THE ATTAINABILITY OF HAPPINESS
WE have now discussed the more recurrent problems of the individual, and pointed out the salient duties that private life entails. But there remains something to be added before we shall have clearly pointed the way to personal happiness. "Mere morality," even when coupled with good fortune, is not enough; a sinless man, scrupulous to fulfill the least command of the law, may yet be anxious, restless, depressed, unsatisfied. We need more than morality, as the word is commonly used; we need religion - or something of the sort. There is no doubt that for the attainment of a pervasive and stable happiness there is nothing so good as the best sort of religion; but, as in discussing self- control, we must here steer clear of religious controversy and phrase what we have to say in the colder terms of "mere morality." And though there will be a great loss in feeling, in persuasiveness and unction thereby, there will be gain in clearness. It is possible to express in the drab tones of morality the profound insights which have made religion the great guide to happiness; and even the man who deems himself irreligious may, if he takes to heart these more prosaic counsels, find something of the peace that has been the boon of true believers.
The threefold key to happiness:
I. HEARTY ALLEGIANCE TO DUTY.
The one thing above all others that makes life worth living is the utter devotion of the heart and will to the commands of morality. To throw one's self whole-heartedly into the game, to play one's part for all it is worth, transforms what were else a grim and unhappy necessity into a glorious opportunity. The happy man is the loyal man, the man who has taken sides, who has enrolled himself definitely on the side of right and tastes the zest of battle. He has something to live for, and something lasting. He has put his heart into a cause that the limitations and accidents of life cannot take from him, he has laid up his treasure in heaven, where moth and rust doth not corrupt or thieves break through and steal.
Any cause, any ambition, any great endeavor that can stir the blood, and give a life direction, purpose, and continuity of achievement, has the power to rescue life from ennui, from emptiness, and give it positive worth. But most ambitions pall in time, and many a cause that has taken a man's best energies has come to seem mistaken or futile with the years. There is only one great campaign which is so eternal, so surely necessary, so clear in its summons to all men, that the heart can rest in it as in something great enough to ennoble a whole life. That is the age-long war against evil, the unending summons to duty, the service of God. Once a man learns this deepest of joys, nothing can take it from him; whatever his limitations, however narrow his sphere, there will not fail to be a right way, a brave way, a beautiful way to live. There is comradeship in it; in this common service of God - or of good, if we must avoid religious terms - we stand shoulder to shoulder with the saints and heroes of all races and times, with all, of whatever land or tongue, who are striving to push forward the line, to make the right prevail and banish evil. Every effort, every sacrifice, has its inextinguishable effect; in his moral conquests a man is no longer an individual, he is a part of the great tide that is resistlessly making toward the better world of the future, the Kingdom of God. The great Power in the world that makes for righteousness is back of him, and in him; in no loyal moment is he alone. . . . Inevitably the tongue slips into religious language in dealing with these high truths; but nonetheless are they scientific truths, matters of plain every day observation.
The essential point is, that it is not enough to obey the Law; we must ESPOUSE the Law, clasp it to our bosoms, love it, and give ourselves to it utterly. We must - to use the pregnant words of James "base our lives on doing and being, not on having"; base our lives solidly upon it, so that everything else is secondary. The pleasures of life are well enough in their time, but they must not usurp the chief place in a man's thought.[Footnote: Cf. J. S. Mill, Autobiography, p. 142: "The enjoyments of life are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing, when they are taken en passant, without being made a principal object. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life.">[ His first concern must be to keep true, to play the game; he must seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, if he would have these other things added unto him. He must lose his life his worldly interests, his dependence upon ease and luxury, and even love if he would truly find it. In a hundred such phrases from the Great Teacher's lips one finds the secret. More baldly expressed, it comes to this, that only through putting the main emphasis upon doing the right, obeying the call of duty, only through the courageous attack and the giving of our utmost allegiance, can we keep a positive zest in living, exorcise the specter of aimlessness and depression, and lift ordinary commonplace life to the level of heroism. Blessed is the man whose DELIGHT is in the law of the Lord.
II. HEARTY ACQUIESCENCE IN OUR LOT.
The fighter, for whatever cause, can bear the blows that come as a part of the battle; if a man has put his heart into living by his ideal, he is immune from the disappointments and irritations that beset man upon a lower level. But it is well to take thought also for this side of the matter, to cultivate deliberately the spirit of acquiescence in the inevitable pain and losses of life. Many of the sweetest pleasures are by their nature uncertain or transient; these we must hold so loosely that, while not refusing to enjoy their sweetness, we are ]ot dependent upon them and can let them go without losing sight of the steady gleam that we follow. However dear to us are the people we love, and the material things we own, we must keep the underlying assurance that if they be taken from us life will still bring us in other ways renewed opportunities for that loyalty to duty, that faithful living, which is after all the end for which we live. We must count whatever comes to us, whether sweet or bitter, as the conditions under which we serve, the material with which we have to work, the stuff which we have to "try the soul's strength on." For there is no way to be armor-proof against unhappiness but by seeing to it that our hearts are not set on anything but doing or being; nothing else is reliably permanent amid the fitful sunshine and shadow of human life. "Make hy claim of wages a zero; then hast thou the world at thy feet." [Footnote: In Maeterlinck's Measure of the Hours, he speaks of a sundial found near Venice by Hazlitt with the inscription, Horas non numero nisi serenas and quotes Hazlitt's remarks thereon: "What a fine lesson is conveyed to the mind to take no note of time but by its benefits, to watch only for the smiles and neglect the frowns of fate, to compose our lives of bright and gentle moments, turning always to the sunny side of things and letting the rest slip from our imaginations, unheeded or forgotten.">[ This necessity of detaching the heart from dependence upon uncertainties found extreme expression in the various historic forms of asceticism and monasticism. Such a running away from the world does not satisfy our age, with its eagerness for life and life more abundantly; if it escapes the poignant sorrows it cannot happiness, or make life better for others. But we may well take to heart the half-truth taught by the hermits and monks of the past. We may be "in the world," indeed, but not "of it"; we, too, may make no claims upon life, while putting our hearts into playing our own part in it well. The writings of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius are full of passages that express the gist of the matter, such as the following: "It is thy duty to order thy life well in every single act; and if every act does its duty as far as is possible, be content; no one is able to hinder thee so that each act shall not do its duty. But something external will stand in the way? Nothing will stand in the way of thy acting justly and soberly and considerately. But perhaps some of thy active powers will be hindered? Well, by acquiescing in the hindrance, and being content to transfer thy efforts to that which is allowed, another opportunity of action is immediately put before thee in place of that which was hindered." What is this but saying in other words that not in having lies our life, but in doing and being. Not even in succeeding, we must remember; and this is perhaps the hardest part of our lesson. It is one thing to bear with serenity those blows of fortune against which we are obviously defenseless; it is another thing, when there seems a chance for averting the disaster, when our whole heart and soul are thrown into that effort, to await the outcome with tranquility, to bear failure without complaint. The "might have been's" and the "perhaps may yet be's" are the greatest disturbers of our peace. To use our keenest wits for attaining what seems best, to use our utmost persuasion for protecting ourselves from the selfishness and stupidity of others, and then if we fail, if the fair hope slips from our grasp, if the thoughtlessness or cruelty of men prevails against us, to smile and attack the next problem with undaunted cheerfulness, requires, indeed, to attain to that level may well be called "the last infirmity of noble minds." For the very concentration of life upon doing and being carries with it the danger of staking happiness upon the success of the doing, the attainment of the ideals. We must count even the stupidity and impulsiveness of our own mental make-up as among the materials we have to work with, and not allow remorse for our own part in past failures to interfere with the joyful earnestness with which we attack the problems of the eternal present. We may, indeed, often succeed, and that may be a very great and pure joy to us; but we are not to count upon success; or, to put it another way, we are to think of the real success as lying in the dauntless renewal of the effort rather than in the show of outward result. "To have often resisted the diabolic, and at the end to be still resisting it, is for the poor human soldier to have done right well. To ask to see some fruit of our endeavor is but a transcendental way of serving for reward." This is not pessimism, it is the first step toward a sound and invulnerable optimism. We must recognize once for all that this world is not the world of our dreams, and cease to be so pathetically surprised and hurt when it falls short of them. Were we to be rebellious at life for not being built after the pattern of our ideals there would be no limit to our faultfinding. We may, indeed, long in our idle hours with Omar "To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, shatter it to bits-and then Remould it nearer to the heart's desire!" But in our daily life a braver and saner attitude befits us; for it is not in such an ideal world but in the actual world that we have to live. Evils there are in it and will yet be-why we cannot tell and need not know; the only alternative we have is to take them cheerfully or gloomily, to rebel or to accept the situation. Our duty then is clear. To face the events of life as they come to us, without discouragement or dismay, to laugh at them a little and learn to carry on our lives through them with steadfast heart and smiling face- surely that is the part of wisdom and of true manliness. The ugly things in life seem much less formidable when thus boldly faced than when we try to shut our eyes to them, with the consequent disillusion at their continual reappearance. Confess frankly the faults of life and it becomes tolerable, is even in a fair way to become lovable. For after all, when its obvious imperfections do not blind us to its good points, it is a dear old world we live in, and the healthy minded man loves it, as he loves his friends in spite of their faults loves it, and finds it a world gloriously worth living in.