THE IDEAL OF HAPPINESS. lOI 



be happy, and ask what happiness is and on what it 

 depends. 



Happiness may be defined from within as the 

 fruition of fulfilled desire, from without as complete 

 adaptation to environment. A complete corre- 

 spondence between the soul and its environment is 

 required for perfect happiness ; it can be attained 

 only if our desires are at once realized in our con- 

 ditions of life, or if they are at once accommodated 

 to them. We need either a wondrous control of 

 our environment or a wondrous plasticity of our 

 nature. But both of these are rendered imposs- 

 ible by what seems to be the intrinsic constitution 

 of our environment. If that environment were 

 something fixed and unchanging, it is conceivable 

 that we might, in the course of time, come to under- 

 stand it and our nature so perfectly as to bring 

 complete correspondence within our reach. But 

 our environment is not fixed : it is constantly shift- 

 ing and changing, and, humanly speaking, it seems 

 impossible that it should be fixed. For it appears 

 to be an essential feature of our world to be a world 

 of Becoming, and to such an ever-changing environ- 

 ment there can be no adaptation. Whenever w^e 

 fancy that we have adapted ourselves to our con- 

 ditions, the circumstances change : a turn of the 

 kaleidoscope and the labour of a life-time is ren- 

 dered unavailing. Hence it is that not one of 

 the activities or functions of life is ever quite com- 

 mensurate with its end, that our efforts are for ever 

 disproportionate to our objects, and for ever fail of 

 attaining an end which is too lofty for our means. 

 The Ideal seems sometimes to be within our sight, 

 but it is never within our reach, and we can never 

 cross the great gulf that parts it from the Actual. 



