THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 



57 



they repeat the trite reflection that riches fail to purchase content, 

 they do not draw the inference that there must be something wrong 

 in a system which thus deludes them. You hear it from time to time 

 admitted that great wealth is a heavy burden : the life of a rich peer 

 being described as made like the life of an attorney by the extent of 

 his affairs. You observe, among those whose large means and various 

 estates enable them to multiply their appliances to gratification, that 

 every new appliance becomes an additional something to be looked 

 after, and adds to the possibilities of vexation. Further, if you put 

 together the open confessions and the tacit admissions, you find that, 

 apart from these anxieties and annoyances, the kind of life which 

 riches and honors bring is not a satisfactory life its inside differs im- 

 mensely from its outside. In candid moments the " social tread-mill " 

 is complained of by those who nevertheless think themselves com- 

 pelled to keep up its monotonous round. As every one may see, fash- 

 ionable life is passed, not in being happy, but in playing at being 

 happy. And yet the manifest corollary is not drawn by those engaged 

 in this life. 



To an outsider it is obvious that the benefits obtained by the regu- 

 lative classes of our day, through the existing form of social organiza- 

 tion, are full of disguised evils ; and that this undue wealth which 

 makes possible the passing of idle lives brings dissatisfactions in place 

 of the satisfactions expected. Just as in feudal times the appliances 

 for safety were the accompaniments to a social state that brought a 

 more than equivalent danger ; so, now, the excess of aids to pleasure 

 among the rich is the accompaniment of a social state that brings a 

 counterbalancing displeasure. The gratifications reached by those 

 who make the pursuit of gratifications a business, dwindle to a mini- 

 mum ; while the trouble, and weariness, and vexation, and jealousy, 

 and disappointment, rise to a maximum. That this is an inevitable 

 result any one may see who studies the psychology of the matter. 

 The pleasure-hunting life fails for the reason that it leaves large parts 

 of the nature unexercised : it neglects the satisfactions gained by suc- 

 cessful activity, and there is missing from it the serene consciousness 

 of services rendered to others. Egoistic enjoyments, continuously pur- 

 sued, pall, because the appetites for them are satiated in times much 

 shorter than our waking lives give us : leaving times that are either 

 empty or spent in efforts to get enjoyment after desire has ceased. 

 They pall also from the want of that broad contrast which arises 

 when a moiety of life is actively occupied. These negative causes of 

 dissatisfaction are joined with the positive cause indicated the ab- 

 sence of that content gained by successful achievement. One of the 

 most massive and enduring gratifications is the sense of personal 

 worth, ever afresh demonstrating itself to consciousness by effectual 

 action ; and an idle life is balked of its hopes partly because it lacks 

 this. Lastly, the implied absence of altruistic activities, or of activi- 



