impossibility in enabling even the mass of mankind to unite both;
since the two are so far from being incompatible that they are in
natural alliance, the prolongation of either being a preparation
for, and exciting a wish for, the other. It is only those in whom
indolence amounts to a vice, that do not desire excitement after an
interval of repose: it is only those in whom the need of excitement is
a disease, that feel the tranquillity which follows excitement dull
and insipid, instead of pleasurable in direct proportion to the
excitement which preceded it. When people who are tolerably
fortunate in their outward lot do not find in life sufficient
enjoyment to make it valuable to them, the cause generally is,
caring for nobody but themselves. To those who have neither public nor
private affections, the excitements of life are much curtailed, and in
any case dwindle in value as the time approaches when all selfish
interests must be terminated by death: while those who leave after
them objects of personal affection, and especially those who have also
cultivated a fellow-feeling with the collective interests of
mankind, retain as lively an interest in life on the eve of death as
in the vigour of youth and health. Next to selfishness, the
principal cause which makes life unsatisfactory is want of mental
cultivation. A cultivated mind- I do not mean that of a philosopher,
but any mind to which the fountains of knowledge have been opened, and
which has been taught, in any tolerable degree, to exercise its
faculties- finds sources of inexhaustible interest in all that
surrounds it; in the objects of nature, the achievements of art, the
imaginations of poetry, the incidents of history, the ways of mankind,
past and present, and their prospects in the future. It is possible,
indeed, to become indifferent to all this, and that too without having
exhausted a thousandth part of it; but only when one has had from
the beginning no moral or human interest in these things, and has
sought in them only the gratification of curiosity.

  Now there is absolutely no reason in the nature of things why an
amount of mental culture sufficient to give an intelligent interest in
these objects of contemplation, should not be the inheritance of every
one born in a civilised country. As little is there an inherent
necessity that any human being should be a selfish egotist, devoid
of every feeling or care but those which centre in his own miserable
individuality. Something far superior to this is sufficiently common
even now, to give ample earnest of what the human species may be made.
Genuine private affections and a sincere interest in the public
good, are possible, though in unequal degrees, to every rightly
brought up human being. In a world in which there is so much to
interest, so much to enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve,
every one who has this moderate amount of moral and intellectual
requisites is capable of an existence which may be called enviable;
and unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to the
will of others, is denied the liberty to use the sources of
happiness within his reach, he will not fail to find this enviable
existence, if he escape the positive evils of life, the great
sources of physical and mental suffering- such as indigence, disease,
and the unkindness, worthlessness, or premature loss of objects of
affection. The main stress of the problem lies, therefore, in the
contest with these calamities, from which it is a rare good fortune
entirely to escape; which, as things now are, cannot be obviated,
and often cannot be in any material degree mitigated. Yet no one whose
opinion deserves a moment's consideration can doubt that most of the
great positive evils of the world are in themselves removable, and
will, if human affairs continue to improve, be in the end reduced
within narrow limits. Poverty, in any sense implying suffering, may be
completely extinguished by the wisdom of society, combined with the
good sense and providence of individuals. Even that most intractable
of enemies, disease, may be indefinitely reduced in dimensions by good
physical and moral education, and proper control of noxious
influences; while the progress of science holds out a promise for
the future of still more direct conquests over this detestable foe.
And every advance in that direction relieves us from some, not only of
the chances which cut short our own lives, but, what concerns us still
more, which deprive us of those in whom our happiness is wrapt up.
As for vicissitudes of fortune, and other disappointments connected
with worldly circumstances, these are principally the effect either of
gross imprudence, of ill-regulated desires, or of bad or imperfect
social institutions.

  All the grand sources, in short, of human suffering are in a great
degree, many of them almost entirely, conquerable by human care and
effort; and though their removal is grievously slow- though a long
succession of generations will perish in the breach before the
conquest is completed, and this world becomes all that, if will and
knowledge were not wanting, it might easily be made- yet every mind
sufficiently intelligent and generous to bear a part, however small
and unconspicuous, in the endeavour, will draw a noble enjoyment
from the contest itself, which he would not for any bribe in the
form of selfish indulgence consent to be without.

  And this leads to the true estimation of what is said by the
objectors concerning the possibility, and the obligation, of
learning to do without happiness. Unquestionably it is possible to
do without happiness; it is done involuntarily by
nineteen-twentieths of mankind, even in those parts of our present
world which are least deep in barbarism; and it often has to be done
voluntarily by the hero or the martyr, for the sake of something which
he prizes more than his individual happiness. But this something, what
is it, unless the happiness of others or some of the requisites of
happiness? It is noble to be capable of resigning entirely one's own
portion of happiness, or chances of it: but, after all, this
self-sacrifice must be for some end; it is not its own end; and if
we are told that its end is not happiness, but virtue, which is better
than happiness, I ask, would the sacrifice be made if the hero or
martyr did not believe that it would earn for others immunity from