Happiness is the Reward of Effort.—The Greatest Efficiency is not the Greatest Happiness.—The Principles of a Self-Education:—I. The Multiplication of the Sources of Enjoyment—What these Sources Are—The Avoidance of Profitless Pain—The Value of Knowledge—The True End of Culture—Falsity of “Contentment with Little.”—The Kind of Knowledge Required:—1. Of Our Bodily Constitution—2. Of the Elements of the Sciences—3. Of the Nature of the Mind—4. Of the Principles of Business—5. Of the Value of Evidence.—II. The Maintenance of a Sensibility to Pleasure.—The Criteria of Pleasurable Sensations.—The Anatomy of Ennui.—III. The Search for Variety of Impressions.—Variety Necessary to High Pleasure.—Pleasure must be Remitted.—The Individual should Seek Novelty.—The Evil Effects of Habit.—IV. The Proper Proportion Between Desire and Pleasure.—The Wisdom of Counting the Cost.—Precepts for the Regulation of Desire.—V. Make all Pleasures a Part of Happiness.—All Pleasures are Excellent.—Error of the Contrary Doctrine.—All Pleasures should be Brought into Relation.—The Bond of Sense to what is Beyond Sense.—The Reality of the Ideal.
Strowingspp. [36]-56
PART II.
How Far Our Happiness Depends on Nature and Fate.
I. Our Bodily and Mental Constitutions.
Life as a Synonym of Happiness.—Necessity and Chance the Arbiters of Life.—The Endowment of the Child.—The Laws of Heredity.—Hereditary and Congenital Traits.—The Heritage of the Race.—Family Jewels and Family Curses.—The Avenue of Escape.—Precepts for Self-training.—Words for Women.—Beauty and its Cult.—Its Perils and its Power.—The Ideal of the Beautiful.—The Four Temperaments.—Cheerfulness and its Physical Seat.—Diseases that are Cheerful and those that are Not.—What to do in an Attack of the Blues.—Old Age and its Attainment.—The Fallacious Bliss of Youth.—Men who Outlive Themselves.
Strowingspp. [57]-80
II. Our Physical Surroundings.
Clothing and its Objects.—The Dress of Women.—The Value of Good Clothes.—The Room and its Furniture.—Our Living Rooms.—Own Your Own House.—Foes to Fight in House-building.—A New Principle for Architects.—Love of Home and Homesickness.—How Climate Influences Cheerfulness.
Strowingspp. [81]-91
III. Luck and its Laws.