Human experience teaches, that in the effort is greater pleasure than in the end attained; that labor is the normal condition of man; that in acquisition, that is progress, is the highest happiness; that passive enjoyment is inferior to the exhilaration of active attempt. Now imagine the absence from the world of this spirit of evil, and what would be the result? Total inaction. But before inaction can become more pleasurable than action, man's nature must be changed. Not to say that evil is a good thing, clearly there is a goodness in things evil; and in as far as the state of escaping from evil is more pleasurable than the state of evil escaped from, in so far is evil conducive to happiness.
The effect of well-directed labor is twofold; by exercise our faculties strengthen and expand, and at the same time the returns of that labor give us leisure in which to direct our improved faculties to yet higher aims. By continual efforts to increase material comforts, greater skill is constantly acquired, and the mind asserts more and more its independence. Increasing skill yields ever increased delights, which encourage and reward our labor. This, up to a certain point; but with wealth and luxury comes relaxed energy. Without necessity there is no labor; without labor no advancement. Corporeal necessity first forces corporeal activity; then the intellect goes to work to contrive means whereby labor may be lessened and made more productive.
EVIL TENDS TO DISAPPEAR.
The discontent which arises from discomfort, lies at the root of every movement; but then comfort is a relative term and complete satisfaction is never attained. Indeed, as a rule, the more squalid and miserable the race, the more are they disposed to settle down and content themselves in their state of discomfort. What is discomfort to one is luxury to another; "the mark of rank in nature is capacity for pain"; in following the intellectual life, the higher the culture the greater the discontent; the greater the acquisition, the more eagerly do men press forward toward some higher and greater imaginary good. We all know that blessings in excess become the direst curses; but few are conscious where the benefit of a blessing terminates and the curse begins, and fewer still of those who are able thus to discriminate have the moral strength to act upon that knowledge. As a good in excess is an evil, so evil as it enlarges outdoes itself and tends toward self-annihilation. If we but look about us, we must see that to burn up the world in order to rid it of gross evil—a dogma held by some—is unnecessary, for accumulative evils ever tend towards reaction. Excessive evils are soonest remedied; the equilibrium of the evil must be maintained, or the annihilation of the evil ensues.
Institutions and principles essentially good at one time are essential evils at another time. The very aids and agencies of civilization become afterward the greatest drags upon progress. At one time it would seem that blind faith was essential to improvement, at another time skepticism, at one time order and morality, at another time lawlessness and rapine; for so it has ever been, and whether peace and smiling plenty, or fierce upheavals and dismemberments predominate, from every social spasm as well as fecund leisure, civilization shoots forward in its endless course. The very evils which are regarded as infamous by a higher culture were the necessary stepping-stones to that higher life. As we have seen, no nation ever did or can emerge from barbarism without first placing its neck under the yokes of despotism and superstition; therefore, despotism and superstition, now dire evils, were once essential benefits. No religion ever attained its full development except under persecution. Our present evils are constantly working out for humanity unforeseen good. All systems of wrongs and fanaticisms are but preparing us for and urging us on to a higher state.
If then civilization is a predestined, ineluctable, and eternal march away from things evil toward that which is good, it must be that throughout the world the principle of good is ever increasing and that of evil decreasing. And this is true. Not only does evil decrease, but the tendency is ever toward its disappearance. Gradually the confines of civilization broaden; the central principle of human progress attains greater intensity, and the mind assumes more and more its lordly power over matter.
The moment we attempt to search out the cause of any onward movement we at once encounter this principle of evil. The old-time aphorism that life is a perpetual struggle; the first maxim of social ethics 'the greatest happiness to the greatest number'; indeed, every thought and action of our lives points in the same direction. From what is it mankind is so eager to escape; with what do we wrestle; for what do we strive? We fly from that which gives pain to that which gives pleasure; we wrestle with agencies which bar our escape from a state of infelicity; we long for happiness.
IS CIVILIZATION CONDUCIVE TO HAPPINESS?
Then comes the question, What is happiness? Is man polished and refined happier than man wild and unfettered; is civilization a blessing or a curse? Rousseau, we know, held it to be the latter; but not so Virey. "What!" he exclaims, "is he happier than the social man, this being abandoned in his maladies, uncared for even by his children in his improvident old age, exposed to ferocious beasts, in fear of his own kind, even of the cannibal's tooth? The civilized man, surrounded in his feebleness by affectionate attention, sustains a longer existence, enjoys more pleasure and daily comforts, is better protected against inclemencies of weather and all external ills. The isolated man must suffice for himself, must harden himself to endure any privation; his very existence depends upon his strength, and if necessity requires it of him, he must be ready to abandon wife and children and life itself at any moment. Such cruel misery is rare in social life, where the sympathies of humanity are awakened, and freely exercised."
Continue these simple interrogatories a little farther and see where we land. Is the wild bird, forced to long migrations for endurable climates and food, happier than the caged bird which buys a daily plentiful supply for a song? Is the wild beast, ofttimes hungry and hunted, happier than its chained brother of the menagerie? Is the wild horse, galloping with its fellows over the broad prairie, happier than the civilized horse of carriage, cart, or plow? May we not question whether the merchant, deep in his speculating ventures, or the man of law, poring over his brain-tearing brief, derives a keener sense of enjoyment than does the free forest-native, following the war-path or pursuing his game?