OCR Text |
Show ATTAINING HAPPINESS. Elbert Hubbard, an author and journalist, in the last number of the Cosmopolitan, makes a "Declaration," "Dec-laration," in which he holds to be self-evident what he terms certain truths. First: "That man was made to be happy." This is unquestionable, as every soul desires happiness. What the experience of al Imen of all ages indorse is a self-evident truth. But the attainment of that happiness, which Mr. Hubbard calls also a self-evident 'truth, is not so clear to ordinary, mortals. "That happiness," he writes, "is attainable only through useful effort; that useful effort means the proper exercise of all our faculties." The desires of the soul are infinite, and no matter mat-ter how useful the efforts made in the exercise of the faculties, the cravings of the soul for unlimited good cannot be attained. No natural or created good can give complete and lasting happiness to the soul, because there is always present an intuition that it was made for an infinite good. At every step in life, God, who is infinite, presents himself to the soul as its final end and the completion of its happiness. "Useful effort, which means the proper exercise of all our faculties," can give the soul only limited or created good, but that is not sufficient to satisfy the longings of the soul, according to the experience of all. The philosophers and sages of the past and present confirm this self-evident truth. Poets, in bewailing be-wailing the miseries of the human race, have made this unattainable happiness the burden of their song. The desire for happiness is not merely a want, but an affection of the will, or a reaching after the object desired by the soul. This object must be good or appear so to the soul; otherwise the will, acting under the .light of intelligence, would not desire it. This faculty of the soul cannot will what it knows to be evil, yet in its exercise it may choose a lesser to a greater good, because it is free to choose. Other wills, equally enlightened, may choose to act differently. Can Mr. Hubbard decide de-cide who has made "that useful effort by the proper exercise of all his faculties?" Of two contradictories, contradic-tories, both could not have made "the proper exercise exer-cise of the same faculty." Yet it is quite possible that the measure of happiness may be equal. Then it would follow that the improper exercise of the will would be as conducive to happiness, that is, such happiness as Mr. Hubbard contends for, as the proper exercise. Will "the proper exercise of the faculties" prevent pre-vent sickness from entering a happy home, stop earthqtiakes or do away with all the ills and woes to which humanity is subject? If not, that natural happiness, for which the author contends, is not attainable, at-tainable, for these catastrophies disturb the most tranquil souls, and come they will to "useful effort" man who "exercises his faculties properly," as sure as they will to the man who fails to exercise them properly. , What is a self-evident truth to Mr. Hubbard is a self-evident fallacy to every right-thinking man who has had experience of life. Xo matter how carefully one exercises his faculties, he cannot stop the lightning bolt which kills his child, nor prevent the railroad accident which destroys the lives of his friends, thereby causing pain and sorrow, sor-row, and an aching heart. As an author and journalist. jour-nalist. Mr. Hubbard is entitled to praise, but as a ! logician and philosopher his postulates are simply false axioms. |