to- day. It is well to remember the truth that Martineau expressed by his apt phrase, "the tides of the spirit." "But, alas," Stevenson puts it, "by planting a stake at the top of the flood, you can neither prevent nor delay the inevitable ebb." After all, in most of our moral warfare, "it's dogged as does it." "He that stumbles and picks himself up is as if he had never fallen."

"We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides; The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides. But tasks in hours of insight will'd Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd."

If we do try the abrupt break, it is of the utmost importance to utilize every opportunity for the carrying out of the new program, to hunt up occasions while the will is strong and the courage high.

One actual fulfillment of a resolution is worth many mental rehearsals.

And when the enemy is repulsed by this charge with the bayonet, vigilance must not be relaxed, lest he return to take us unawares.

[Footnote: I cannot forbear including, in this connection, the admirable remarks of William James (Psychology, vol. I, pp. 123-24): "The first [maxim] is that in the acquisition of a new habit, or the leaving off of an old one, we must take care to LAUNCH OURSELVES WITH AS STRONG AND DECIDED AN INITIATIVE AS POSSIBLE. Acc.u.mulate all the possible circ.u.mstances which shall reinforce the right motives; put yourself a.s.siduously in conditions that encourage the new way; make engagements incompatible with the old; take a public pledge, if the case allows; in short, envelop your resolution with every aid you know. This will give your new beginning such a momentum that the temptation to break down will not occur as soon as it otherwise might; and every day during which a breakdown is postponed adds to the chances of its not occurring at all. "The second maxim is: NEVER SUFFER AN EXCEPTION TO OCCUR TILL THE NEW HABIT IS SECURELY ROOTED IN YOUR LIFE. Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up; a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again. The need of securing success at the OUTSET is imperative. Failure at first is apt to dampen the energy of all future attempts, whereas past experience of success nerves one to future vigor. It is surprising how soon a desire will die of inanition if it be NEVER fed. "A third maxim may be added to the preceding pair: SEIZE THE VERY FIRST POSSIBLE OPPORTUNITY TO ACT ON EVERY RESOLUTION YOU MAKE, AND ON EVERY EMOTIONAL PROMPTING YOU MAY EXPERIENCE IN THE DIRECTION OF THE HABITS YOU ASPIRE TO GAIN. It is not in the moment of their forming, but in the moment of their producing MOTOR EFFECTS that resolves and aspirations communicate the new 'set' to the brain."]

(2) It is an excellent thing to do a little gratuitous spiritual exercise every day, just to keep in training, to get the habit of conquering impulse, of doing disagreeable things. Nothing is more useful to a man than that power. We must not let our lives get too easy and our wills too soft. To jump out of bed when the whistle blows, instead of dawdling just for a minute more in indolent comfort, to make one's self take the cold bath that is abhorrent to the flesh, to deny one's self the cigar or the candy that may not be in itself particularly harmful-by some means or other to keep one's self in the saddle and riding one's desires, may enable one when some crisis comes to thrust aside a man too fatally accustomed to doing things in the easiest way.

(3) Discretion is sometimes the better part of valor. Besides strengthening our own wills, it is wise to seek in every way to remove temptation from our path, and, if need be, to run away from it. We must keep away from situations that experience warns are dangerous for us, however innocent they may be to others. If a man find that dancing, or the theater, arouses his pa.s.sionate nature, it may be better to avoid it entirely till his hypersensitive state is normalized. Always alcoholic liquors are to be avoided; they cloud the reason and the will, and let impulse loose. Always overexcitement and overfatigue are to be avoided. "The power to overcome temptation," Jane Addams writes, "reaches its limit almost automatically with that of physical resistance."

(4) We must follow Bossuet's advice not to combat pa.s.sions directly so much as to turn them aside by applying them to other objects. Our emotional nature is a gift of the G.o.ds; the sinner might have been a saint if his emotions had only been enlisted under the right banner.

Something good to love, to work for, and think about, something that can arouse our whole nature and relieve it from suppression, is the best antidote to morbid desire. It is sometimes alleged that it is better to satisfy a pa.s.sion than to keep it pent up within the organism. But satisfying a wrong pa.s.sion not only brings its inevitable unhappy consequences, to one's self and to others, it makes it far harder to resist the pa.s.sion again, when it recurs. The only safe outlet is one that leads into right conduct; under skilful guidance all pa.s.sions can be trans.m.u.ted into valuable driving forces and allies of morality.

(5) Even if one seems to be playing a losing game, one can still keep up the fight. One can spoil one's enjoyment in self-indulgence or selfishness; one can refuse to give in all over. This minority representation of the better impulse will suffice to keep it alive in us; and when the revulsion from sin comes we shall be in better shape to make the fight next time. A hundred failures need not discourage; some of the greatest men have gained the final ascendancy over their weaknesses only after a long and often losing struggle.

The case is hopeless only for the man who stops fighting.

Self-control is the measure of manhood. It is the most important thing in the personal life. And it is within the reach of any man who can be brought to understand the mechanism where through it can be attained.

It remains true that it is best attained through religion, which utilizes the power of prayer, of faith, the enthusiasm of a great cause and motive, and the comradeship and help of others engaged in the same eternal war with sin. But religion, to be efficacious, must be not pa.s.sively accepted, but USED. Its help comes not to him who saith "Lord, Lord!" but to him who earnestly seeks to do the will of the Father. J. Payot, Education of the Will. H. C. King, Rational Living, chap. VI, sec. III; chap. X. W. James, Psychology, vol. I, pp. 122-27; vol. II, pp. 561-79. W. E. H. Lecky, Map of Life, chap. XII. A. Bain, The Emotions and the Will, part II, chap. IX. L. H. Gulick, in World's Work, vol. 15, p. 9797. Bossuet, Connaissance de Dieu et de Soi meme, chap. III, sec. 19. St. Augustine, Confessions, book VIII, chap. V.

Janet, Elements de Morale, chap. X, sec. 3. W. L. Sheldon, An Ethical Movement, chap. X. A. Bennett, The Human Machine, chaps. I-V. O. S.

Marden, Every Man a King.

CHAPTER XXII

THE ATTAINABILITY OF HAPPINESS

WE have now discussed the more recurrent problems of the individual, and pointed out the salient duties that private life entails. But there remains something to be added before we shall have clearly pointed the way to personal happiness. "Mere morality," even when coupled with good fortune, is not enough; a sinless man, scrupulous to fulfill the least command of the law, may yet be anxious, restless, depressed, unsatisfied. We need more than morality, as the word is commonly used; we need religion - or something of the sort. There is no doubt that for the attainment of a pervasive and stable happiness there is nothing so good as the best sort of religion; but, as in discussing self- control, we must here steer clear of religious controversy and phrase what we have to say in the colder terms of "mere morality." And though there will be a great loss in feeling, in persuasiveness and unction thereby, there will be gain in clearness. It is possible to express in the drab tones of morality the profound insights which have made religion the great guide to happiness; and even the man who deems himself irreligious may, if he takes to heart these more prosaic counsels, find something of the peace that has been the boon of true believers.

The threefold key to happiness:

I. HEARTY ALLEGIANCE TO DUTY.

The one thing above all others that makes life worth living is the utter devotion of the heart and will to the commands of morality. To throw one's self whole-heartedly into the game, to play one's part for all it is worth, transforms what were else a grim and unhappy necessity into a glorious opportunity. The happy man is the loyal man, the man who has taken sides, who has enrolled himself definitely on the side of right and tastes the zest of battle. He has something to live for, and something lasting. He has put his heart into a cause that the limitations and accidents of life cannot take from him, he has laid up his treasure in heaven, where moth and rust doth not corrupt or thieves break through and steal.

Any cause, any ambition, any great endeavor that can stir the blood, and give a life direction, purpose, and continuity of achievement, has the power to rescue life from ennui, from emptiness, and give it positive worth. But most ambitions pall in time, and many a cause that has taken a man's best energies has come to seem mistaken or futile with the years. There is only one great campaign which is so eternal, so surely necessary, so clear in its summons to all men, that the heart can rest in it as in something great enough to enn.o.ble a whole life.

That is the age-long war against evil, the unending summons to duty, the service of G.o.d. Once a man learns this deepest of joys, nothing can take it from him; whatever his limitations, however narrow his sphere, there will not fail to be a right way, a brave way, a beautiful way to live. There is comradeship in it; in this common service of G.o.d - or of good, if we must avoid religious terms - we stand shoulder to shoulder with the saints and heroes of all races and times, with all, of whatever land or tongue, who are striving to push forward the line, to make the right prevail and banish evil. Every effort, every sacrifice, has its inextinguishable effect; in his moral conquests a man is no longer an individual, he is a part of the great tide that is resistlessly making toward the better world of the future, the Kingdom of G.o.d. The great Power in the world that makes for righteousness is back of him, and in him; in no loyal moment is he alone. . . .

Inevitably the tongue slips into religious language in dealing with these high truths; but nonetheless are they scientific truths, matters of plain every day observation.

The essential point is, that it is not enough to obey the Law; we must ESPOUSE the Law, clasp it to our bosoms, love it, and give ourselves to it utterly. We must - to use the pregnant words of James "base our lives on doing and being, not on having"; base our lives solidly upon it, so that everything else is secondary. The pleasures of life are well enough in their time, but they must not usurp the chief place in a man's thought.[Footnote: Cf. J. S. Mill, Autobiography, p. 142: "The enjoyments of life are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing, when they are taken en pa.s.sant, without being made a princ.i.p.al object.

The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life."] His first concern must be to keep true, to play the game; he must seek first the Kingdom of G.o.d and His righteousness, if he would have these other things added unto him.

He must lose his life his worldly interests, his dependence upon ease and luxury, and even love if he would truly find it. In a hundred such phrases from the Great Teacher's lips one finds the secret. More baldly expressed, it comes to this, that only through putting the main emphasis upon doing the right, obeying the call of duty, only through the courageous attack and the giving of our utmost allegiance, can we keep a positive zest in living, exorcise the specter of aimlessness and depression, and lift ordinary commonplace life to the level of heroism. Blessed is the man whose DELIGHT is in the law of the Lord.

II. HEARTY ACQUIESCENCE IN OUR LOT.

The fighter, for whatever cause, can bear the blows that come as a part of the battle; if a man has put his heart into living by his ideal, he is immune from the disappointments and irritations that beset man upon a lower level. But it is well to take thought also for this side of the matter, to cultivate deliberately the spirit of acquiescence in the inevitable pain and losses of life. Many of the sweetest pleasures are by their nature uncertain or transient; these we must hold so loosely that, while not refusing to enjoy their sweetness, we are ]ot dependent upon them and can let them go without losing sight of the steady gleam that we follow. However dear to us are the people we love, and the material things we own, we must keep the underlying a.s.surance that if they be taken from us life will still bring us in other ways renewed opportunities for that loyalty to duty, that faithful living, which is after all the end for which we live. We must count whatever comes to us, whether sweet or bitter, as the conditions under which we serve, the material with which we have to work, the stuff which we have to "try the soul's strength on." For there is no way to be armor-proof against unhappiness but by seeing to it that our hearts are not set on anything but doing or being; nothing else is reliably permanent amid the fitful sunshine and shadow of human life. "Make hy claim of wages a zero; then hast thou the world at thy feet."

[Footnote: In Maeterlinck's Measure of the Hours, he speaks of a sundial found near Venice by Hazlitt with the inscription, Horas non numero nisi serenas and quotes Hazlitt's remarks thereon: "What a fine lesson is conveyed to the mind to take no note of time but by its benefits, to watch only for the smiles and neglect the frowns of fate, to compose our lives of bright and gentle moments, turning always to the sunny side of things and letting the rest slip from our imaginations, unheeded or forgotten."] This necessity of detaching the heart from dependence upon uncertainties found extreme expression in the various historic forms of asceticism and monasticism. Such a running away from the world does not satisfy our age, with its eagerness for life and life more abundantly; if it escapes the poignant sorrows it cannot happiness, or make life better for others. But we may well take to heart the half-truth taught by the hermits and monks of the past. We may be "in the world," indeed, but not "of it"; we, too, may make no claims upon life, while putting our hearts into playing our own part in it well. The writings of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius are full of pa.s.sages that express the gist of the matter, such as the following: "It is thy duty to order thy life well in every single act; and if every act does its duty as far as is possible, be content; no one is able to hinder thee so that each act shall not do its duty. But something external will stand in the way? Nothing will stand in the way of thy acting justly and soberly and considerately. But perhaps some of thy active powers will be hindered? Well, by acquiescing in the hindrance, and being content to transfer thy efforts to that which is allowed, another opportunity of action is immediately put before thee in place of that which was hindered." What is this but saying in other words that not in having lies our life, but in doing and being. Not even in succeeding, we must remember; and this is perhaps the hardest part of our lesson. It is one thing to bear with serenity those blows of fortune against which we are obviously defenseless; it is another thing, when there seems a chance for averting the disaster, when our whole heart and soul are thrown into that effort, to await the outcome with tranquility, to bear failure without complaint. The "might have been's"

and the "perhaps may yet be's" are the greatest disturbers of our peace.

To use our keenest wits for attaining what seems best, to use our utmost persuasion for protecting ourselves from the selfishness and stupidity of others, and then if we fail, if the fair hope slips from our grasp, if the thoughtlessness or cruelty of men prevails against us, to smile and attack the next problem with undaunted cheerfulness, requires, indeed, to attain to that level may well be called "the last infirmity of n.o.ble minds." For the very concentration of life upon doing and being carries with it the danger of staking happiness upon the success of the doing, the attainment of the ideals. We must count even the stupidity and impulsiveness of our own mental make-up as among the materials we have to work with, and not allow remorse for our own part in past failures to interfere with the joyful earnestness with which we attack the problems of the eternal present. We may, indeed, often succeed, and that may be a very great and pure joy to us; but we are not to count upon success; or, to put it another way, we are to think of the real success as lying in the dauntless renewal of the effort rather than in the show of outward result. "To have often resisted the diabolic, and at the end to be still resisting it, is for the poor human soldier to have done right well. To ask to see some fruit of our endeavor is but a transcendental way of serving for reward." This is not pessimism, it is the first step toward a sound and invulnerable optimism. We must recognize once for all that this world is not the world of our dreams, and cease to be so pathetically surprised and hurt when it falls short of them. Were we to be rebellious at life for not being built after the pattern of our ideals there would be no limit to our faultfinding. We may, indeed, long in our idle hours with Omar "To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, shatter it to bits-and then Remould it nearer to the heart's desire!" But in our daily life a braver and saner att.i.tude befits us; for it is not in such an ideal world but in the actual world that we have to live. Evils there are in it and will yet be-why we cannot tell and need not know; the only alternative we have is to take them cheerfully or gloomily, to rebel or to accept the situation. Our duty then is clear. To face the events of life as they come to us, without discouragement or dismay, to laugh at them a little and learn to carry on our lives through them with steadfast heart and smiling face- surely that is the part of wisdom and of true manliness. The ugly things in life seem much less formidable when thus boldly faced than when we try to shut our eyes to them, with the consequent disillusion at their continual reappearance.

Confess frankly the faults of life and it becomes tolerable, is even in a fair way to become lovable. For after all, when its obvious imperfections do not blind us to its good points, it is a dear old world we live in, and the healthy minded man loves it, as he loves his friends in spite of their faults loves it, and finds it a world gloriously worth living in.

III.

HEARTY APPRECIATION OF THE WONDER AND BEAUTY IN LIFE.

Finally, when we have our great purpose in life, and have overcome the fear of pain and loss, we must learn to see and appreciate the beauty of the world we live in. The man who refuses to be downed by trouble is in a condition to enjoy each bit of good fortune that comes to him, to welcome each as a pure gift or addition to life, and to know that gifts of some sort or other will always come. Holding all things with that looser grasp that is ready to let them go if go they must, he can relish the good things of life the more freely for not having counted on them, as he can the more freely admire the virtues of his friends for not having expected them to be perfect. He can feel the beauty of the world without being dependent upon it, not looking for mortal things to be immortal or human things to be ideal, but whole-heartedly enjoying today what he has today and tomorrow what he shall have to-morrow. The things he cannot have at all, instead of spoiling his happiness in what he has, will rather add to it by forming another dimension of the actual, full of beautiful visions and glorious possibilities. And meantime the real world, of events that actually occur, will not fail, in spite of its flaws and rebuffs, to bring him ever-fresh delights. Let no one minimize these delights.

There is more beauty, more interest here in this mundane existence of ours, more inspiration, more inexhaustible possibility of enjoyment than the keenest of us has dreamed of. We need some sort of shaking up to rouse us to the beauty of common things- the freshness of the air we breathe, the warmth of sunshine, the green of trees and fields and the blue of the sky, the joy in exercise of brain and muscle, in reading and talking and sharing in the life of the world; and in such daily things as eating at the family table when we are hungry, or a good night's sleep when we are tired. We need some teacher like Whitman to open our eyes to the beauty not only of flowers but of leaves of gra.s.s, to the picturesqueness and significance of so dull a thing as a ferryboat; or like Wordsworth, with his picturing of homely country scenes and events, with his emotion at the sight of the sleeping city- "a sight so touching in its majesty." This sense of the meaning of common things floods most of us at one time or another, and we see what in our blindness we have been overlooking. Go without your comfortable bed for a while, your well-cooked food, your home, friends, neighbors, and you will discover how rich you have been. Your mother's face hinted by some stranger in a foreign land will some day overcome you with the realization of the comfort of her love; and unless you are a crabbed egotist the life of your fellows can furnish you with endless pleasures. It is not necessary to own things to enjoy them; our interests and enjoyments may well overlap and include those of our friends and neighbors, and even those of strangers. The smile of a happy child, a friend's good fortune a sunrise or moonlit cloud-strewn sky, should bring a pure gladness to any one who has eyes to see and heart to feel. We must "Learn to love the morn, Love the lovely working light, Love the miracle of sight, Love the thousand things to do."

[Footnote: These lines are Richard Le Gallienne's. Cf. also Matthew Arnold's lines: "Is it so small a thing To have enjoyed the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done, To have advanced true friends and beat down baffling foes? The sports of the country people, A flute note from the woods, Sunset over the sea; Seed-time and harvest, The reapers in the corn, The vinedresser in his vineyard, The village girl at her wheel. . ."] The true lover of beauty will not need to seek forever-new scenes and objects to admire. He will find that which can feed his heart in the clouds of morning, the blue of noon, or the stars of night. One graceful vase with a flower-stalk bending over to display its drooping blossoms, will fill him with a quiet happiness; the merry laughter of a child, the tender smile of a lover, the rugged features of a weather beaten laborer, will stir his soul to response; a few lines of poetry remembered in the midst of work, a simple song sung in the twilight, a print of some old master hanging by his bedside, a bird-call heard at sunset or the scent of evening air after rain, may so speak to his spirit that he will say, "It is enough!" It is not the number of beautiful things that we have that matters, but the degree in which we are open to their influence, the atmosphere into which we let them lead us.

Our hearts must be free from self-seeking, from regret, from anger, from restlessness. The vision comes not always to the connoisseur, comes to him whose life is simple, earnest, open-eyed and openhearted.

In the pauses of his faithful work he will refresh his soul with some bit of beauty that tells of attainment, of peace, of perfection. That is a proof to him of the beauty in the midst of which he lives, inexhaustible, hardly discerned; it carries him beyond itself into the ideal world of which it is a sample and ill.u.s.tration; unconsciously during the duties of the day he lives in the light of that vision, and everything is sweetened and blessed thereby.

Can we maintain a steady under glow of happiness?

Happiness--happiness sufficient to make life well worth living is, for most men at least, at most times, a real possibility. To be won it has but to be sought vigorously enough. It is to be sought, however, not primarily by changing one's environment but by changing one's self; not by acquiring new things, but by acquiring a new att.i.tude toward things; not by getting what could make one happy, but by learning to be happy with what one can get. THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS WITHIN YOU! This is not merely a moralist's theory, or an empirical observation; it is a scientific fact.

We may restate the matter in psychological language by saying that happiness and unhappiness are responses of the organism to its environment, reactions upon a stimulus, our att.i.tude of welcome or dissatisfaction toward the various matters of our experience. True, we often think of the quality of pleasantness as inhering in the things we enjoy, and speak of troubles and sorrows as objective. But this is only a shorthand way of describing experience. In reality the pleasure we feel in eating when we are hungry or in seeing a friend we love is something added to and different from the taste sensations, or the complex visual perceptions and memory images the friend arouses in us. So a cutting or burning sensation, the thought of a friend's death, or of our failure, on the one hand, and our unhappiness thereat on the other hand, are two distinct things, closely bound together in our minds but separable.

The separation is, indeed, difficult to bring about, because the age long struggle for existence has made unhappiness at physical pain and pleasure at the healthy exercise of our organs or satisfying of our appet.i.te instinctive and immediate, that we may avoid what is harmful to life and pursue what is useful. All our cravings and longings and regrets have this biological value; they are the machinery by which nature spurs us on to better adjustment to the conditions of life.

And in learning to do without the spur we must learn not to need it.

Discontent is better than laziness, remorse better than callous selfishness, suffering under extreme cold better than recklessly exposing the body till it is weakened. But as soon as we have reached that stage of rationality where we can choose the better way and stick to it without the stinging goad of pain, the pain is no longer necessary and we may safely learn to weed it out.

A few blessed souls we know who have learned the secret, who go about with perpetually radiant face and take smilingly the very mishaps that worry and sadden the rest of us. To some extent this may be merely a matter of better nerves, of less sensitive temperament, of more abounding vitality; but there are many of the weakest and most sensitive among those who have learned that better way; they can turn everything into happiness as Midas turned everything into gold. It is surprising, looking through such a one's eyes, to see how full life is of delight. Yet in the same situations there may be room for endless complaint if "every grief is entertained that's offered." It all depends on the att.i.tude taken. In trouble one man will fall to fretting, while another does what can be done and then turns his thoughts to something else; in discomfort one will lower the corners of his mouth and feel wretched, while the other finds it all vastly amusing; one will have his day quite spoiled by some disappointment which the other takes as a mere incident; one will find the same environment dull and stupid which the other finds full of interest and opportunity; and so out of like conditions one will make an unhappy, the other a happy life. [Footnote: Cf. "In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watching often, in hunger and thirst, in fasting often, in cold and nakedness . . . yet always rejoicing!"

"Rejoicing in tribulation" even, because to the brave man every obstacle and failure is so much further opportunity for courage and contrivance, for matching himself against things. "Human joy," writes the author of the Simple Life, "has celebrated its finest triumphs under the greatest tests of endurance." The Apostle Paul is but one of many who have welcomed each rebuff, and proved that if rightly taken life almost at its worst can be trans.m.u.ted by courage into happiness.]

This, then, is the philosophy of happiness in a nutsh.e.l.l: PUT YOUR HEART INTO DOING YOUR DUTY; DEMAND NOTHING ELSE OF LIFE THAN THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO YOUR DUTY; ENJOY FREELY AND WITHOUT FEAR EVERYTHING GOOD AND BEAUTIFUL THAT COMES IN YOUR WAY.

To acquire and keep this att.i.tude of mind requires of course resolution and persistence. We must rouse ourselves and take sides. We must definitely pledge ourselves once and for all to happiness; and if we]

cannot at a leap attain to it, we must still remember that we have committed ourselves to that side. We must pretend to be happy, throw aside all complaining and sighs and long faces; whatever comes, we must remember that we are on trial to preserve our buoyancy, our power not to be downcast. We shall not be able]

to disuse our habit of unhappiness at once. But if we stick to our colors and refuse to add to whatever depression masters us by brooding upon it and giving it right of way; if we remember the conditions of happiness stated above, and thrust resolutely from us all thoughts and words incompatible with living according to them, the unhappiness will be gone before we know it. It is a well-known psychological law that if we choke the expression of an emotion, we shall presently find that we have smothered the emotion itself. It may seem like hollow pretense at first, but it will pay to pretend hard; when we have pretended long enough, we shall find we no longer need to pretend. There will always be those, no doubt, who will declare it impossible, and they will continue to be unhappy; there will be many others who will concede the possibility of it, but will not have the determination and persistence to effect it; but there will always be some who will say, "Happiness is possible!" who will set out to get it, and who will get it, as they will deserve to. Some men are born happy, some seem to have happiness thrust upon them, but some achieve happiness. It will not be the same kind of happiness that we had as children, before the shocks of life awoke us. It will be a happiness that meets and rises above pain. Life will always have its tragedies, sickness and separation, pain and sudden death. They are the common inheritance of mankind. But it is not these things in themselves that make life unendurable, it is the way we take them, our fear of them, our worry over them, our longings and rebelliousness, our magnifying and brooding over and shrinking from them; when we resolve to lift our heads and a.s.sert our power, we shall find life tragic, yes, but endurable, and full of a deep joy. The little worries and disappointments will cease to trouble us. And the same att.i.tude that enables us to rise above them will, when more staunchly held, lift us over the great sorrows also, and keep alive in us an under glow of joy. An under glow of joy-that is what can be found in life in any but its highly abnormal phases, by conforming to its conditions and taking it for what it is, stuff which, we have to shape into service to the ideal. It should be recognized as the final word of personal morality that a man must train himself to a happiness that is independent of circ.u.mstances. We need no mystical painting out of the shadows, no blindness to facts, only a will to serve the right, a readiness to accept the imperfect, and eyes to see the beauty that surrounds us. "If I have faltered more or less In my great task of happiness, If I have moved among my race And shown no glorious morning face, If beams from happy human eyes Have moved me not; if morning skies, Books" and my food, and summer rain, Knocked on my sullen heart in vain. If, in short, we have not disciplined ourselves to happiness, it may well be maintained that we have left undone our highest duty to our neighbor and ourselves. And he may with good reason declare that he has solved the greatest problem of life who can proclaim with Tolstoy, "I rejoice in having taught myself not to be sad!" or with the Apostle Paul, "I have learned in whatsoever state I am therein to be content." Much of the secret of happiness is to be found in Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius and, of course, in the Gospels. Of modern writers, among the most useful are Stevenson and Chesterton.

See, for example, Stevenson's Christmas Sermon, and J. F. Genung's Stevenson's Att.i.tude toward Life. Chesterton's counsels are too sattered to make reference practicable.

See also C. W. Eliot, The Happy Life. C. Hilty, Happiness. P. G.

Hamerton, The Quest of Happiness. P. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book m, chap, n, sees. 3, 6; chap, iv, sees. 1, 2. H. C. King, Rational Living, chap, x, sec. iv. J. Payot, Education of the Will, book iv, chap.

iv. A. Bennett, The Human Machine, chaps, VI; Mental Efficiency, chap. ix. In Royce's Philosophy of Loyalty, Roosevelt's Strenuous Life, and Gannett's Blessed be Drudgery, we get valuable notes; and Carlyle has many, especially ID the latter chapters of Sartor Resartm.

PART IV

PUBLIC MORALITY