ON HUMAN HAPPINESS. 



393 



the aggregate of insignificant incidents that compose the whole tenor of the 

 feeble life of the former, not a drop, perhaps, of the essence of happiness 

 would ascend in the alembic. They may be at perfect quiet, if you please, 

 and look fat and in good liking, but this is not happiness ; for if so, capons 

 and Cappadocian slaves would have a better title to it than themselves. 



Let us now apply these observations to the question before us. No man 

 can be happy without exercising the virtue of a cheerful industry or activity. 

 No man can lay in his claim to happiness, I mean the happiness that shall 

 last through the fair run of life, without chastity, without temperance, with- 

 out sobriety, without economy, without self-command, and, consequently, 

 without fortitude ; and, let me add, without a liberal and forgiving spirit. 

 The whole of this follows as the necessary result of our argument. The 

 exercise of these virtues may perhaps cost a man something at the lime, but 

 the full scope and aggregate of his happiness depend upon the exercise. It is 

 a tax upon the sum-total, that must be regularly paid to secure the rest. 

 And it ought never to be forgotten, that we are so much the creatures of habit 

 that the more we are accustomed to the exercise, like an old garment, the 

 easier it will sit upon us. 



But these are private virtues, and only a few of them. Man has also, if 

 he would be happy, to practise a still longer list of public virtues ; and he 

 cannot be happy without practising them. Or, in other words (for I am now 

 to consider him in a social capacity), the happiness of the community to 

 which he belongs, and of which his own forms a constituent part, could not 

 continue without his practising them. 



He may steal, indeed, from his neighbour, and hereby increase his means 

 of gratifying some predominant passion ; but then his neighbour may also 

 steal from him in return, and to a greater extent : and his happiness, there- 

 fore (ever regarding it in the aggregate), is connected with his exercising the 

 virtues of justice and honesty. He may break his promise, or lie to his 

 neighbour, upon a point in which his own interest appears to be concerned ; 

 but then his neighbour may also return him the compliment, and in a way in 

 which his interest may be still more deeply concerned; and his interest, 

 therefore, or, which is the same thing, his happiness, obliges him to practise 

 the virtue of veracity. 



In Woodfall's edition of the Letters of Junius, there is a passage upon the 

 subject before us, contained in one of his pVivate letters, which has peculiarly 

 struck me, considering the quarter it has proceeded from, and the manner of 

 its communication. Whoever was the writer of these celebrated Letters, it 

 will he readily admitted, that he had a most extensive acquaintance with men 

 of all ranks and characters, particularly with the vicious and profligate ; and 

 that he had a most extraordinary facility of penetrating into the human heart. 

 In the private letter I refer to, he unbosoms himself to his printer, for whom 

 he appears to have had a great esteem, and, amid the regulations he gives him 

 for his future conduct, makes the following forcible remark : " With a sound 

 heart, be assured you are better gifted, even for worldly happiness, than 

 if you had been cursed with the abilities of a Mansfield. After long experi- 

 ence of the world, I affirm, before God, I never knew a rogue who was not 

 unhappy."* 



It is not necessary to pursue the catalogue. Man is by nature a social 

 being: every one is purposely made dependent upon every other; and, con- 

 sequently, the happiness or well-being of the whole and of every one, who 

 constitutes an integral part of the whole, must be the same happiness. Yet 

 as the happiness or well-being of the individual demands in his private capa- 

 city, as we have already seen it does, a system of private abstinences or re- 

 straints, the happiness or well-being of society demands a more extensive 

 system of public duties of the same kind. We must consent to relinquish a 

 part of our liberty, a part of our property, a part of allour personal propensities 

 and appetites, or the well-being of the society to which we belong, and, con- 



* Letter No. xliii 



