happiness, but the prevention or mitigation of unhappiness; and if the
former aim be chimerical, there will be all the greater scope and more
imperative need for the latter, so long at least as mankind think fit to
live, and do not take refuge in the simultaneous act of suicide
recommended under certain conditions by Novalis. When, however, it is
thus positively asserted to be impossible that human life should be
happy, the assertion, if not something like a verbal quibble, is at
least an exaggeration. If by happiness be meant a continuity of highly
pleasurable excitement, it is evident enough that this is impossible. A
state of exalted pleasure lasts only moments, or in some cases, and with
some intermissions, hours or days, and is the occasional brilliant flash
of enjoyment, not its permanent and steady flame. Of this the
philosophers who have taught that happiness is the end of life were as
fully aware as those who taunt them. The happiness which they meant was
not a life of rapture, but moments of such, in an existence made up of
few and transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a decided
predominance of the active over the passive, and having as the
foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is capable
of bestowing. A life thus composed, to those who have been fortunate
enough to obtain it, has always appeared worthy of the name of
happiness. And such an existence is even now the lot of many, during
some considerable portion of their lives. The present wretched
education, and wretched social arrangements, are the only real hindrance
to its being attainable by almost all.

The objectors perhaps may doubt whether human beings, if taught to
consider happiness as the end of life, would be satisfied with such a
moderate share of it. But great numbers of mankind have been satisfied
with much less. The main constituents of a satisfied life appear to be
two, either of which by itself is often found sufficient for the