[HOW HAPPINESS SHOULD BE AIMED AT.]

IV. There is a fallacious mode of presenting the attainment of
happiness; namely, that happiness is best secured by not being aimed at.
We should be aiming always at something else.

When examined closely, the doctrine resolves itself into a kind of
paradox. All sorts of puzzles come up when we attempt to follow it to
its consequences.

We might ask, first, whether there is any other object of pursuit in the
same predicament--wealth, health, knowledge, fame, power. These are,
every one, a means or instrument of happiness, if not happiness itself.
Must we, then, in the case of each, avoid aiming straight at the goal?
must we look askance in some other direction?

Next, in the case of happiness proper, are we to aim at nothing at all,
to drift at random; or may we aim at a definite object, provided it is
not happiness; or, lastly, is there one side aim in particular that we
must take? The answer here would probably be--Aim at duty in general,
and at the good of others in particular. These ends are not the same as
happiness, yet by keeping them steadily in the view, and not thinking of
self at all, we shall eventually realise our greatest happiness.

Without, at present, raising any question as to the fact alleged, we
must again remark that the prescription seems to contradict itself.
Moralists of the austere type will never allow us to pursue happiness at
all; we must never mention the thing to ourselves: duty or virtue is the
one single aim and end of being. Such teachers may be right or they may
be wrong, but they do not contradict themselves. When, however, we are