between aesthetics and _hedonics,_
and the nature of that objectification in which we have placed the
difference between beauty and pleasure.

So long as happiness is conceived as a poet might conceive it,
namely, in its immediately sensuous and emotional factors, so long
as we live in the moment and make our happiness consist in the
simplest things, -- in breathing, seeing, hearing, loving, and
sleeping, -- our happiness has the same substance, the same
elements, as our aesthetic delight, for it is aesthetic delight that
makes our happiness. Yet poets and artists, with their immediate
and aesthetic joys, are not thought to be happy men; they
themselves are apt to be loud in their lamentations, and to regard
themselves as eminently and tragically unhappy. This arises from
the intensity and inconstancy of their emotions, from their
improvidence, and from the eccentricity of their social habits.
While among them the sensuous and vital functions have the upper
hand, the gregarious and social instincts are subordinated and often
deranged; and their unhappiness consists in the sense of their
unfitness to live in the world into which they are born.

But man is pre-eminently a political animal, and social needs are
almost as fundamental in him as vital functions, and often more
conscious. Friendship, wealth, reputation, power, and influence,
when added to family life, constitute surely the main elements of
happiness. Now these are only very partially composed of definite
images of objects. The desire for them, the consciousness of their
absence or possession, comes upon us only when we reflect, when
we are planning, considering the future, gathering the words of
others, rehearsing their scorn or admiration for ourselves,
conceiving possible situations in which our virtue, our fame or
power would become conspicuous, comparing our lot with that of
others, and going through other discursive processes of thought.
Apprehension, doubt, isolation, are things which come upon us
keenly when we reflect upon our lives; they cannot easily become
qualities of any object. If by chance they can, they acquire a great
aesthetic value. For instance, "home," which in its social sense is a
concept of happiness, when it becomes materialized in a cottage
and a garden becomes an aesthetic concept, becomes a beautiful
thing. The happiness is objectified, and the object beautified.

Social objects, however, are seldom thus aesthetic, because they