ADVERSITY. 
107 
conditions, belonging to man’s estate. Creatures of all 
kinds have plenty of their natural food and are never sick 
or sorry. But this notion is very far from the truth. All 
animals are in the main happy, I believe and will believe ; 
but I know no recipe for happiness which excludes the 
flavour of want and pain, and these are everywhere in the 
world. It is true that we see little sickness or misery 
among wild animals, but that is because among them 
extinction follows so swiftly upon failure. The bird, or 
beast, which cannot keep itself in health and vigour is 
speedily put out of the way. It is only among us that 
feebleness and misery are nursed and prolonged. 
This seems to me a great and wonderful thing. 
According to the highest ideal of this age, the goal of 
all human advancement is expressed in the formula — The 
greatest happiness of the greatest number. Now it is 
admitted that in most European countries at any rate the 
number is nearly made up. They cannot be made to hold 
many more human beings than they hold already. Yet 
we feel obliged to be gratified at every step we make 
towards retaining in life the feeble, the sickly, the blind, 
the deaf, the idiotic — in short, all those classes of persons 
to whom any high degree of enjoyment h physically 
