communicating--thoughts which, as far as I know, have not been
uttered, or, at any rate, not just in the same form, by any one else;
so that my remarks may be taken as a supplement to what has been
already achieved in the immense field.

However, by way of introducing some sort of order into the great
variety of matters upon which advice will be given in the following
pages, I shall distribute what I have to say under the following
heads: (1) general rules; (2) our relation to ourselves; (3) our
relation to others; and finally, (4) rules which concern our manner of
life and our worldly circumstances. I shall conclude with some remarks
on the changes which the various periods of life produce in us.




CHAPTER I.

GENERAL RULES.--SECTION 1.


The first and foremost rule for the wise conduct of life seems to me
to be contained in a view to which Aristotle parenthetically refers in
the _Nichomachean Ethics_:[1] [Greek: o phronimoz to alupon dioke e ou
to aedu] or, as it may be rendered, _not pleasure, but freedom from
pain, is what the wise man will aim at_.

[Footnote 1: vii. (12) 12.]

The truth of this remark turns upon the negative character of