How far reasoning on happiness is of any use
The arguments of the Determinist
The arguments for free will
Securus judicat orbis terrarum
Happiness a condition of mind and often confused with the means of attaining it
Circumstances and character contribute to it in different degrees
Religion, Stoicism, and Eastern nations seek it mainly by acting on disposition
Sensational philosophies and industrial and progressive nations seek it chiefly in improved circumstances
English character
Action of the body on happiness
Influence of predispositions in reasonings on life
Promotion of health by legislation, fashion and self-culture
Slight causes of life failures
Effects of sanitary reform
Diminished disease does not always imply a higher level of health
Two causes depressing health
Encroachments on liberty in sanitary legislation
Sanitary education—its chief articles—its possible exaggeration
Constant thought about health not the way to attain it
Some general rules of happiness—1. A life full of work.—Happiness should not be the main object of pursuit
Carlyle on Ennui
2. Aim rather at avoiding suffering than attaining pleasure
3. The greatest pleasures and pains in spheres accessible to all
4. Importance and difficulty of realising our blessings while they last
Comparison and contrast
Content not the quality of progressive societies
The problem of balancing content and the desire for progress
What civilisation can do for happiness
The relation of morals to happiness.—The Utilitarian justification of virtue insufficient
Power of man to aim at something different from and higher than happiness
General coincidence of duty and happiness
The creation of unselfish interests one of the chief elements of happiness
Burke on a well-ordered life
Improvement of character more within our power than improvement of intellect
High moral qualities often go with low intellectual power
Dangers attaching to the unselfish side of our nature.—Active charity personally supervised least subject to abuse
Disproportioned compassion
Treatment of animals
Changes of morals chiefly in the proportionate value attached to different virtues
Military, civic, and intellectual virtues
The mediÆval type
Modifications introduced by Protestantism
Bossuet and Louis XIV.
Persecution.—Operations at childbirth.—Usury
Every great religion and philosophic system produces or favours a distinct moral type
Variations in moral judgments
Complexity of moral influences of modern times.—The industrial type
Qualified by other influences
Unnecessary suffering
Goethe's exposition of modern morals
Morals hitherto too much treated negatively
Possibility of an over-sensitive conscience
Increased sense of the obligations of an active life
In the guidance of life action more important than pure reasoning
The enforcement of active duty now specially needed
Temptations to luxurious idleness
Rectification of false ideals.—The conqueror
The luxury of ostentation
Glorification of the demi-monde
Study of ideals
The human mind more capable of distinguishing right from wrong than of measuring merit and demerit
Fallibility of moral judgments
Rules for moral judgment
The school of Rousseau considers man by nature wholly good
Other schools maintain that he is absolutely depraved
Exaggerations of these schools
The restraining conscience distinctively human.—Comparison with the animals
Reality of human depravity.—Illustrated by war
Large amount of pure malevolence.—Political crime.—The press
Mendacity in finance
The sane view of human character
We learn with age to value restraints, to expect moderately and value compromise
Moral compromise a necessity in life.—Statement of Newman
Impossibility of acting on it
Moral considerations though the highest must not absorb all others
Truthfulness—cases in which it may be departed from
Moral compromise in war
War necessarily stimulates the malevolent passions and practises deception
Rights of war in early stages of civilisation
Distinction between Greeks and Barbarians
Roman moralists insisted on just causes of war and on formal declaration
Treatment of prisoners.—Combatants and non-combatants
Treatment of private property
Lawful and unlawful methods of conducting war
Abdication by the soldier of private judgment and free will
Distinctions and compromises
Cases in which the military oath may be broken.—Illegal orders
Violation of religious obligations.—The Sepoy mutiny
The Italian conscript.—Fenians in the British army
Moral compromise in the law
What advocates may and may not do
Inevitable temptations of the profession
Its condemnation by Swift, Arnold, Macaulay, Bentham
Its defence by Paley, Johnson, Basil Montagu
How far a lawyer may support a bad case.—St. Thomas Aquinas and Catholic casuists
Sir Matthew Hale.—General custom in England
Distinction between the etiquette of prosecution and of defence
The case of Courvoisier
Statement of Lord Brougham
The license of cross-examination.—Technicalities defeating justice
Advantage of trial by jury
Necessity of the profession of advocate
Moral compromise in politics
Necessity of party
How far conscientious differences should impair party allegiance
Lines of conduct adopted when such differences arise
Parliamentary obstruction
Moral difficulties inseparable from party
Evil of extreme view of party allegiance.—Government and the Opposition
Relations of members to their constituents
Votes given without adequate knowledge
Diminished power of the private member
THE STATESMAN
Duty of a statesman when the interests and wishes of his nation conflict
Nature and extent of political trusteeship
Temperance questions
Legitimate and illegitimate time-serving
Education questions
Inconsistency in politics—how far it should be condemned
The conduct of Peel in 1829 and 1845
The conduct of Disraeli in 1867
Different degrees of weight to be attached to party considerations
Temptations to war
Temptations of aristocratic and of democratic governments
Necessity of assimilating legislation
Legislation violating contracts.—Irish land legislation
Questions forced into prominence for party objects
The judgment of public servants who have committed indefensible acts
The French coup d'État of 1851
Judgments passed upon it
Probable multiplication of coups d'État
Governor Eyre
The Jameson raid
How statesmen should deal with political misdeeds
The standard of international morals—questions connected with it
The ethics of annexation
Political morals and public opinion
Moral compromise in the Church
Difficulties of reconciling old formularies with changed beliefs
Cause of some great revolutions of belief.—The Copernican system.—Discovery of Newton
The antiquity of the world, of death, and of man
The Darwinian theory
Comparative mythology.—Biblical criticism.—Scientific habits of thought
General incorporation of new ideas into the Church
Growth of the sacerdotal spirit
The two theories of the Reformation
Modern Ritualism
Its various elements of attraction
Diversity of teaching has not enfeebled the Church
Its literary activity.—Proofs that the Church is in touch with educated laymen
Its political influence—how far this is a test of vitality
Its influence on education
Its spiritual influence
How far clergymen who dissent from parts of its theology can remain within it
Newman on a Latitudinarian establishment
Obligations imposed on the clergy by the fact of Establishment
Attitude of laymen towards the Church
Increasing sense of the relativity of belief
This tendency strengthens with age
The conflict between belief and scepticism
Power of religion to undergo transformation
Probable influence of the sacerdotal spirit on the Church
THE MANAGEMENT OF CHARACTER
A sound judgment of our own characters essential to moral improvement
Analogies between character and taste
The strongest desire generally prevails, but desires may be modified
Passions and habits
Exaggerated regard for the future.—A happy childhood
Choice 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
