A sincere lover of truth is never wholly in the wrong; chiefly because he never claims to be wholly in the right.
The finest thought I found in Chamfort’s writings—and it is wonderfully fine, deserving to be the motto of every work on the Art of Happiness—is this,—Le plaisir peut
s’appuyer sur l’illusion, mais le bonheur repose sur la vérité, “Errors may yield us Pleasure, but truth alone can give Happiness.”
Only through fulfilling his duties to society can man secure from society that which is essential to his own welfare. This is why the inward realization of the moral law becomes a part of the Art of Happiness.
A moral act is simply one which, at the time and under the special circumstances, is useful to the society in which it takes place. Hence it has nothing to do with individual Motive, which is the only Mentor recognized by the educated moral sense.
The ancient Greeks believed that the laws of human society are laws of nature, and therefore absolute. In Sophocles’ tragedy, it is no excuse for Œdipus, when he kills his father and marries his mother, that he does so in absolute ignorance of the relationship. His remorse and punishment are not abated.