Are, then, I ask again, philanthropy and the good deeds—public and private—which it suggests, the secret of happiness? Love is a great word, and the Apostle is altogether justified when in the familiar passage of his letters he says that among the many things which perish, love abides. But when in the same passage he says that it is possible to speak with the tongues of angels, and give all one’s goods to feed the poor, and even give one’s body to be burned, and yet not have love,—then we comprehend without further explanation what he means by love. For love is a part of God’s own being, which does not originate in the hearts of men. One who possesses it knows well enough that it is not his own. Even the pale human reflection of this Divine love brings happiness, but it is a temporary happiness; and always with the perilous uncertainty of a love which anticipates return, so that the happiness depends upon the will of others. He, then, who yields his heart absolutely to others, and stakes his happiness on their affection, may some day find the terrible words of the Jewish prophet true: “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.” All this may be one day a spiritual experience, which may convert his love into hate. That apotheosis of hate which marks the talk of many a social agitator in our day is but the evidence of those bitter disillusions of affection which millions have been called to feel.
Is, then, happiness to be found in work? Work is certainly one great factor of human happiness—indeed, in one sense, the greatest; for without work all happiness which is not mere intoxication is absolutely denied. In order to get the capacity for happiness, one must obey the commands: “Six days shalt thou labor,” and “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” Of all seekers for happiness, the most foolish are those who evade these two conditions. Without work no man can be happy. In this negative statement the saying is absolutely true. And yet, it is a greater error to suppose that work is in itself happiness, or to believe that every work leads to happiness. It is not alone our imagination that pictures another ideal, so that one can hardly imagine a heaven, or an earthly paradise, as devoted to unremitting work; it is also true—and it is much more to be remembered—that only a fool can be wholly contented with the work that he does. One might even say that the wisest see most clearly the incompleteness of their work, so that not one of them has been able, at the end of his day’s work, to say of it: “Behold, it is very good.” This mere praise of work, then, is, for the most part, only a sort of a spur, or whip, with which one urges himself, or others, to the tasks of life; so that even those who take pride in describing themselves as “working-people” are much concerned to reduce as far as possible their working day. If work were essentially the same as happiness, these people would be seeking to prolong as much as possible the hours of work.
Of all seekers for happiness, however, the most extraordinary are those who look for it in the philosophy of pessimism; yet of these there are not a few, and by no means of the baser sort. There is, however, almost always associated with the creed of pessimism a certain false impression of one’s own importance. It has an appearance of magnanimity to throw overboard all one’s hopes, and to believe that everything, oneself included, is bad. For this, at least, is true, that if all are bad, he who sees that it is so, and admits it, is, after all, the least bad; and if he is sincerely contented that others should regard him as bad, he may be not far from the way to something better. Yet, pessimism as a permanent habit of mind is, for the most part, only a mantle of philosophy through which, when it is thrown back, there looks out the face of vanity;—a vanity which is never satisfied and which withholds one forever from a contented mind.
Finally, of all people who seek for happiness, the most unhappy are those who seek it in mere conformity to religious creeds. There are many such people in our day, and they find themselves in the end bitterly disappointed. For all church organizations are inclined to promise more than they can assure, and are like nets to catch all manner of fish. In a passage from the works of the late Professor Gelzer, he remarks that, for most church-going people, worship is nothing more than “appearing at Court once a week to present one’s respects to the throne.” He adds that there is the same formal service of man also; for one sometimes does this service, or, as the Bible says, “Hath wrought a good work upon me,” only for the better maintenance in the future of one’s own self-esteem.
I shall not contradict what so distinguished a man out of his rich experience has said on this subject. Yet, for my own part, I must still believe that if a human soul worships God even in the most irrational way, and recognizes its dependence on Him, God will not forsake that soul. I must believe, still further, that the feeblest and most superstitious expressions of religion bring to one who, even with occasional sincerity, persists in them, more happiness than the most brilliant philosophy of atheism can offer. Yet this blessing bestowed upon simple souls by the patience of God is not to be attained in its fulness by those who are capable of larger insight. Such persons have the duty laid on them to free the Christian Religion from the lukewarmness which for two thousand years has afflicted it. Theirs is the duty of dissatisfaction with the forms and formulas of the Church. No mere science of religion should content them; for such a science alone never brought happiness to man, and still offers to a people who do not really understand its teachings, stones instead of bread. So long as people seek contentment in these ways, their path to happiness must abound in disappointments; and these disappointments become the harder to bear because people, as a rule, do not dare to confess either to themselves, or to others, that they are thus disappointed. They must pretend to themselves that they are satisfied because they see no path which may lead them back to happiness and peace.
Such, then, are some of the ways by which, with slight modifications and combinations, the human race through all its history has sought for happiness; and if we do not recognize these ways in history, we may find them all with more or less distinctness in our own experience. And yet by no one of these ways has the race found the happiness it seeks. What, then, I ask once more, is the path to this end?
The first and the most essential condition of true happiness, I answer, is a firm faith in the moral order of the world. If one lack this, if it be held that the world is governed by chance or by those changeless laws of nature which in their dealings with the weak are merciless, or if, finally, one imagine the world controlled by the cunning and power of man,—then there is no hope of personal happiness. In such an order of the world, there is nothing left for the individual but to rule, or to be ruled; to be either the anvil or the hammer; and it is hard to say which of the two would be to an honorable man the more unworthy lot.
In national life especially, this view of the world leads to constant war and preparation for war, and the text-book of politics becomes The Prince of Machiavelli. From such a condition of war the only possible, though partial, deliverance would be through some vast governmental control, ruling with iron force and comprehending in itself all civilized peoples. Such a State would, at least, make war between States impossible, as it was impossible in the Roman Empire of the Cæsars, and as Napoleon I. dreamed that it might be impossible in Europe. Every right-minded man must inwardly protest against a view which thus robs man in his person of his will and in his politics of his freedom; and history also teaches, in many incidents, the emptiness and folly of such a view. There are some persons who believe that they are forced to accept this social creed, because the conception of the world as a moral order does not seem to them sufficiently proved. To such persons, I can only repeat that which is written above the entrance to Dante’s hell:
“Through me the way is to the city dolent;
Through me the way is to eternal dole;