THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS 



Such little inconsistencies are deep-seated. They will 

 not vanish at the bidding. 



Surely such grotesque notions do not make for happi- 

 ness. Rather do they serve, reminiscent as they are of 

 yet more befogged eras, like the conscience-cutting 

 memory of a would-be forgotten sin, to add to the 

 gloomier uncertainties of life. On occasion their in- 

 fluence may be even clearly and demonstrably evil. 

 For example, a few years ago a report found currency 

 in the newspapers to the effect that a distinguished 

 United States Senator had said, a few months before 

 he died, that he was not superstitious, but that he 

 believed his life was in some mysterious way bound up 

 with that of a certain pine-tree in his door-yard. 



This statement manifestly is as consistent with itself 

 as if one were to say, "I am not afraid of ghosts, but I 

 fear them greatly." 



The report goes on to say that one summer the fatal 

 pine-tree began to wither, and a few weeks before the 

 death of the Senator it died. Accepting the report as 

 published, the event evidently justified the Senator's 

 forebodings, and we need not doubt that there existed 

 in some degree a causal connection between the death 

 of the tree and that of the man. But of course the only 

 possible operation of this cause was through the imagi- 

 nation of the man. Having in some way conceived the 

 absurd fancy that the tree's life was bound up with his 

 own, he must naturally have watched the withering 

 of the tree with apprehension, and the gloomy fore- 

 bodings thus aroused may very probably have been 

 actively influential in turning the scale against a heart 



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