Introduction

'La vie n'est pas un plaisir ni une douleur, mais une affaire grave dont nous sommes chargés, et qu'il faut conduire et terminer à notre honneur' TOCQUEVILLE

First printed, 8vo, September 1899. Reprinted November 1899; December 1899; January 1900 (with corrections). Cabinet Edition, Crown 8vo, February 1901. Reprinted December, 1902. July, 1904

How far reasoning on happiness is of any use 1 The arguments of the Determinist 2 The arguments for free will 3 Securus judicat orbis terrarum 5

Happiness a condition of mind and often confused with the means of attaining it 7 Circumstances and character contribute to it in different degrees 7 Religion, Stoicism, and Eastern nations seek it mainly by acting on disposition 7 Sensational philosophies and industrial and progressive nations seek it chiefly in improved circumstances 8 English character 8 Action of the body on happiness 10 Influence of predispositions in reasonings on life 12 Promotion of health by legislation, fashion and self-culture 12 Slight causes of life failures 14 Effects of sanitary reform 14 Diminished disease does not always imply a higher level of health 15 Two causes depressing health 16 Encroachments on liberty in sanitary legislation 16 Sanitary education—its chief articles—its possible exaggeration 17 Constant thought about health not the way to attain it 18

Some general rules of happiness—1. A life full of work.—Happiness should not be the main object of pursuit 19 Carlyle on Ennui 20 2. Aim rather at avoiding suffering than attaining pleasure 21 3. The greatest pleasures and pains in spheres accessible to all 22 4. Importance and difficulty of realising our blessings while they last 24 Comparison and contrast 26 Content not the quality of progressive societies 27 The problem of balancing content and the desire for progress 28 What civilisation can do for happiness 28

The relation of morals to happiness.—The Utilitarian justification of virtue insufficient 30 Power of man to aim at something different from and higher than happiness 32 General coincidence of duty and happiness 33 The creation of unselfish interests one of the chief elements of happiness 34 Burke on a well-ordered life 35 Improvement of character more within our power than improvement of intellect 36 High moral qualities often go with low intellectual power 36 Dangers attaching to the unselfish side of our nature.—Active charity personally supervised least subject to abuse 37 Disproportioned compassion 38 Treatment of animals 41

Changes of morals chiefly in the proportionate value attached to different virtues 44 Military, civic, and intellectual virtues 44 The mediæval type 45 Modifications introduced by Protestantism 47 Bossuet and Louis XIV. 48 Persecution.—Operations at childbirth.—Usury 50 Every great religion and philosophic system produces or favours a distinct moral type 51 Variations in moral judgments 51 Complexity of moral influences of modern times.—The industrial type 53 Qualified by other influences 54 Unnecessary suffering 57 Goethe's exposition of modern morals 58 Morals hitherto too much treated negatively 59 Possibility of an over-sensitive conscience 60 Increased sense of the obligations of an active life 61

In the guidance of life action more important than pure reasoning 62 The enforcement of active duty now specially needed 62 Temptations to luxurious idleness 63 Rectification of false ideals.—The conqueror 64 The luxury of ostentation 64 Glorification of the demi-monde 66 Study of ideals 67 The human mind more capable of distinguishing right from wrong than of measuring merit and demerit 67 Fallibility of moral judgments 68 Rules for moral judgment 73

The school of Rousseau considers man by nature wholly good 76 Other schools maintain that he is absolutely depraved 76 Exaggerations of these schools 78 The restraining conscience distinctively human.—Comparison with the animals 79 Reality of human depravity.—Illustrated by war 81 Large amount of pure malevolence.—Political crime.—The press 83 Mendacity in finance 85 The sane view of human character 86 We learn with age to value restraints, to expect moderately and value compromise 86

Moral compromise a necessity in life.—Statement of Newman 88 Impossibility of acting on it 88 Moral considerations though the highest must not absorb all others 90 Truthfulness—cases in which it may be departed from 91

Moral compromise in war War necessarily stimulates the malevolent passions and practises deception 92 Rights of war in early stages of civilisation 93 Distinction between Greeks and Barbarians 94 Roman moralists insisted on just causes of war and on formal declaration 95 Treatment of prisoners.—Combatants and non-combatants 95 Treatment of private property 96 Lawful and unlawful methods of conducting war 96 Abdication by the soldier of private judgment and free will 98 Distinctions and compromises 99 Cases in which the military oath may be broken.—Illegal orders 100 Violation of religious obligations.—The Sepoy mutiny 101 The Italian conscript.—Fenians in the British army 104

Moral compromise in the law What advocates may and may not do 108 Inevitable temptations of the profession 109 Its condemnation by Swift, Arnold, Macaulay, Bentham 109 Its defence by Paley, Johnson, Basil Montagu 110 How far a lawyer may support a bad case.—St. Thomas Aquinas and Catholic casuists 111 Sir Matthew Hale.—General custom in England 113 Distinction between the etiquette of prosecution and of defence 113 The case of Courvoisier 114 Statement of Lord Brougham 115 The license of cross-examination.—Technicalities defeating justice 116 Advantage of trial by jury 119 Necessity of the profession of advocate 119

Moral compromise in politics Necessity of party 120 How far conscientious differences should impair party allegiance 121 Lines of conduct adopted when such differences arise 121 Parliamentary obstruction 123 Moral difficulties inseparable from party 124 Evil of extreme view of party allegiance.—Government and the Opposition 125 Relations of members to their constituents 127 Votes given without adequate knowledge 131 Diminished power of the private member 134

Duty of a statesman when the interests and wishes of his nation conflict 136 Nature and extent of political trusteeship 137 Temperance questions 138 Legitimate and illegitimate time-serving 141 Education questions 141 Inconsistency in politics—how far it should be condemned 147 The conduct of Peel in 1829 and 1845 148 The conduct of Disraeli in 1867 149 Different degrees of weight to be attached to party considerations 151 Temptations to war 153 Temptations of aristocratic and of democratic governments 155 Necessity of assimilating legislation 157 Legislation violating contracts.—Irish land legislation 158 Questions forced into prominence for party objects 164 The judgment of public servants who have committed indefensible acts 165 The French coup d'état of 1851 166 Judgments passed upon it 177 Probable multiplication of coups d'état 182 Governor Eyre 184 The Jameson raid 185 How statesmen should deal with political misdeeds 190 The standard of international morals—questions connected with it 191 The ethics of annexation 195 Political morals and public opinion 196

Moral compromise in the Church Difficulties of reconciling old formularies with changed beliefs 198 Cause of some great revolutions of belief.—The Copernican system.—Discovery of Newton 198 The antiquity of the world, of death, and of man 200 The Darwinian theory 201 Comparative mythology.—Biblical criticism.—Scientific habits of thought 201 General incorporation of new ideas into the Church 204 Growth of the sacerdotal spirit 204 The two theories of the Reformation 205 Modern Ritualism 210 Its various elements of attraction 211 Diversity of teaching has not enfeebled the Church 213 Its literary activity.—Proofs that the Church is in touch with educated laymen 214 Its political influence—how far this is a test of vitality 218 Its influence on education 219 Its spiritual influence 220 How far clergymen who dissent from parts of its theology can remain within it 221 Newman on a Latitudinarian establishment 223 Obligations imposed on the clergy by the fact of Establishment 224 Attitude of laymen towards the Church 225 Increasing sense of the relativity of belief 226 This tendency strengthens with age 227 The conflict between belief and scepticism 229 Power of religion to undergo transformation 229 Probable influence of the sacerdotal spirit on the Church 231

A sound judgment of our own characters essential to moral improvement 235 Analogies between character and taste 236 The strongest desire generally prevails, but desires may be modified 238 Passions and habits 239 Exaggerated regard for the future.—A happy childhood 239 Choice of pleasures.—Athletic games 240 The intellectual pleasures 242 Their tendency to enhance other pleasures.—Importance of specialisation 243 And of judicious selection 243 Education may act specially on the desires or on the will 245 Modern education and tendencies of the former kind 245 Old Catholic training mainly of the will.—Its effects 247 Anglo-Saxon types in the seventeenth century 248 Capriciousness of willpower—heroism often succumbs to vice 249 Courage—its varieties and inconsistencies 250 The circumstances of life the school of will.—Its place in character 251 Dangers of an early competence.—Choice of work 252 Choice of friends.—Effect of early friendship on character 254 Mastery of will over thoughts.—Its intellectual importance 255 Its importance in moral culture 255 Great difference among men in this respect 256 Means of governing thought 258 The dream power—its great place in life 258 Especially in the early stages of humanity 261 Moral safety valves—danger of inventing unreal crimes 262 Character of the English gentleman 266 Different ways of treating temptation 266

Henry Taylor on its relation to character 268 Difference between real and professed beliefs about money 268 Its relation to happiness in different grades of life 269 The cost of pleasures 275 Lives of the millionaires 281 Leaders of Society 284 The great speculator 287 Expenditure in charity.—Rules for regulating it 288 Advantages and disadvantages of a large very wealthy class in a nation 292 Directions in which philanthropic expenditure may be best turned 296

Its importance and the motives that lead to it 300 The moral and intellectual qualities it specially demands 302 Duty to the unborn.—Improvident marriages 305 The doctrine of heredity and its consequences 306 Religious celibacy 308 Marriages of dissimilar types often peculiarly happy 309 Marriages resulting from a common weakness 310 Independent spheres in marriage.—Effect on character 311 The age of marriage 312 Increased independence of women 314

Success depends more on character than on intellect 316 Especially that accessible to most men and most conducive to happiness 317 Strength of will, tact and judgment.—Not always joined 317 Their combination a great element of success 318 Good nature 319 Tact: its nature and its importance 320 Its intellectual and moral affinities 323 Value of good society in cultivating it.—Newman's description of a gentleman 324 Disparities between merit and success 326 Success not universally desired 326

Rebellion of human nature against the essential conditions of life 328 Time 'the stuff of life' 330 Various ways of treating it 330 Increased intensity of life 331 Sleep 332 Apparent inequalities of time 335 The tenure of life not too short 337 Old age 341 The growing love of rest.—How time should be regarded 341

Death terrible chiefly through its accessories 343 Pagan and Christian ideas about it 344 Premature death 349 How easily the fear of death is overcome 351 The true way of regarding it 352