HAPPINESS AND MISERY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4802, 12 August 1876, Page 1 (Supplement)

HAPPINESS AND MISERY.

(From the Cornhill Magazine.) Man, says the pessimist, so long as he wills, is like a dissatisfied peevish child that clamors for all it sees, that soon tires of all which a good fortune allots it, and that is ever tormenting itself with cravings for the impossible or unattainable. In this very illustration we seem to detect the fallacy of the pessimist’s view. We certainly should not look at such a fickle, whimsical child as an illustration of will, but rather of the absence of will. The pessimists talk as though all desire were ■will, whereas it is one of the chief results of a development of will to restrain desires. Will, in its higher forms, may indeed be said to beg : n with a power of cheeking the impulse of the moment, or (as the physiologists word it) with a process of inhibition. The misery of this unlimited state of desire results not from an excess, but from a deficiency of will, or rather of the absence of will. We may assume that it is the object of will to attain the highest amount of happiness perceptible. If, then, the indulgence of vain and unsatisfiable desires is found to bring vexation and misery, a robust will, led by reflection and reason, will stoutly resist such desires. Desire involves the imagination of some wished-for object, and our will is perfectly well able to check such desires by a wise control of those ideas and fancies which arise from time to time. Now what will be the result of this higher development of will enlightened by knowledge ? First of all, it will lead to a considerable diminution of the region of desire. It is the weak and foolish child just beginning to feel the largeness of the world that desires everything. The self-disciplined man confines his desires to a few objects which really lie within his reach. He learns to entertain a modest view of life, and to satisfy himself with a moderate realisation of mundane felicity. In the second place, this growth of a higher type of rational will is sure to be followed by a voluntary concentration of thought and effort on certain definite objects as conditions of happiness, instead of on the final end of happiness itself. We torment ourselves like unwise children by ever dwelling on felicity itself with its myriad individual hues of delight, as though this vast undefined region could be acquired by a day or two’s exertion. By and by we learn, as J. S. Mill learnt, that to think of happiness as the object of our effort is about the most certain way of losing it, and that the one safe method of reaching felicity, is to fix on some particular line of action which is interesting in itself, and fairly certain of leading to some considerable amount of gratification as its result, and to throw ourselves heartily and cheerfully into this. Let a man select a style of life and a mode of occupation which best suit his individual tastes, and which are certain (provided he can concentrate his energy on them) to afford him a fair amount of satisfaction, and the conditions of a moderate degree of happiness are secured. It may perhaps be worth while to point out how progress in moral culture will assist in securing this modestly-conceived type of happiness. In the first place, there is nothing which so much tends to cure the mind of extravagant notions respecting individual felicity as a wide and intimate sympathy with others. Where this feeling is fully developed and constantly present, a person learns habitually to compare his own fortune with that of others, and to estimate the degree of his own happiness by the standard of average life. He finds a positive satisfaction in putting himself on a level with others, and in recognising that he has his just share of life’s enjoyments. Esteeming the happiness of others as a thing no less good than his own, ho draws a real pleasure from the reflection that others are as happy as himself, and that his good fortune does not lift him above the level of the common human lot. In the second place, it is to be remarked that morality supplies an object of human effort which is pre-eminently fitted to the condition of a permanent satisfact’on. We may not be able to afford others any more than ourselves an unbounded happiness, or even to compass any lofty achievement of virtue. On the other hand, our daily duty provides us with a point for concentrated effort, which is always attainable, and is certain "to afford an ever-renewed satisfaction.