The pursuit of the still wider end, Happiness, has much in common with the narrower pursuit. When we have discovered what things promote, and what things impede our happiness, we transfer our attention to these, as the most direct mode of compassing the end. If we are satisfied that working for other people brings us happiness, we work accordingly; this is no side aim, it is as direct as any aim can be. It may involve immediate sacrifice, but that does not alter the case; we can get no considerable happiness from any source without temporary sacrifice.
[HAPPINESS AND VIRTUE DISTINCT AIMS.]
If it be said that the best mode of attaining happiness is to put ourselves entirely out of account, and to work for others exclusively, this, as already noted, is a self-contradiction. It is to tell people not to think of their own happiness, and yet to know that they are securing that in the most effectual way. It is also very questionable, indeed absolutely erroneous, in fact. The most apparent way to secure happiness is to ply all the known means of happiness, just as far as, and no farther than, they are discovered to produce the effect. We must keep a check upon the methods that we employ, and abandon those that do not answer. So long as we find happiness in serving others, so long we continue in that course. And it is a melancholy fact that Pope's bold assertion—"Virtue alone is happiness below,"—cannot be upheld against the stern realities of life. Life needs to be made up of two aims—the one, Happiness, the other Virtue, each on its own account. There is a certain mutual connection of the two, but all attempts at making out their identity are failures.
It is of very great importance to teach men the bearings of virtue on happiness, so far as these are known. There will, however, always remain a portion of duty that detracts from happiness, and must be done as duty, nevertheless. Men are entitled to pursue happiness as directly as ever they please; only, they must couple with the pursuit their round of duties to others; in which they may or may not reap a share of the coveted good for self.
Let us, next, consider some of the difficulties and mistakes attaching to the WILL. Here there are the questions of world-renown, questions known even in Pandemonium—Free-will, Responsibility, Moral Ability, and Inability. It is now suspected, on good grounds, that, on these questions, we have somehow got into a wrong groove—that we are lost in a maze of our own constructing.
[A STRONG WILL THE GIFT OF NATURE.]
I. We shall first notice a misconception akin to some of the foregoing mistakes respecting the feelings. In addressing men with a view to spur their activity, there is usually a too low estimate of what is implied in great and energetic efforts of will. Here, exactly as in the cheerful temperament, we find a certain constitutional endowment, a certain natural force of character, having its physical supports of brain, muscle, and other tissue; and neither persuasion, nor even education, can go very far to alter that character. If there be anything at all in the observations of phrenology, it is the connection of energetic determination with size of brain. Lay your hand first on the head of an energetic man, and then on the head of a feeble man, and you will find a difference that is not to be explained away. Now it passes all the powers of persuasion and education combined to make up for a great cranial inequality. Something always comes of assiduous discipline; but to set up a King Alfred, or a Luther, as a model to be imitated by an ordinary man, on the points of energy, perseverance, endurance, courage, is to pass the bounds of the human constitution. Persistent energy of a high order, like the temperament for happiness, costs a great deal to the human system. A large share of the total forces of the constitution go to support it; and the diversion of power often leaves great defects in other parts of the character, as for example, a low order of the sensibilities, and a narrow range of sympathies. The men of extraordinary vigour and activity—our Roman emperors and conquering heroes—are often brutal and coarse. Nature does not supply power profusely on all sides; and delicate sympathies, of themselves, use up a very large fraction of the forces of the organisation. Even intellectually estimated, the power of sympathising with many various minds and conditions would occupy as much room in the brain as a language, or an accomplishment. A man both energetic and sympathetic—a Pericles, a King Alfred, an Oliver Cromwell —is one of nature's giants, several men in one.
There is no more notable phase of our active nature than Courage. Great energy generally implies great courage, and courage—at least in nine-tenths of its amount—comes by nature. To exhort any one to be courageous is waste of words. We may animate, for the time, a naturally timid person, by explaining away the signs of danger, and by assuming a confident attitude ourselves; but the absolute force of courage is what neither we nor the man himself can add to. A long and careful education might effect a slight increase in this, as in other aspects of energy of character: we can hardly say how much, because it is a matter that is scarcely ever subjected to the trial; the very conditions of the experiment have not been thought of.
The moral qualities expressed by Prudence, Forethought, Circumspection, are talked of with a like insufficient estimate of what they cost. Great are the rewards of prudence, but great also is the expenditure of the prudent man. To retain an abiding sense of all the possible evils, risks and contingencies of an ordinary man's position—professional, family, and personal—is to go about under a constant burden; the difference between a thorough-going and an easy-going circumspection is a large additional demand upon the forces of the brain. The being on the alert to duck the head at every bullet is a charge to the vital powers; so much so, that there comes a point when it is better to run risks than to pile up costly precautions and bear worrying anxieties.