“The question I want to ask you is this: I have heard you speak about _happiness_ and _truth_ several times. What do you understand by happiness and by truth? What is your idea of them? Will you be kind enough to give us a brief explanation of them before you proceed at your announced topic? I would like to know how your idea of happiness and truth coincide with our theological view of them.” “Very well,” responded Mr. Midith. “_Happiness_, or _pleasure_, is a feeling which we seek to bring into consciousness and retain there, while _misery_, or _pain_, is a feeling which we seek to get out of consciousness and to keep out. Hence all sentient beings of which we have any knowledge are in pursuit of the greatest happiness. Happiness is the aim and end of _all_. One plainly sees, then, that all activity and quietude of sentient organisms, whether man or beast, have for their ultimate end the acquisition of the highest attainable state of happiness. Health, wealth and intelligence are intrinsically worthless. They can only be the _means_ by which we can attain the _end_--which is always happiness, and the principle remains the same, whether the duration of this happiness is but for a moment or for an eternity; whether the receiver intends to enjoy it in this life only, or in some supposed life to come also. “If I myself and my fellow-beings were just as happy, it would be of no consequence to me or to any one else whether I were blind or had excellent sight, whether sound or diseased, whether intelligent or ignorant, whether kind or cruel, whether honest or dishonest, whether rude or polite, whether truthful or untruthful, whether rich or poor, whether praised or scorned, whether master or slave. “It is, however, the nature of blindness, disease, ignorance, slavery, etc., to produce _misery_, and _therefore_ we call them _evils_. When we are not afflicted with them we seek to avoid them; when we are afflicted with them we seek to cure them. From the foregoing conclusions we are forced to admit that, _as a whole_, acts causing pleasure or happiness are conducive to life, while on the other hand, those causing pain or misery are destructive to life as a whole. Under no other conceivable conditions is it possible for a race of sentient creatures to evolve, maintain and perpetuate itself; for if, as a whole, acts destructive to life were more pleasurable than those which conduce to the fullness of it, the race of sentient beings, even as it now exists, would soon become extinct; for pleasure, or happiness, is a feeling which we seek to bring into consciousness and retain there. “To eat gives us more happiness than it does to starve; therefore we eat. To wear clothes gives us, as a whole, more happiness than the efforts to obtain them cause misery. To live in society gives us, in an average, more pleasure than the social discord causes pain. This, then, is in brief our idea of general happiness. Now for _truth_.