of fortune which is below our
own and realising the countless points in which our lot is better than
that of others. As Dr. Johnson says, 'Few are placed in a situation so
gloomy and distressful as not to see every day beings yet more forlorn
and miserable from whom they may learn to rejoice in their own lot.'

The consolation men derive amid their misfortunes from reflecting upon
the still greater misfortunes of others and thus lightening their own by
contrast is a topic which must be delicately used, but when so used it
is not wrong and it often proves very efficacious. Perhaps the pleasure
La Rochefoucauld pretends that men take in the misfortunes of their best
friends, if it is a real thing, is partly due to this consideration, as
the feeling of pity which is inspired by some sudden death or great
trouble falling on others is certainly not wholly unconnected with the
realisation that such calamities might fall upon ourselves. It is worthy
of notice, however, that while all moralists recognise content as one of
the chief ingredients of happiness, some of the strongest influences of
modern industrial civilisation are antagonistic to it. The whole theory
of progress as taught by Political Economy rests upon the importance of
creating wants and desires as a stimulus to exertion. There are
countries, especially in southern climates, where the wants of men are
very few, and where, as long as those wants are satisfied, men will live
a careless and contented life, enjoying the present, thinking very
little of the future. Whether the sum of enjoyment in such a population
is really less than in our more advanced civilisation is at least open
to question. It is a remark of Schopenhauer that the Idyll, which is the
only form of poetry specially devoted to the description of human
felicity, always paints life in its simplest and least elaborated form,
and he sees in this an illustration of his doctrine that the greatest
happiness will be found in the simplest and even most uniform life
provided it escapes the evil of ennui. The political economist, however,
will pronounce the condition of such a people as I have described a
deplorable one, and in order to raise them his first task will be to
infuse into them some discontent with their lot, to persuade them to
multiply their wants and to aspire to a higher standard of comfort, to a
fuller and a larger existence. A discontent with existing circumstances
is the chief source of a de