about us; in youth there is already a very
considerable widening of our view; in manhood it comprises the whole
range of our activity, often stretching out over a very distant
sphere,--the care, for instance, of a State or a nation; in old age it
embraces posterity.

But even in the affairs of the intellect, limitation is necessary if
we are to be happy. For the less the will is excited, the less we
suffer. We have seen that suffering is something positive, and that
happiness is only a negative condition. To limit the sphere of outward
activity is to relieve the will of external stimulus: to limit the
sphere of our intellectual efforts is to relieve the will of internal
sources of excitement. This latter kind of limitation is attended by
the disadvantage that it opens the door to boredom, which is a direct
source of countless sufferings; for to banish boredom, a man will
have recourse to any means that may be handy--dissipation, society,
extravagance, gaming, and drinking, and the like, which in their turn
bring mischief, ruin and misery in their train. _Difficiles in otio
quies_--it is difficult to keep quiet if you have nothing to do. That
limitation in the sphere of outward activity is conducive, nay, even
necessary to human happiness, such as it is, may be seen in the fact
that the only kind of poetry which depicts men in a happy state of
life--Idyllic poetry, I mean,--always aims, as an intrinsic part of
its treatment, at representing them in very simple and restricted
circumstances. It is this feeling, too, which is at the bottom of the
pleasure we take in what are called _genre_ pictures.

_Simplicity_, therefore, as far as it can be attained, and even
_monotony_, in our manner of life, if it does not mean that we
are bored, will contribute to happiness; just because, under such
circumstances, life, and consequently the burden which is the
essential concomitant of life, will be least felt. Our existence
will glide on peacefully like a stream which no waves or whirlpools
disturb.

SECTION 7. Whether we are in a pleasant or a painful state depends,
ultimately, upon the kind of matter that pervades and engrosses our
consciousness. In this respect, purely intellectual occupation, for
the mind that is capable of it, will, as a rule, do much more in the
way of happiness than any form of practical life, with its constant
alternations of success and failure, and all the shocks and torments
it produces. But it must be