cases where conduct which we agree is right is not even likely to bring the greatest happiness attainable; where not only immediate but lasting happiness is to be deliberately sacrificed in the name of morality?  Suppose, for example, a politician who becomes convinced of the evils of the liquor trade ruins his career in a hopeless fight against the saloons.  He loses his office, his income, his honor in the sight of his associates; he brings suffering upon his innocent wife and children; and all for no good, since his fight is futile and ineffective.  Surely any one could foresee that such action would make only for unhappiness, or for no happiness commensurable with the sacrifice.  Yet if we agree with his premise, that the liquor trade is a curse to humanity, we deem his conduct not only conscientious but objectively noble and right.  How can we justify that judgment?

In the first place, we cannot be sure, beforehand, that such a fight will not be successful.  Forlorn hopes sometimes win.  We must encourage men to venture, to take chances; only so can the great evils that ride mankind be banished.  If there is a fighting chance of accomplishing a great good it is contemptible not to try; society must maintain a code that leads at times to quixotic acts.

In the second place, the fight, even if in itself hopeless, is sure to have valuable indirect results.  It arouses others to the need; it stimulates in others the willingness to sacrifice self-interest and work for the general good.  Every such honorable defeat has its share in the final victory.  The subtle benefits that result from such moral gallantry are not evident on the surface, but they are there.  No push for the right is wholly wasted.  It pays mankind to let its heroes lavish their lives in apparently ineffective struggles; through their example the apathetic masses are stirred and moved a little farther toward their goal.

In general, we may say that the belief that virtue is not the right road to happiness betrays inexperience and immaturity of judgment.  A moderate degree of morality saves man from many pitfalls into which his unrestrained impulses would lead him.  The highest levels of morality bring a degree of happiness unknown to the “natural man.”  Who are the happiest people in the world?  The saints; those who are inwardly at peace, who play their part with absolute loyalty.  Even the irremediable misfortunes of life do not affect them as they do the worldly man; they have “learned the luxury of doing good.”  Of morality a recent writer says, “Its distribution of felicity is ideally just.  To him who is most unselfish, who sinks most thoroughly his own interests in those of the race of which he is a unit, it awards the most complete beatitude.” [Footnote:  J. H. Levy, of London, in a funeral oration.] To him who complains that he is moral but not happy, the answer is, Be more moral!  A high enough morality, a complete enough consecration, will lead, in all but very abnormal cases, to happiness in the individual life, as well as make its due contribution to the happiness of others.