This matters but little, however; for, without such pronouncement,
the wisdom had not stood revealed; and the sage has accomplished his
duty.

2. To-day misery is the disease of mankind, as disease is the
misery of man. And even as there are physicians for disease, so
should there be physicians for human misery. But can the fact that
disease is, unhappily, only too prevalent, render it wrong for us
ever to speak of health? which were indeed as though, in anatomy--
the physical science that has most in common with morals--the
teacher confined himself exclusively to the study of the deformities
that greater or lesser degeneration will induce in the organs of
man. We have surely the right to demand that his theories be based
on the healthy and vigorous body; as we have also the right to
demand that the moralist, who fain would see beyond the present
hour, should take as his standard the soul that is happy, or that at
least possesses every element of happiness, save only the necessary
consciousness.

We live in the bosom of great injustice; but there can be, I
imagine, neither cruelty nor callousness in our speaking, at times,
as though this injustice had ended, else should we never emerge from
our circle.

It is imperative that there should be some who dare speak, and
think, and act as though all men were happy; for otherwise, when the
day comes for destiny to throw open to all the people's garden of
the promised land, what happiness shall the others find there, what
justice, what beauty or love? It may be urged, it is true, that it
were best, first of all, to consider the most pressing needs, yet is