sire to improve them, and this desire is the
mainspring of progress. In this theory of life, happiness is sought,
not in content, but in improved circumstances, in the development of new
capacities of enjoyment, in the pleasure which active existence
naturally gives. To maintain in their due proportion in our nature the
spirit of content and the desire to improve, to combine a realised
appreciation of the blessings we enjoy with a healthy and well-regulated
ambition, is no easy thing, but it is the problem which all who aspire
to a perfect life should set before themselves. _In medio tutissimus
ibis_ is eminently true of the cultivation of character, and some of its
best elements become pernicious in their extremes. Thus prudent
forethought, which is one of the first conditions of a successful life,
may easily degenerate into that most miserable state of mind in which
men are perpetually anticipating and dwelling upon the uncertain dangers
and evils of an uncertain future. How much indeed of the happiness and
misery of men may be included under those two words, realisation and
anticipation!

There is no such thing as a Eudaemometer measuring with accuracy the
degrees of happiness realised by men in different ages, under different
circumstances, and with different characters. Perhaps if such a thing
existed it might tend to discourage us by showing that diversities and
improvements of circumstances affect real happiness in a smaller degree
than we are accustomed to imagine. Our nature accommodates itself
speedily to improved circumstances, and they cease to give positive
pleasure while their loss is acutely painful. Advanced civilisation
brings with it countless and inestimable benefits, but it also brings
with it many forms of suffering from which a ruder existence is exempt.
There is some reason to believe that it is usually accompanied with a
lower range of animal spirits, and it is certainly accompanied with an
increased sensitiveness to pain. Some philosophers have contended that
this is the best of all possible worlds. It is difficult to believe so,
as the whole object of human effort is to make it a better one. But the
success of that effort is more apparent in the many terrible forms of
human suffering which it has abolished or diminished than in the higher
level of positive happiness that has been attained.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] _Latter-day Pamphlets:_ 'Jesuitism.'

[7] Le Marchant's _Life of Althorp_, p. 143.