Moral Philosophy | Page 8

His happiness must be in society, a social
happiness, no lonely contemplation. He must be happy in the
consciousness of his own intellectual act, and happy in the discernment

of the good that is in those around him, whom he loves. Friends and
dear ones are no small part of those easy surroundings that are the
condition of happiness.
15. Happiness--final, perfect happiness--is not in fighting and
struggling, in so far as a struggle supposes evil present and imminent;
nor in benevolence, so far as that is founded upon misery needing relief.
We fight for the conquest and suppression of evil; we are benevolent
for the healing of misery. But it will be happiness, _in the limit_, as
mathematicians speak, to wish well to all in a society where it is well
with all, and to struggle with truth for its own sake, ever grasping,
never mastering, as Jacob wrestled with God.
Readings.--Ar., _Eth._, I., vii. viii., 5 to end; I., x., 8 to end; I., v., 6;
VII., xiii., 3; IX., ix.; X., vii.; X., viii., 1-10; Ar., _Pol._, IV. (al. VII.),
i., 3-10; IV., iii., 7, 8; St. Thos., la 2ae, q. 3, art. 2; _ib._, q. 3, art. 5. in
corp., ad 3; _ib._, q. 2, art. 6.
SECTION III.--Happiness open to man.
"And now as he looked and saw the whole Hellespont covered with the
vessels of his fleet, and all the shore and every plain about Abydos as
full as possible of men, Xerxes congratulated himself on his good
fortune; but after a little while, he wept. Then Artabanus, the King's
uncle, when he heard that Xerxes was in tears, went to him, and said:
'How different, sire, is what thou art now doing from what thou didst a
little while ago! Then thou didst congratulate thyself; and now, behold!
thou weepest.' 'There came upon me,' replied he, 'a sudden pity, when I
thought of the shortness of man's life, and considered that of all this
host, so numerous as it is, not one will be alive when a hundred years
are gone by.' 'And yet there are sadder things in life than that,' returned
the other. 'Short as our time is, there is no man, whether it be among
this multitude or elsewhere, who is so happy, as not to have felt the
wish--I will not say once, but full many a time--that he were dead
rather than alive. Calamities fall upon us, sicknesses vex and harass us,
and make life, short though it be, to appear long. So death, through the
wretchedness of our life, is a most sweet refuge to our race; and God,
who gives us the tastes that we enjoy of pleasant times, is seen, in his

very gift, to be envious.'" (Herodotus, vii., 45, 46.)
1. It needs no argument to show that happiness, as defined in the last
section, can never be perfectly realized in this life. Aristotle took his
definition to represent an ideal to be approximated to, not attained. He
calls his sages "happy as men" (_Eth._, I., x., 16), that is, imperfectly,
as all things human are imperfect. Has Aristotle, then, said the last
word on happiness? Is perfect happiness out of the reach of the person
whom in this mortal life we call man? However that may be, it is plain
that man desires perfect happiness. Every man desires that it may be
perfectly well with him and his, although many have mistaken notions
of what their own well-being consists in, and few can define it
philosophically. Still they all desire it. The higher a man stands in
intellect, the loftier and vaster his conception of happiness, and the
stronger his yearning after it. This argues that _the desire of happiness
is natural to man_: not in the sense in which eating and drinking are
natural, as being requirements of his animal nature, but in the same way
that it is natural to him to think and converse, his rational nature so
requiring. It is a natural desire, as springing from that which is the
specific characteristic of human nature, distinguishing it from mere
animal nature, namely reason. It is a natural desire in the best and
highest sense of the word.
2. Contentment is not happiness. A man is content with little, but it
takes an immensity of good to satisfy all his desire, and render him
perfectly happy. When we say we are content, we signify that we
should naturally desire more, but acquiesce in our present portion,
seeing that more is not to be had. "Content," says Dr. Bain, "is not the
natural frame of any mind, but is the result of compromise."
3. But is not this desire of unmixed happiness unreasonable? Are we
not taught to set bounds to our desire?