THE RISE OF CONSCIOUSNESS 



than I can say it. The point upon which I want 

 to insist here is that similar grades are to be seen 

 from every point of view of human life, but from 

 no two points of view are the grades the same. 



For, besides classifying men by their wealth and 

 position, you may classify them by their health, by 

 their domestic felicity, or by any other scale 

 which occurs to you. The result is the same: each 

 one envies every one higher up the scale, and pities 

 every one below. 



In other words, each one of us measures happi- 

 ness and unhappiness by the footrule of his own 

 experience ; and each time that our experience 

 changes we make a new footrule to suit it. 



Go into any old peasant's hovel, any common 

 lodging-house, any hospital and the same amaz- 

 ing contrast always strikes you, between the misery 

 of the place as it appears to you and the con- 

 tentment and resignation of its human tenants. 

 The fact is that they are all taking their level 

 from their experiences of the moment ; and from 

 that moment every improvement in their circum- 

 stances is happiness and every deterioration is 

 unhappiness: and in the life of every man the 

 happiness largely prevails because we are all 

 hoping to improve our lot, and all meet with some 

 success. 



In the common lodging-house the language may 

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