THE MORALITY OF HAPPINESS. 103 



in our work, and with the support and encouragement of the medical 

 profession and the press, no hesitation should be felt in pressing for- 

 ward to such an extending of our usefulness as the importance of the 

 subject seems to demand. 



" Our president, Mr. Scribner, has been over the plot of ground 

 under consideration, and can testify as to its suitability for the pur- 

 pose. 



"I would move that a committee of three gentlemen and three 

 ladies be appointed to take the matter into consideration, and to visit 

 this proposed site, if thought best, and to report on the subject to 

 their respective boards." 



■♦»» 



THE MOKALITY OF HAPPmESS. 



Br THOMAS FOSTEK. 

 SELF VERSUS OTHERS. 



A MAN'S power of increasing happiness depends both directly 

 and indirectly on his fitness for the occupations of his life. 

 Directly, because if unfit, Avhether through ill health or inaptitude, he 

 works with pain instead of pleasure, and because he gives less satis- 

 faction or causes actual annoyance to those for whom his occupations, 

 whatsoever they may be, are pursued. Indirectly, because as a result 

 of work pursued under such conditions he suffers in temper and quality 

 as a member of the body social. Hence all such care of self as is 

 shown by attention to bodily health, by the careful culture of personal 

 good qualities, by just apportionment of time to personal require- 

 ments, and so forth, may be regarded as of the nature of duty. In 

 such degree as pleasure, recreation, change of scene, quiet, and the 

 like, are necessary for the maintenance, or improvement of the health, 

 the care to secure these, so far from being held to be a concession to 

 self, should be esteemed a most important point in " the whole duty 

 of man." 



A narrow view of duty to others may direct attention to what lies 

 near at hand. Just as the savage consumes, to satisfy the hunger of 

 a day, seed which should have been devoted to provide for many days 

 in the future which lies beyond his ken, so the man who has no 

 thought but of what lies near at hand, is apt to sacrifice health, 

 strength, and fitness for work, from which great and long-lasting bene- 

 fits might have been reaped, to obtain painfully and uncomfortably 

 much smaller results. By overwork and self-sacrifice — self-devotion 

 if you will — a man may in a few years effect much material good to 

 those around him — perhaps more than in the time he could have 

 effected by a wiser apportionment of his work and strength. But at 



