troducing some sort of order into the great
variety of matters upon which advice will be given in the following
pages, I shall distribute what I have to say under the following
heads: (1) general rules; (2) our relation to ourselves; (3) our
relation to others; and finally, (4) rules which concern our manner of
life and our worldly circumstances. I shall conclude with some remarks
on the changes which the various periods of life produce in us.

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL RULES.--SECTION 1.

The first and foremost rule for the wise conduct of life seems to me
to be contained in a view to which Aristotle parenthetically refers in
the _Nichomachean Ethics_:[1] [Greek: o phronimoz to alupon dioke e ou
to aedu] or, as it may be rendered, _not pleasure, but freedom from
pain, is what the wise man will aim at_.

[Footnote 1: vii. (12) 12.]

The truth of this remark turns upon the negative character of
happiness,--the fact that pleasure is only the negation of pain, and
that pain is the positive element in life. Though I have given a
detailed proof of this proposition in my chief work,[1] I may supply
one more illustration of it here, drawn from a circumstance of daily
occurrence. Suppose that, with the exception of some sore or painful
spot, we are physically in a sound and healthy condition: the sore of
this one spot, will completely absorb our attention, causing us to
lose the sense of general well-being, and destroying all our comfort
in life. In the same way, when all our affairs but one turn out as
we wish, the single instance in which our aims are frustrated is a
constant trouble to us, even though it be something quite trivial. We
think a great deal about it, and very little about those other and
more important matters in which we have been successful. In both these
cases what has met with resistance is _the will_; in the one case, as
it is objectified in the organism, in the other, as it presents
itself in the struggle of life; and in both, it is plain that the
satisfaction of the will consists in nothing else than that it meets
with no resistance. It is, therefore, a satisfaction which is not
directly felt; at most, we can become conscious of it only when we
reflect upon our condition. But that which checks or arrests the will
is something positive; it proclaims its own presence. All pleasure
consists in merely removing this check--in other words, in freeing us
from its action; and hence pleasure is a state whi