Such is the result of these external ways of seeking happiness. But we do not fare much better when we turn to that form of happiness which lays claim to a nobler and a spiritual source,--the happiness of the æsthetic life. For the boundaries between this form of happiness and that of mere materialism are by no means easy to define. Æsthetic enjoyment often passes over into mere sensualism, as Goethe, the great model of æsthetic interest, has proved to us both in his poetry--as in the case of Faust--and in his own life. Indeed, the new school of æstheticism runs grave risk of interpreting much in terms of art which is in fact mere materialism. Those who thus seek happiness should recall the saying of their illustrious predecessor, who possessed in an extraordinary degree the capacity to attain whatever happiness in life æstheticism had to offer. “When all is said,” remarks Goethe, “my life has been nothing but care and work. I can even say that in my seventy-five years, I have not had four weeks of real happiness. It has been a continuous rolling up hill of a stone which must ever be pushed again from the bottom.” Four weeks of happiness in seventy-five years! This man of art declares that in his view life is nothing else than misery! There is hardly an honest day-laborer who at the end of his life, full as it may have been of genuine troubles, could give so poor an account of himself. The fact is, then, that human nature seems obviously not intended for this kind of happiness. Life is made for activity; and this kind of receptive enjoyment, even in its highest forms, is designed merely to give flavor and change to life, and to be sparingly used; so that those who give themselves too confidently to such enjoyment bitterly deceive themselves. Genuine happiness cannot be arbitrarily produced. It issues from obedience to a genuine demand of human nature, and from intelligent activity naturally employed. Here is the rational basis of that faith in human equality and that contentment with the simple joys of life, in which people to-day believe much too little, and which awhile ago people praised with perhaps exaggerated sentiment.