aesthetics, or in lying side by side with that, it would give and receive illumination.  The researches now making into the laws and limits of human sensibility, if they have any value, ought to lead to the economy of pleasure and the abatement of pain.  The analysis of sensation and of emotion points to this end.  Whoever raises any question as to human happiness should refer it, in the first instance, to psychology; in the next, to some general scheme that would answer for a science of happiness; and, thirdly, to an induction of the facts of human experience; the three distinct appeals correcting one another.  If psychology can contribute nothing to the point, it confesses to a desideratum for future inquirers.

[HEDONICS SEPARATE FROM ETHICS.]

I am not at all satisfied with the coupling of happiness with ethics, as is usually done.  Ethics is the sphere of duty; happiness is mentioned only to be repressed and discouraged.  This is not the situation for unfolding all the blossoms of human delight, nor for studying to allay every rising uneasiness.  He would be a rare ethical philosopher that would permit full scope to such an operation within his grounds; neither Epicurus nor Bentham could come up to this mark.  But even if the thing were permitted, the lights are not there; it is only by combining the parent psychology and the hedonic derivative, that the work can be done.  It is neither disrespect nor disadvantage to duty, that it is not mentioned in the department until the very end.  To cultivate happiness is not selfishness or vice, unless you confine it to self; and the mere act of inquiring does not so confine it.  If you are in other respects a selfish man, you will apply your knowledge for your own sole behoof; if you are not selfish, you will apply it for the good of your fellows also, which is another name for virtue.

But the obstacles to a science of happiness are not solely clue to the gaps and deficiencies in our psychological knowledge; they are equally owing to the prevailing terrorism in favour of self-denial at all hands.  Many of the maxims as to happiness would not stand examination if people felt themselves free to discuss them.  You must work yourselves into a fervour of revolt and defiance, before you call in question Paley’s declaration that “happiness is equally distributed among all orders of the community”.  I do not know whether I should wonder most at the cheerful temperament or the complacent optimism of Adam Smith, when he asks, “What can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear conscience?"[13] When the greatest philosophers talk thus, what is to be expected from the unphilosophic mob?  The dependence of health on activity is always kept very loose, it may be for the convenience of shutting our mouths against complaints of being overworked.  To render this dependence precise is a matter of pure psychology.

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