SECTION III.--_Happiness open to man_.


"And now as he looked and saw the whole Hellespont covered with the
vessels of his fleet, and all the shore and every plain about Abydos
as full as possible of men, Xerxes congratulated himself on his good
fortune; but after a little while, he wept. Then Artabanus, the King's
uncle, when he heard that Xerxes was in tears, went to him, and said:
'How different, sire, is what thou art now doing from what thou didst
a little while ago! Then thou didst congratulate thyself; and now,
behold! thou weepest.' 'There came upon me,' replied he, 'a sudden
pity, when I thought of the shortness of man's life, and considered
that of all this host, so numerous as it is, not one will be alive
when a hundred years are gone by.' 'And yet there are sadder things in
life than that,' returned the other. 'Short as our time is, there is
no man, whether it be among this multitude or elsewhere, who is so
happy, as not to have felt the wish--I will not say once, but full
many a time--that he were dead rather than alive. Calamities fall upon
us, sicknesses vex and harass us, and make life, short though it be,
to appear long. So death, through the wretchedness of our life, is a
most sweet refuge to our race; and God, who gives us the tastes that
we enjoy of pleasant times, is seen, in his very gift, to be
envious.'" (Herodotus, vii., 45, 46.)

1. It needs no argument to show that happiness, as defined in the last
section, can never be perfectly realized in this life. Aristotle took
his definition to represent an ideal to be approximated to, not
attained. He calls his sages "happy as men" (_Eth._, I., x., 16), that
is, imperfectly, as all things human are imperfect. Has Aristotle,