Читать книгу The Pursuit of Happiness: A Book of Studies and Strowings - Daniel G. Brinton - Страница 5

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In science a definition is not a resting-place, but a stepping-stone. It is needless, therefore, to call the catalogue of obsolete and obscure definitions of happiness. Some, indeed, say that the definition, like the thing itself, is still unfound.

I do not think this is so. Between the physiologists and the psychologists, I believe we are in a position to explain what happiness is; and if in parts the explanation is a trifle subtle, it is not really obscure.

Happiness is not the same as pleasure, but it is generally built upon or grows out of pleasurable feelings. We must begin, therefore, our analysis with these, and with their opposites—the painful feelings.

Pleasure and pain are both ultimate and undefinable experiences of the mind. We cannot resolve them further; but we can note certain unfailing relations they bear to the organism, which explain their significance. Pleasure characterizes the normal and unimpeded exercise of physiological functions of all kinds. There are as many elementary pleasures as there are sensations. Pain is present only in the reverse conditions. Modern physiologists have established, therefore, the fundamental law, that pleasure connects itself with vital energy, pain with its opposite; in which they have not gone beyond, even if they have caught up to, the maxim of Spinoza: “Pleasure is an affection whereby the mind passes to a greater perfection; pain is an affection whereby it passes to a lesser perfection.”

Such is the meaning of pleasure or of pleasurable feelings; and there is no lack of writers, and weighty ones, too, who maintain that happiness is merely the excess of pleasure over pain; or the utmost pleasure we are capable of; or the aggregate of continued pleasurable feelings. All such phrases are wide of the mark. They confound distinct things, and ignore the boundaries between the different realms of mental action.

We must leave the physiologists and turn to profound analysts of purely mental action, such as Hume and Kant, for the right understanding of the meaning of happiness. For these, its inseparable factors, are the Will and Self-consciousness. As Kant expresses it—“The Desire of Happiness is the general title for all subjective motives of the Will.” Desire is really stimulated, not by the image of past pleasure, as Locke and his followers teach, but by the conception of Self. The satisfaction of desire is not merely such, but is the satisfaction of the Self, in thus reaching a greater perfection, to use Spinoza’s phrase. Only by discriminating the object from the Self can the pleasure of the subject become an end in itself. Hence the real aim of the pleasure-seeker, though he is rarely intellectually conscious of it, is to feel his own Self, his own being, more keenly. Aristotle expressed this when he wrote—“Pleasure is the feeling which accompanies Self-realization.”

To the extent, therefore, that pleasure develops the sense of Self-consciousness it partakes of a higher nature than mere sensation, which man shares in common with the brutes; and to that extent it can claim the name of Happiness, a feeling inseparable from free will and conscious individuality. In man a true pleasure must always be a pleasure in something else than the pleasure itself; that is, it must heighten the sense of personal existence.

It is only the conception of Self as a permanent subject to be pleased, that stimulates man to fresh endeavors, that makes him seek knowledge and freedom, that lifts him above the beast, contented with the satisfaction of its appetites. This is what Fichte meant when he said that the consciousness of Self alone enables us to understand life and enjoy it. Nothing is truer than the motto, “Être heureux, c’est vivre,”—to be happy is to live.

Here, again, some uneasy moralist will point the finger and raise the cry of “selfishness.” It is time to have done with this purblind, this high-gravel-blind moralist, who refuses to distinguish between self-feeling and self-seeking. There are two self-loves. The one is inseparable from personal existence, the necessary point of departure of every conscious action, whose activity and whose end are alike in the object outside of the self; the other is that egoism which directs both the action and its end toward itself. The former is fecund, ennobling, inspiring; the latter is sterile and enfeebling. Rightly understood, nothing is so admirable as self-love; but love yourself, not for what you are, but for what you may be. The wisest of teachers set no higher mark for duty than, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” It was a modern and unphilosophical derogation which substituted for it, “Vivre pour autrui.” In living the best for ourselves, we live the best for others.

The conclusion which we have now arrived at, that happiness is the increasing consciousness of Self, leads us to reflect whether this mental state is brought about solely by what is generally known as “pleasures,” or whether some other feeling, not usually classed as such, may not have the same effect. Man can enjoy only through action, and all his happiness depends on action; but there may be a great deal and very intense activity in spheres of experience to which the terms pleasure and pain, in their physiological sense, do not apply. Indeed, such activities may be present along with physical pain and mental suffering, and yet the law hold good: that if these are of a nature to exalt the consciousness of self, they may be a well-spring of happiness under circumstances the most unfavorable. This explains a passage of Epictetus which I thought over a long time before I mastered its significance—“Happiness is an equivalent for all troublesome things;” not that it excludes or abolishes them, but that it is a compensation for them. This puts the whole art of happiness in a different light. It may teach us to avoid some pains and troubles, and this is well; but the best of it will ever be to give us an equivalent for the many that remain. Any text-book of felicity which leaves this out of account may as well be burned by Monsieur de Paris.

Now we can understand what Plato meant when he said that the right aim of living should stand out of relation to pleasure or pain. He had in mind these other activities which give in some natures an intenser sense to self-consciousness than any mere nerve reaction. The ancient ideal was the greatness of the individual, the richness of his imagination, the reach of his intellect, the strength of his will, the firmness of his friendship, the devotion of his patriotism, the singleness of his life and purpose in some noble aim. This it was that floated before the intellectual vision of Plato and led him to scorn the pleasures of the sense and the charms of tranquillity.

Let us applaud him; for we moderns are not ignorant of the luxury of toil and the joy of strong endeavor; we too, like Othello, “do agnize an alacrity for hardness;” with Seneca we can say, “Res severa est verum gaudium.” But we hold it needless and unwise to leave any sunny field uncultured on whose soil may be trained to bloom the fragrant flower of pleasure.

The yearning for joy is a cry of nature which can never be stifled. Give heed to it and obey it. It calls you to wider horizons, to warmer sympathies, to a fuller growth, to a completer development. It holds the secret of Evolution. It is the incessant prompter to a higher form of existence. Biologists have discovered that the avoidance of painful and the search for pleasurable sensations are the first principles of organic animal life, and are those which have developed the amœba into the man. In him, this general consciousness has blossomed into Self-consciousness, and to this he owes all the growth of his higher nature, his essentially human powers. To the extent that this is brought into harmony with the sum of his faculties and with his surroundings, he wins that something greater than pleasure which we call happiness. From the culture of this, if from any source, he must look for the advent of those new spirit-powers which more fortunate generations in the hereafter may enjoy. Who knows but those, our dear children of after days, may gain a still higher form of consciousness, one through which they will be brought into harmony with the perfect working of the Cosmos, and the ancient fable be realized, of men who walked the earth as gods?