If any one of us is not happy all the time, except at the rare instants when toothache, or the news of a friend's illness or death, or a bad turn in our investments takes us by surprise—if happiness is not the dominant tone of our ordinary life, it is simply because we do not want it, in that thoughtful, enterprising, insistent way in which the scholar wants knowledge, or the business man wants money, or the politician wants votes. Whoever is willing to pay the price in prudent planning of his daily pleasures, in relentless exclusion of the enterprises and indulgences that cost more pain than they can return in pleasure; whoever will cut out remorselessly the things in his past life on which he cannot dwell with pleasure, and lop off the considerations which give rise to dread; whoever is willing to pay this Epicurean price for happiness can have it just as soon and just as often as he pays down the cash of a faithful and consistent application of these principles. If any man goes about the world in a chronic unhappiness, it is ninety-nine per cent the fault, not of his circumstances, but of himself. There is not a reader of this book whose circumstances are so black that another person, in those same circumstances, would not find a way to be supremely and dominantly, if not exclusively and continuously, happy. There is not a reader of this book so rich, so blessed with family and friends, so occupied and diverted, but that another person in those same circumstances would be miserable himself, and a source of misery to everybody with whom he came in contact. Epicurus is right, that happiness is up at auction all the time, and sold in lots to suit the purchaser whenever he bids high enough. And the price is not exorbitant: prudence to plan for the simple pleasures that can be had for the asking; resolution to cut off the pleasures that come too high; determination to amputate our reflections the instant they develop morbid symptoms, and to take an anti-toxine against fret and worry, the moment we feel the approach of their contagious atmosphere; concentration, to live in a self-chosen present from which profitless regret and unprofitable anxieties, projected from the past or borrowed from the future, are absolutely banished.
It is high time to treat melancholy, depression, gloom, fretfulness, unhappiness, not merely as diseases, but as the inexcusable follies, the intolerable vices, the unpardonable sins which a sane and wholesome Epicureanism pronounces them to be.
The Epicurean principle, then, forbids us to go whining, whimpering, and weeping through this glorious and otherwise cheery world, making ourselves a burden and nuisance to our friends; and tells us frankly that if we are so much as tempted to such melancholy living, it is because we are too improvident, too slothful, too stupid to cast out these devils, which a little plain fare, hard work, outdoor exercise, vigorous play, and unworried rest would exorcise forever. It bids us put in place of these banished sighs and groans and tears, the laughter, song, and shout that "spin the great wheel of earth about." We may sum it all up in the picture of a worthy Epicurean's day.
After a night of sleep too sound to harbour an unpleasant dream, he greets the hour of rising with a shout and bound, plunges into the bath, meets with gusto the shock it gives, and rejoices in the glow of exhilaration a vigorous rubbing brings; greets the household "with morning face and morning heart," eager to share with the family the meal, the news, the outlook on the day, resolved like Pippa to "waste no wavelet of his twelve-hours' treasure"; then, whether work calls him forth immediately or not, takes a few minutes of brisk walking and deep breathing in the open air until he feels the great forces of earth, air, and sunshine pulsing in his veins; then greets the work of kitchen or factory, office or field, schoolroom or counter, bench or desk with an inward cheer, as something to put forth his surplus energy upon; and through the swift, precious forenoon hours delights in the mastery over difficulty his stored-up power imparts; takes the noon-day meal gayly and leisurely with congenial people; through the early afternoon hours does the lighter portion of the day's work if he must; gets out for an hour or two in the open air if he may, with horse, or wheel, or automobile, or boat, or racket, or golf clubs, or skates, or rod, or gun, or at least a friend and two stout walking shoes; comes to the evening meal in the family circle widened to include a few welcome guests, or at the home of some hospitable host, in garments from which all trace of stain or hint of strain has been removed, to share the best things market and purse afford, served in such wise as to prolong the opportunity for the interchange of wit and banter, cursory discussion and kindly compliment; spends the evening in quiet reading or public entertainment, games with his children or visiting with friends; and then returns again to sleep with such a sense of gratitude for the dear joys of the day as sends an echo of "All's well" down through even the shadowy substance of his unconscious dreams. Surely there are some features of this Epicurean day which we, in our bustling, restless, overelaborated lives, might introduce with great profit to ourselves, and great advantage to the people with whom we are intimately thrown. A series of such days, varied by even happier holidays and Sundays, broken once or twice a year at least by considerable vacations, added together, will make a life which Epicurus says a man may live with satisfaction, and after which he may pass away content.
If there be no other life, let us by all means make the most of this. And if, both here and hereafter, there be a larger life than that perceivable by sense,—as, on deeper grounds than the Epicurean psychology recognises, most of us believe there is,—this healthy, hearty, wholesome determination to live intensely and exclusively in the present is a much more sincere and effective way to develop it than the foolish attempt of a false other-worldliness to anticipate or discount the future, by a half-hearted, far-away affectation of superiority to the simple homely pleasures of to-day.
IV
THE DEFECTS OF EPICUREANISM
Thus far we have pointed out certain valuable elements of truth which Epicureanism contains. Only incidentally have we encountered certain deep defects. Epicurus's "free laugh" at those who attempt to fulfil their political duties, his quiet ignoring of all interests that lie outside his little circle, or reach beyond the grave, his naïve remark about the intrinsic harmlessness of wrong-doing, provided only the wrong-doer could escape the fear of being caught, must have made us aware that there are heights of nobleness, depths of devotion, lengths of endurance, breadths of sympathy altogether foreign to this easy-going, pleasure-seeking view of life. Justice requires us to dwell more explicitly on these Epicurean shortcomings. Much that has been charged against the school in the form of swinish sensuality is the grossest slander. Still there are defects in this view of life which are both logically deducible from its premises, and practically visible in the lives of its consistent disciples.
The fundamental defect of Epicureanism is its false definition of personality. According to Epicurus the person is merely a bundle of appetites and passions; and the gratification of these is made synonymous with the satisfaction of himself. But gratifications are short; while appetites are long. The result is that which Schopenhauer has so conclusively pointed out. During the long periods when desire burns unsatisfied, the balance of pleasure is against us. In the comparatively brief and rare intervals when passions are in process of gratification, the balance can never be more than even. Therefore our account with the world at the end of any period, whether a week or a year or a lifetime, is bound to stand as follows: credit, a few rare, brief moments—moments, too, which have long since vanished into nothingness—when appetites and passions were in process of satisfaction. Debit, the vast majority of moments, amounting in the aggregate to almost the total period considered, when appetites and passions were clamouring for a satisfaction that was not forthcoming. The obvious conclusion from the frequent examination of the Epicurean account-book is that which Schopenhauer so triumphantly demonstrates,—pessimism. The sooner we cease doing business on those terms, the less will be the balance of pain, or unsatisfied desire, against us. To be entirely frank, the devotees of Omar Khayyam would have to confess that it is this note of pessimism, despair, and self-pity, at the sorry contrast of the vast unattainable and the petty attained, which is the secret of his unquestionably fascinating lines. Here the blasé amusement-seeker finds consolation in the fact that a host of other people are also yielding to the temptation to bury the unwelcome consciousness of a self they cannot satisfy in wine, or any other momentary sensuous titillation that will conceal the sense of their spiritual failure—a failure, however, which they are glad to be assured is shared by so many that the sense of it has been dignified by the name of a philosophy and sung by a poet.
Pleasure cannot be sought directly with success; for pleasure comes indirectly as the effect of causes far higher and deeper and wider than any that are recognised in the Epicurean philosophy. Pleasure comes unsought to those who lose themselves in large intellectual, artistic, social, and spiritual interests. But such noble losing of self without thought of gain is explicitly excluded from the consistent Epicurean creed.
In the picture of the Epicurean life already drawn, while domestic and political life have been presupposed as a background, nothing has been said about the sacrifice which one is called upon to make in the support and defence of a pure home and a free country. That was expressly excluded by Epicurus. Whatever attractiveness there was in the picture of the Epicurean life previously presented was largely due to this background of presupposition that this happy life was lived in a well-ordered and stable family, and in a free and just municipal and national life. In fact it is only as a parasite on these great domestic, social, and political institutions which it does nothing to create or maintain, and much to weaken and destroy, that Epicureanism is even a tolerable account of life. If we now paint our picture of the Epicurean man and woman with this background of domestic and civic life withdrawn, the ugliness and meanness of this parasitic Epicureanism will stare us in the face; and while we ought not to forget the valuable lessons it has to teach us, we shall shrink from the completed picture as a thing of deformity and degradation.