Bodily Condition.
Fame.
The question may be simplified by remembering that although public success may be measured by outward results, private success is always strictly personal, and is to be measured, at any particular time, only by the good mental and bodily condition of the man himself. All else is merely external. A good mental condition includes just as much culture as is necessary to the development of the faculties, but not any burden of erudition heavy enough to diminish (as erudition so often does) the promptitude or the elasticity of the mind. A good bodily condition includes health and the training which gives a similar promptitude and elasticity. Sufficient material well-being for the maintenance of body and mind in these favourable conditions is essential to true success, all beyond it is superfluous. Fame, or the opinion of others, is of no use except as an encouragement or a stimulus, and it has nothing to do with the reality of success.
Industrial Civilisation.
Not a Complete Success.
On applying these tests to our modern industrial civilisation we find evidences of failure on all hands. The poor are not in conditions of existence favourable to the body, and they have not leisure enough for the activities of the mind. The rich leaders of industry have far more wealth than would be necessary to perfect human life, but they have not enough leisure for intellectual attainments; and they are prevented, by the presence of the multitudes that industry has called into being, from leading a life independent of great social cares. In short, from the purely human and private point of view, without reference to material results, industrialism has not hitherto proved itself a success. It is successful in the produce of commodities, but not in the government of life.
Cheerfulness.
External Gaiety of the French.
French Gaiety on the Surface.
Wisdom of a light Philosophy.