The consolation men derive amid their misfortunes from reflecting upon the still greater misfortunes of others and thus lightening their own by contrast is a topic which must be delicately used, but when so used it is not wrong and it often proves very efficacious. Perhaps the pleasure La Rochefoucauld pretends that men take in the misfortunes of their best friends, if it is a real thing, is partly due to this consideration, as the feeling of pity which is inspired by some sudden death or great trouble falling on others is certainly not wholly unconnected with the realisation that such calamities might fall upon ourselves. It is worthy of notice, however, that while all moralists recognise content as one of the chief ingredients of happiness, some of the strongest influences of modern industrial civilisation are antagonistic to it. The whole theory of progress as taught by Political Economy rests upon the importance of creating wants and desires as a stimulus to exertion. There are countries, especially in southern climates, where the wants of men are very few, and where, as long as those wants are satisfied, men will live a careless and contented life, enjoying the present, thinking very little of the future. Whether the sum of enjoyment in such a population is really less than in our more advanced civilisation is at least open to question. It is a remark of Schopenhauer that the Idyll, which is the only form of poetry specially devoted to the description of human felicity, always paints life in its simplest and least elaborated form, and he sees in this an illustration of his doctrine that the greatest happiness will be found in the simplest and even most uniform life provided it escapes the evil of ennui. The political economist, however, will pronounce the condition of such a people as I have described a deplorable one, and in order to raise them his first task will be to infuse into them some discontent with their lot, to persuade them to multiply their wants and to aspire to a higher standard of comfort, to a fuller and a larger existence. A discontent with existing circumstances is the chief source of a desire to improve them, and this desire is the mainspring of progress. In this theory of life, happiness is sought, not in content, but in improved circumstances, in the development of new capacities of enjoyment, in the pleasure which active existence naturally gives. To maintain in their due proportion in our nature the spirit of content and the desire to improve, to combine a realised appreciation of the blessings we enjoy with a healthy and well-regulated ambition, is no easy thing, but it is the problem which all who aspire to a perfect life should set before themselves. _In medio tutissimus ibis_ is eminently true of the cultivation of character, and some of its best elements become pernicious in their extremes. Thus prudent forethought, which is one of the first conditions of a successful life,