ours or days, and is the occasional brilliant flash
of enjoyment, not its permanent and steady flame. Of this the
philosophers who have taught that happiness is the end of life were as
fully aware as those who taunt them. The happiness which they meant was
not a life of rapture, but moments of such, in an existence made up of
few and transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a decided
predominance of the active over the passive, and having as the
foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is capable
of bestowing. A life thus composed, to those who have been fortunate
enough to obtain it, has always appeared worthy of the name of
happiness. And such an existence is even now the lot of many, during
some considerable portion of their lives. The present wretched
education, and wretched social arrangements, are the only real hindrance
to its being attainable by almost all.

The objectors perhaps may doubt whether human beings, if taught to
consider happiness as the end of life, would be satisfied with such a
moderate share of it. But great numbers of mankind have been satisfied
with much less. The main constituents of a satisfied life appear to be
two, either of which by itself is often found sufficient for the
purpose: tranquillity, and excitement. With much tranquillity, many find
that they can be content with very little pleasure: with much
excitement, many can reconcile themselves to a considerable quantity of
pain. There is assuredly no inherent impossibility in enabling even the
mass of mankind to unite both; since the two are so far from being
incompatible that they are in natural alliance, the prolongation of
either being a preparation for, and exciting a wish for, the other. It
is only those in whom indolence amounts to a vice, that do not desire
excitement after an interval of repose; it is only those in whom the
need of excitement is a disease, that feel the tranquillity which
follows excitement dull and insipid, instead of pleasurable in direct
proportion to the excitement which preceded it. When people who are
tolerably fortunate in their outward lot do not find in life sufficient
enjoyment to make it valuable to them, the cause generally is, caring
for nobody but themselves. To those who have neither public nor private
affections, the excitements of life are much curtailed, and in any case
dwindle in value as the time approaches when all selfish interests must
be terminated by death: