THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS 



you will be a far better citizen if you are physically, 

 mentally, and morally healthy, than you can hope to be 

 if ill in body and perpetually harassed in mind and 

 spirit. 



All personal considerations aside, then, it is your 

 duty to humanity to cultivate soundness and strength 

 of body and of mind. In other words, it is your duty 

 to seek personal happiness, if for no other reason, be- 

 cause by so doing you will on the whole make for the 

 happiness of others, will add to the sum total of hu- 

 man pleasure. 



It must be understood that the word "happiness" 

 as here employed, has two phases the active and the 

 passive phase. In the natural order of things even the 

 happiest being does not pass all its existence in a delir- 

 ium of joy. Indeed it is a law of mentality that the 

 most intense pleasures are the most transient. Satiety 

 is the safeguard against over-indulgence. The hours 

 of intense joy are relatively few, even if all were ag- 

 gregated for a lifetime. 



The main course of life must lie at best along a 

 plateau, with here and there a mountain peak. If we 

 escape in fair measure the sloughs and valleys of de- 

 spond and misery, this is all that can be hoped nay, 

 all that is to be desired. Hence, at best, a large part 

 of our share of happiness is of the passive character. 

 To be " happy in that we are not unhappy" is a very 

 real form of pleasure. The mere cessation of pain 

 seems cause for supreme joy to one who has experienced 

 long periods of suffering. 



The goal at which the rational being aims, then, is 



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