Exaggerated regard for the future.—A happy childhoodChoice of pleasures.—Athletic games
The intellectual pleasures
Their tendency to enhance other pleasures.—Importance of specialisation
And of judicious selection
Education may act specially on the desires or on the will
Modern education and tendencies of the former kind
Old Catholic training mainly of the will.—Its effects
Anglo-Saxon types in the seventeenth century
Capriciousness of willpower—heroism often succumbs to vice
Courage—its varieties and inconsistencies
The circumstances of life the school of will.—Its place in character
Dangers of an early competence.—Choice of work
Choice of friends.—Effect of early friendship on character
Mastery of will over thoughts.—Its intellectual importance
Its importance in moral culture
Great difference among men in this respect
Means of governing thought
The dream power—its great place in life
Especially in the early stages of humanity
Moral safety valves—danger of inventing unreal crimes
Character of the English gentleman
Different ways of treating temptation
MONEY
Henry Taylor on its relation to character
Difference between real and professed beliefs about money
Its relation to happiness in different grades of life
The cost of pleasures
Lives of the millionaires
Leaders of Society
The great speculator
Expenditure in charity.—Rules for regulating it
Advantages and disadvantages of a large very wealthy class in a nation
Directions in which philanthropic expenditure may be best turned
MARRIAGE
Its importance and the motives that lead to it
The moral and intellectual qualities it specially demands
Duty to the unborn.—Improvident marriages
The doctrine of heredity and its consequences
Religious celibacy
Marriages of dissimilar types often peculiarly happy
Marriages resulting from a common weakness
Independent spheres in marriage.—Effect on character
The age of marriage
Increased independence of women
SUCCESS
Success depends more on character than on intellect
Especially that accessible to most men and most conducive to happiness
Strength of will, tact and judgment.—Not always joined
Their combination a great element of success
Good nature
Tact: its nature and its importance
Its intellectual and moral affinities
Value of good society in cultivating it.—Newman's description of a gentleman
Disparities between merit and success
Success not universally desired
TIME
Rebellion of human nature against the essential conditions of life
Time 'the stuff of life'
Various ways of treating it
Increased intensity of life
Sleep
Apparent inequalities of time
The tenure of life not too short
Old age
The growing love of rest.—How time should be regarded
THE END
Death terrible chiefly through its accessories
Pagan and Christian ideas about it
Premature death
How easily the fear of death is overcome
The true way of regarding it
THE MAP OF LIFE
CHAPTER I
One of the first questions that must naturally occur to every writer who deals with the subject of this book is, what influence mere discussion and reasoning can have in promoting the happiness of men. The circumstances of our lives and the dispositions of our characters mainly determine the measure of happiness we enjoy, and mere argument
