Let us not, however, mistake this mutual sacrifice for a moral solution. And if no practicable compromise is discoverable-well, if I were one of the parties I should then make the typical utilitarian calculation of profit and loss and ask myself how far it would pay me to yield the points now left in dispute, how far to fight for them. But when it comes to this we have left the moral world well in the distance.

CHAPTER XIII

THE ENJOYMENT OF LIFE

§ 48. The Epicurean attitude. § 49. An Epicurean confession. § 50. Epicurus and Pater. §51. Enjoyment and imagination. § 52. The enjoyment of friendship and the enjoyment of religion. § 53. Serious enjoyment.

N connection with the pragmatic attitude it was said that the significance of any temporal moment of life, or the meaning of any present desire, might be anything you please; "the present" is a question of the present scope of imagination. The same indefinite possibility

confronts us when we think to define the boundaries of human nature. Could we think of the human being simply as an organism with a definite habitat and a restricted span of life, we might then formulate a definite "science of ethics", based upon human nature as a natural fact, undisturbed by suggestions metaphysical. But such a science of ethics would hardly merit the name of moral philosophy. The "moral nature" of man implies that he is not a mere organism but an organism which is selfconscious and critical, an organism with imagination. To human nature as thus conceived it seems difficult to assign any "natural" boundaries.

In the previous chapters I have found it convenient to take human nature, generally speaking, as it "is". But now it seems that to leave the story at this point is to omit all the deeper issues of moral philosophy; and to impose upon the critical life a termination artificially abrupt― even though we foresee that further inquiry will be inquiry without end. Accordingly I shall go on, in these remaining chapters, to pursue as certainly as I can the more

reflective implications of the critical life. I shall begin in the present chapter by asking what is meant by the enjoyment of life.

§ 48

The question relates to the possibility of maintaining in the form of a critical life what in general terms may be described as an Epicurean attitude. Now it happens that the Epicurean (using the term in its broadest sense) is the person who is supposed to make the critical life his special profession; by which I mean that he lays a special claim to sophistication, regarding himself perhaps as the finally sceptical and disillusioned. It is he who has laid bare the vanity of most of the satisfactions that men seek, the vanity of social or political or literary distinction, the vanity of wealth and no less the vanity of the satisfaction afforded by the crude gratification of sensual appetite. But above all it is he who has demonstrated the vanity of religious hopes or fears, the vanity of all considerations relating to the fact of death. Reading Epicurus or Lucretius, one feels that in their view the one thing necessary for human salvation is indifference to death. The gods exist-perhaps; but whether they exist or not, we may be sure that the matter is no concern of ours. Human life must stand upon its own basis. Therefore let us cultivate our garden and not look beyond.

What, then, has life to offer? Well, for the Epicurean not a great deal, but something worth while if we moderate our expectations. The enjoyment of friendship, for example, if we are careful not to expect too much of our friends; and this calls for an attitude of amiability and cheerfulness, of urbanity and graciousness, and a kindly tolerance of human weaknesses. The art of life is to take men and things as we find them and to cultivate a taste for what they actually have to give us. To Epicurus and his friends it seemed that the chief fruits of the garden were the persons of one's inner circle. The Epicurean of the modern sort attaches more importance to the enjoyment

of beauty and he may even add to this the enjoyment of religion. Any aspect of life may conceivably appeal to his taste for enjoyment simply as an aspect of life; that is, as a variety of sensation or of feeling. But in all such he conceives that he is dealing only with immediate and tangible realities. The sensation or the feeling is a realized fact; the cognitive significance of a sensation or a feeling is a vain speculation. And whatever may be true or false in the realm of speculation, it cannot change the nature of what is perceived, or felt, as a matter of fact.

$ 49

Whether I am by nature and temperament an Epicurean, I hardly know-certainly I find the Epicurean urbanity a difficult achievement. But as a moral philosopher I should be willing to call myself an Epicurean if only I might be permitted to remain a critical Epicurean; and in any case it has been my purpose in the foregoing chapters to justify the Epicurean demand for the enjoyment of life as an element essential to morality. I will therefore venture to illustrate my Epicurean sympathies somewhat as follows. When I see a group of children playing happily together, or at least with fair success managing their own affairs, my instinctive feeling is, Leave them alone. It seems to me something of an impertinence to show them how they ought to manage their affairs and especially to show them how they ought to play their game. And if it be said that the game if properly supervised could be made an instrument of self-culture and of moral discipline, my reply would be that they are getting the best sort of discipline as it is if only they are alive and playing the game. It may be only too necessary presently to interrupt them for the purpose of "training" them, along lines not spontaneously suggested by their interests, to meet the demands of a sternly practical world. But I do not feel called upon to add to the sternness of the world. I suspect indeed that sternness closes the mind instead

of opening it. And I should really like to believe that education could be left to the play of native interests. I am compelled rather to believe that native interests might fail to assert themselves apart from the discipline of life. Even so I can see no reason why I should artificially intensify the discipline of life.

As an Epicurean I should like to extend to men in general the kind of indulgence-deference, I prefer to call it that I have in mind for the children. I wish to respect men's enjoyments, to let them live, and grow through living. I have no desire to "organize" them; and I refuse to be organized myself beyond what is plainly necessary for practical purposes. I might almost say, with Mr. Santayana, that I wish them only "simple happiness". At any rate I will quote his words as saying so much better than any of my own very nearly what I mean!

"I find that I am sometimes blamed for not labouring more earnestly to bring down the ideal good of which I prate into the lives of other men. My critics suppose, apparently, that I mean by the ideal good some particular way of life or some type of character which is alone virtuous, and which ought to be propagated. Alas, their propagandas! How they have filled this world with hatred, darkness, and blood! How they are still the eternal obstacle, in every home and every heart, to a simple happiness! I have no wish to propagate any particular character, least of all my own; my conceit does not take that form. I wish individuals, and races, and nations to be themselves, and to multiply the forms of perfection and happiness, as nature prompts them. The only thing which I think might be propagated without injustice to the types thereby suppressed is harmony; enough harmony to prevent the interference of one type with another, and to allow the perfect development of each type."

1 Bosanquet, the high-priest of absolutism, quotes from Mark Pattison "the force of individual character generated by the rule of Calvin at Geneva"; which means, I suspect, that dogmatism on the part of the master generates an equally dogmatic opposition on the part of the pupil. Calvinism is a system by which each exacts retribution from his children for the discipline inflicted by his parents.

2 From his essay, "On My Friendly Critics", in Soliloquies in England, London, 1922.