T IN HUMAN SOCIETY. 201 



This may not be the best of all possible worlds, 

 but to say that it is the worst is mere petulant 

 nonsense. A worn-out voluptary may find noth- 

 ing good under the sun, or a vain and inexpe- 

 rienced youth, who cannot get the moon he cries 

 for, may vent his irritation in pessimistic moan- 

 ings; but there can be no doubt in the mind of 

 any reasonable person that mankind could, would, 

 and in fact do, get on fairly well with vastly 

 less happiness and far more misery than find their 

 way into the lives of nine people out of ten. If 

 each and all of us had been visited by an at- 

 tack of neuralgia, or of extreme mental depres- 

 sion, for one hour in every twenty-four — a suppo- 

 sition which many tolerably vigorous people know, 

 to their cost, is not extravagant — the burden of life 

 would have been immensely increased without 

 much practical hindrance to its general course. 

 Men with any manhood in them find life quite 

 worth living under worse conditions than these. 



There is another sujfficiently obvious fact, 

 which renders the hypothesis that the course of 

 sentient nature is dictated by malevolence quite 

 untenable. A vast multitude of pleasures, and 

 these among the purest and the best, are superflu- 

 ities, bits of good which are to all appearances un- 

 necessary as inducements to live, and are, so to 

 speak, thrown into the bargain of life. To those 

 who experience them, few delights can be more 

 entrancing than such as are afforded by natural 



