In setting forth a definition of happiness we have to recognize the marvellous complexity of human nature. We have to take into account not only variations distinctive in, and native to, separate individuals, but the gradations and variations within each individual arising from progress, or the reverse, in his or her outward condition and inward development. Contentment means the satisfaction of desire. But desire may be directed to the physical plane, the emotional plane, the mental plane, the spiritual plane. The harmony of all life is happiness, and brings blessedness or peace. Having shown that practically infants, children, young men and women, adults and old people of every social class are similarly engaged in seeking happiness, each according to his tastes and tendencies controlled by his personal, social and spiritual development; having shown also that thinkers and writers offer no condemnation, I proceed to point out that this universal habit is in harmony with evolution. It tends to personal evolution, i.e., to expansion and elevation of character and capacities. Moreover, it tells favourably on general life. It tends to social evolution, i.e., to expansion and elevation of the social organism or collective society so long as the method pursued by each individual is unhurtful to the other organic units incorporated in that society. To seek to attain happiness at the expense of other human beings whose happiness is thereby sacrificed, is of course evil. It is anti-social, or vicious, i.e., it is wholly adverse to personal evolution and social evolution, in other words, to general progress. But given a society that has carefully surrounded its units by conditions of personal freedom (harmonious with general well-being) in which to seek innocent happiness, the normal man or woman on a level with the average of his race is not in any danger of preferring the vicious course. That we confuse a wholesome love of pleasure with selfishness arises from the fact that individual selfishness unhappily is developed by our present evil system of life. Notwithstanding, it is easy to show the real value of pleasure by its ready alliance with unselfishness. A significant feature is this—people take pleasure in uniting for pleasure. Sensuous pleasures are taken as a rule, socially, it being recognized that to civilized man the presence of the enjoyment of others enhances his personal enjoyment. The physiological effect of pleasure is to promote health and activity. “Every pleasure raises the tide of life; every pain lowers the tide of life,” says Herbert Spencer. The pleasures of love are essentially and pre-eminently invigorating and social. It is only when they are selfishly pursued that evil creeps in, and what should produce the purest happiness becomes degraded into a source of misery.