another, could be regarded as a universal characteristic of our species, his answer was, in broken English, 'Me think dat all men love lazy!"" (Smiles, Character, p. 104). And if the habit of taking one's pleasures passively has once fastened itself upon a person, it is almost impossible to destroy. This is the fundamental reason why sense pleasures tend to destroy the taste for all other kinds. It does not hold for the aesthetic pleasures just in so far as the latter require mental activity. However, as this activity becomes effortless, a temptation to over-indulgence arises which has to be guarded against. The danger that the aesthetic pleasure will destroy all other varieties can only be met by cultivating, at whatever cost, a taste for these other varieties.

We turn to the happiness derived from superiority to others. The happiness of reaching the top of the ladder is apt to mean for most persons the pleasurable consciousness of being superior to others. That this consciousness is a source of pleasure can not be doubted. The question is, does it amount to as much as we commonly suppose?

The first and fundamental defect of this form of pleasure is that it is extremely short-lived. For it arises only when we are comparing what we have or are with what we formerly had or were, or with what others have or are. This is something that is difficult to keep up for any length of time after the new situation has lost its freshness. Our past limitations and inferiorities naturally tend to lapse from memory. Even when we do not actually forget them we lose (and lose very rapidly) the realizing sense of them. But with this gone we have lost our standard of comparison. In a very short time, accordingly, our present status comes to be taken as a matter of course.

It follows from the preceding that where superiority to others is something we have been used to all our lives, we are quite incapable of realizing what its absence would meań, and accordingly its possession can give us little positive happiness. Similarly a man who has never had a sick day in his life seldom stops to congratulate himself upon the fact, and since he cannot realize what he is escaping, never can feel any great amount of joy at the fact even when for a moment, now and then, his attention is called to it.

Paley writes in the chapter already cited: "The pleasure of success is exquisite; so also is the anxiety of the pursuit, and the pain of disappointment and what is the worst part of the account, the pleasure is short lived. We soon cease to look back upon those whom we have left behind; new contests are engaged in, new prospects unfold themselves; a succession of struggles is kept up whilst there is a rival left within the compass of our views and possession; and when there is none, the pleasure, with the pursuit, is at an end."

It is, of course, possible to urge that the attainment of superiority, whether the pleasure it affords be brief or enduring, at all events saves us from the pain due to the consciousness of inferiority. This is, for many persons, very intense and, beyond question, very lasting. Unfortunately, however, if a person once allows the idea of inferiority to others to occupy an important place in his life there is hardly any escape from it. As we walk along a country road we are apt to think, especially if we are somewhat tired, that the next hill will be the last. So it is with the sense of inferiority. We believe that with the next rung of the latter attained we shall be satisfied; this will be, as far as our desires are concerned, the top. But as soon as we have become accustomed to the new position, and that is very soon, there loom up new heights, from which the occupants are in a position to look down upon us, and so on practically in infinitum. In the so-called "best society" there is as much rivalry to be the very center of the circle as there is outside to get into the circle.

Even success, then, seldom serves to destroy the sense of inferiority (except in the enormously conceited who imagine themselves at the top of the top). But what shall we say of the chance which any one has of climbing very far up the ladder? It is obviously very small. From the point of view, therefore, of one's own happiness one will do well to keep within moderate bounds his ambition to be able to look down upon all his rivals.

There is, furthermore, in the pursuit of superiority to others as an end in itself, something that is repellent to the generous nature. The attempt to find happiness in what you must suppose to be the unhappiness of others for if you believe the sense of superiority will give you joy, you must suppose that the sense of inferiority will give those whom you have passed in the race, sorrow-the attempt to build the little structure of your individual happiness upon the broad foundations of the unhappiness of many others is certainly not an aim that can appeal as wholly satisfactory to a person of broad sympathies. He may indeed pass, and try to pass many of his competitors in the exercise of his calling. But his justification for doing so will be the fact that he regards his calling as a part of the service which he owes the world, and accordingly considers himself bound to do his best in it.

There are, however, two kinds of ambition, and one of these is not open to the previous objection, and is far less open than the other form to any of the criticisms thus far urged. These two kinds are in the words of Francis Bacon-the love of excellence and the love of excelling. In practice they may lead to the same kinds of action, but the spirit of one is very different from that of the other. In the latter a man has his eyes solely on the other fellows, and is trying to pass them. In the former, he has before him an ideal of excellence which he is trying to reach regardless of what anyone else is doing. This ideal may be an ideal of skill, whether intellectual, artistic or physical, or char

acter, or of service to others. He who loves to excel is grieved or envious when any one approaches him in attainments. But the lover of excellence may well be desirous of having as many as possible of his fellowmen obtain it with him.

The

Ambition is a fact in the lives of most persons who are good for anything and it is neither possible nor desirable to destroy it. We should rather seek to guide it aright. most permanent satisfactions and those which bring with themselves the minimal risk of disappointment and disillusionment are those obtained by choosing as our aim two things which will turn out to be in most cases but two sides or aspects of the same thing, the attainment of excellence, or the power to do good work, in some form, and the service of our fellow men. In so far as we allow rivalry to be an element of any significance in our lives we shall ordinarily do well to select an activity which we enjoy (so that we shall get that much out of it anyway), and in which we have some native proficiency, and then try to limit our ambition to being a leader among those with whom we come into daily or at least frequent personal contact. In this way we shall escape being galled by the most painful variety of inferiority. Our inferiority to those we do not personally know we can train ourselves to forget.

What then, it will be asked, are the most important sources of happiness? With practically one accord those who have studied this subject answer: (1) Health-not merely in the sense of absence from weakness or disease, but in the sense of abounding physical vigor with the accompanying glow and good spirits. (2) Congenial work, work which is adapted not merely to our tastes but also to our abilities in such a degree that we meet with at least average success. (3) Play, satisfying in character, fruitful of future joys, and properly proportioned in amount to the work of the day. (4) Friendship and love. (5) The service of our fellow men. Under (3) are included the aesthetic pleasures-the enjoyment of the beautiful in nature and art, and the joys of knowledge-delight in the worlds of science, philosophy, and history, and the world of human life about us. If you make a list of the contented and cheerful people whom you know, you will find that they possess most or all of these goods, together with the corresponding inner powers and capacities that render it possible to enjoy them.