Practical Essays | Page 9

him with figures of extraordinary
intensity; it was no longer the play of a cool man, but the thunders of an
aroused man; we have then "the hoofs of the swinish multitude,"--"the
ten thousand swords leaping from their scabbards". Such feelings were

not produced by the speaker's imagination: they were produced by
themselves; they had their independent source in the region of feeling:
coupled with adequate powers of intellect, they burst out into strong
imagery.[3]
The Orientals, as a rule, are distinguished for imaginative flights. This
is apparent in their religion, their morality, their poetry, and their
science. The explanation is to be sought in the strength of their feelings,
coupled with a certain intellectual force. The same intellect, without the
feelings, would have issued differently. The Chinese are the exception.
They want the feelings, and they want the imagination. They are below
Europeans in this respect. When we bring before them our own
imaginative themes, our own cast of religion, accommodated as it is to
our own peculiar temperament, we fail in the desired effect. Our august
mysteries are responded to, not with reverential regard, but with, cold
analysis.
The Celt and the Saxon are often contrasted on the point of imagination;
the prior fact is the comparative endowment for emotion.
* * * * *
[HOW HAPPINESS SHOULD BE AIMED AT.]
IV. There is a fallacious mode of presenting the attainment of
happiness; namely, that happiness is best secured by not being aimed at.
We should be aiming always at something else.
When examined closely, the doctrine resolves itself into a kind of
paradox. All sorts of puzzles come up when we attempt to follow it to
its consequences.
We might ask, first, whether there is any other object of pursuit in the
same predicament--wealth, health, knowledge, fame, power. These are,
every one, a means or instrument of happiness, if not happiness itself.
Must we, then, in the case of each, avoid aiming straight at the goal?
must we look askance in some other direction?

Next, in the case of happiness proper, are we to aim at nothing at all, to
drift at random; or may we aim at a definite object, provided it is not
happiness; or, lastly, is there one side aim in particular that we must
take? The answer here would probably be--Aim at duty in general, and
at the good of others in particular. These ends are not the same as
happiness, yet by keeping them steadily in the view, and not thinking of
self at all, we shall eventually realise our greatest happiness.
Without, at present, raising any question as to the fact alleged, we must
again remark that the prescription seems to contradict itself. Moralists
of the austere type will never allow us to pursue happiness at all; we
must never mention the thing to ourselves: duty or virtue is the one
single aim and end of being. Such teachers may be right or they may be
wrong, but they do not contradict themselves. When, however, we are
told that by aiming at virtue, we are on the best possible road to
happiness, this is but another way of letting us into the secret of
happiness, of putting us on the right, instead of on the wrong, track, to
attain it. Our teacher assumes that we are in search of happiness, and he
tells us how we are to proceed; not by keeping it straight in the view,
but by keeping virtue straight in the view. Instead of pointing us to the
vulgar happiness-seeker who would take the goal in a line, he corrects
the course, and shows us the deviation that is necessary in order to
arrive at it; like the sailor making allowance for the deviation of the
magnetic pole, in steering. Happiness is not gained by a point-blank
aim; we must take a boomerang flight in some other line, and come
back upon the target by an oblique or reflected movement. It is the idea
of Young on the Love of Praise (Satire I., 5.)--
The love of Praise howe'er concealed by art, Reigns more or less and
glows in every heart, The proud to gain it, toils on toils endure, The
modest shun it but to make it sure.
Under this corrected method, we are happiness seekers all the same;
only our aims are better directed, and our fruition more assured.
These remarks are intended to show that the doctrine of making men
aim at virtue, in order to happiness, has no further effect than to teach
us to include the interests of others with our own; by showing that our

own interests do not thereby suffer, but the contrary. The doctrine does
not substitute a virtuous motive for a selfish one; it is a refined artifice
for squaring the two.