Prevailing Lack of Individuality.—Examples of Great Teachers.—The Man of Strong Personality.—What Individuality Is and Is Not.—Value of Self-knowledge.—The Pains of Diffidence.—Dangers of Self-conceit.—The Tyranny of Opinion.—The Foolishness of Fixed Principles.—Obstinate Asseveration.—Giving and Taking Advice.—Decision of Character.—Importance of Reserve.—Sincerity is Essential.—Veracity at Least to Oneself.—Seek Many-sidedness of Character.
Strowingspp. 181−193
PART IV.
How Far Our Happiness Depends on Others.
I. What Others Give Us: Safety, Liberty, Education.
Man’s Dependence on Society for his Safety.—Security the Aim of Government.—Two Theories of Government.—Justice as the Aim of Government.—Freedom the Aim of Law.—Another Theory of Government.—Knowledge the Brother of Liberty.—Education a Necessity.—Defective Education of Women.—What it Should Be.—Study Should Be Made a Pleasure.—Man’s Dependence on Others.
Strowingspp. 195−205
II. What we Owe Others: Morality, Duty, Benevolence.
Happiness and Virtue are Independent Aims.—Morality and the Moral Sense not the Same.—What Morality Is.—No Universal Moral Precepts.—The Dualism of Morals.—The Sense of Duty.—The Pleasures of the Moral Sense.—What “A Clear Conscience” Means.—What is “The Chief End of Man.”—The Moral Sense Opposes Moral Laws.—The Benevolent Emotions.
Strowingspp. 206−215
III. The Practice of Business and the Enjoyment of Society.
The Value of Association.—Society Should Not Ask the Sacrifice of the Individual.—Maxims for Dealing with Men: First, Distrust; Second, Trust.—What “Society” is.—The Drawing-room as the Shrine of Civilization.—Good-will the Basis of Good Society.—Ordinary People are the Most Agreeable.—Maxim for Success in Society.—The Aim of Society.—Good Society Not Selfish.—The Power of Society.—What Politeness is.—Society Conversation.—The Expert in Small Talk.
Strowingspp. 216−227
IV. On Fellowship, Comradeship, and Friendship.
Man’s Highest Pleasure is in Humanity.—What Fellowship Means.—Mutuality of Interests the Basis of Social Progress.—But the Individual must be Respected.—Comradeship is Based on Tastes in Common.—It is a Substitute for Friendship.—Examples of it.—The Meaning of Friendship.—What Weakens and what Strengthens it.—It should be Carefully Cultivated.—Friendship Between Men and Women.—Examples of it.
Strowingspp. 228−237
V. Love, Marriage, and the Family Relation.
The Single Life Ever Incomplete.—The Holiness of Maternity.—The Emotion of Love Explained.—Love and Beauty.—Love Immortalized in Posterity.—The History of Marriage.—The Three Conditions of Marriage.—The Question of Divorce.—What True Marriage Means.—Opinions of Thinkers About Divorce.—The Family as the Object of Marriage.—The Family Tie Among Us.
Strowingspp. 238−247
PART V.
The Consolations of Affliction.
I. The Removal of Unhappiness.
Suffering is Unavoidable.—Where to Look for Consolation.—Two Consoling Reflections.—Advantage of a Multitude of Miseries.—The Habit of Unhappiness.—Some Require Ill Fortune.—Two Popular Methods of Consolation.—Talk It Over, and Why.—Our Strange Claim for Happiness.—The Tolerance of Suffering.—The Universal Panacea.—Look Before and After.—Deal Justly by Yourself.—How to Regard Incivility and Ingratitude.—Success Arising from Failures.—Resignation, Sympathy.—Remember Your Advantages.—Thoughts About Time and Death.
Strowingspp. 248−280
II. The Inseparable Connection of Pleasure and Pain.
Pleasure Requires Pain, and Joy Sorrow.—The Words of Socrates.—Physiological Relations of Pleasure and Pain.—Their Analogy to Joy and Sorrow.—The Oneness of the Pleasure-Pain Sensation.—The Rhythm of Sensations and Emotions.—Pleasure Derived from Pain, Joy from Sorrow.—Quotation from Leigh Hunt.—Quotation from Sir Richard Steele.—Sadness the Best Preparative for Gladness.—Influence of Time on Pleasures and Pains.
Strowingspp. 263−272
III. The Education of Suffering.
What is Suffering?—The Human Passion of Sorrow.—Sorrow as the Initiation into the Mysteries of Life.—The Noblest Prizes Won Only by Suffering.—It is the Highest Inspiration of Religion and Art.—It Alone Teaches the Elder Truths.—The Ministry of Grief.—The Sweetness of Departed Joys.—The Compensations of Loves that are Lost.—The Despair that is Divine.
Strowingspp. 273−280
PART I.
Happiness as the Aim of Life.
I. Is a Guide to Happiness Possible? And, if Possible, is it Desirable?
The pursuit of happiness—the pursuit of one’s own happiness—is it a vain quest? and, if not vain, is it a worthy object of life?
There have been plenty to condemn it on both grounds. They have said that the endeavor is hopeless; that to study the art of being happy is like studying the art of making gold, which is the only art by which gold can never be made. Nothing, they add, is so unpropitious to happiness as the very effort to attain it.
They go farther. “Let life,” they proclaim, “have a larger purpose than enjoyment.” They quote the mighty
