receives, an unsatisfiedness as to the quantity. It may be an element
in happiness, but, in itself,--it is not happiness.

Satisfaction is perfect identity of our desires and our possessions. It
exists only so long as this perfect union and unity can be preserved.
But every realized ideal gives birth to new ideals, every step in
advance reveals large domains of the unattained; every feeding
stimulates new appetites,--then the desires and possessions are no
longer identical, no longer equal; new cravings call forth new
activities, the equipoise is destroyed, and dissatisfaction reenters.
Man might possess everything tangible in the world and yet not be
happy, for happiness is the satisfying of the soul, not of the mind or
the body. Dissatisfaction, in its highest sense, is the keynote of all
advance, the evidence of new aspirations, the guarantee of the
progressive revelation of new possibilities.

Content is a greatly overrated virtue. It is a kind of diluted despair;
it is the feeling with which we continue to accept substitutes, without
striving for the realities. Content makes the trained individual
swallow vinegar and try to smack his lips as if it were wine. Content
enables one to warm his hands at the fire of a past joy that exists
only in memory. Content is a mental and moral chloroform that deadens
the activities of the individual to rise to higher planes of life and
growth. Man should never be contented with anything less than the best
efforts of his nature can possibly secure for him. Content makes the
world more comfortable for the individual, but it is the death-knell of
progress. Man should be content with each step of progress merely as a
station, discontented with it as a destination; contented with it as a
step; discontented with it as a finality. There are times when a man
should be content with what he _has_, but never with what he