CHAPTER XIII.

THE STRUGGLE FOR HAPPINESS.
The secre^ springs of human action are neither the organs of digestion nof**fhose of reproduction.
This is the ultimatum of a science that has demonstrated the fact of life after physical death, and the progress of develop- ment in another world than this.
To know what moves an individual is to know what moves humanity. To know what improves an individual is to know what improves the race. To learn the secret impulse, motive and desire which inspire the individual man to action, is to discover the secret spring of universal human activity.
It will be remembered that each kingdom of Nature is directly controlled by the highest element which goes to energize and vitalize the products of that kingdom. Mankind, therefore, while combining the energies and potencies of all lower elements, are yet dominated by the highest which enters into human nature. Though moved by the impulses, and susceptible to the involun- tary affinities of all lower elements, man's life is nevertheless di- rectly controlled by his highest nature, the intelligent soul.
It is, therefore, to this essential and intelligent soul, or Ego, that we must look for the springs of human action. In this alone can we hope to find a rational explanation of man as he has been, is, and aspires to become.
This statement rests upon certain knowledge of man's psy- chical activities in two correlated worlds of intelligent life. A long and careful study of the intellectual and moral activities of man in two worlds demonstrates that he is moved to such activi- ties by motives which are ethical and individual to himself. This
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is the fact, whether the intelligent Ego be physically embodied or physically disembodied.
Nature's general struggle for the completion of an individual is accompanied, therefore, by a purely ethical motive or struggle on the part of the individual intelligence. This greatest struggle in Nature dawns in animal life, but not until the stage of man does it rise into paramount importance. The difference in the ethical possibilities of animal and human nature is the difference between the potencies and capacities of the spiritual life element and the potencies and capacities of the intelligent self-conscious soul.
Though the individual struggle for an individual completion is the commonest activity of human intelligence, it is neverthe- less a struggle wholly obscured, as such, from the consciousness of the individual. There are good reasons why this greatest struggle in existence is unknown to the popular intelligence. It has never heretofore been disclosed as a scientific principle. Neither physical science nor popular philosophy has, up to this time, apprehended this struggle as a natural and distinct activity of intelligence. It has never been observed as a legitimate process of evolution.
It was not until Darwin's exposition that the world discovered the universal struggle for nutrition, and in the same way the tremendous moral significance of reproduction was overlooked until it was laid bare by Mr. Drummond.
Thus, while the struggle for self-completion is the universal struggle of human intelligence, the average individual lives, strug- gles, and dies, without having recognized the real motives of his own activities. It is safe to say that not one out of every hun- dred ever formulates the ultimate motives of his own daily activi- ties. It is true that the poets and singers have dimly grasped this great law of completion, just as they foreshadowed the evolution- ary ascent of physical man. These, however, we classify as pro- phets or dreamers, whose visions simply furnish us literary enter- tainment.
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In the great active world of human affairs this greatest strug- gle passes under countless disguises. It is known under an infi- nite variety of names. Every man is engaged in it, yet none ap- pears to realize that he is so engaged. Men appear to themselves and to others to be doing an infinite variety of things. This, in a physical sense, and even in a purely intellectual sense, is quite true. In an ethical sense, however, all men are in reality doing the same thing. In reality, all men are struggling for the same ultimate ethical state of the soul.
Though the struggle for self-completion has hitherto found no expression through science, though it is nameless to the popular mind, it is a struggle too well known to the soul of every individual. Be the man high or low, civilized or savage, wise or simple, he is none the less conscious of one impulse that moves him, one motive that sustains him, and one desire that inspires him.
If we substitute another term for the scientific struggle for self-completion, the ethical struggle which accompanies the vis- ible, physical activities of life shall be made clearer to the reader. It is possible that by a mere change of terms we shall disclose that which is the most familiar state of our own being.
When we declare that the main activity of human intelligence is The Struggle for Happiness, we have only stated the struggle for completion in another way. We have only stated the com- monest fact of daily life, and the most familiar experience of our own souls.
This, then, a state of individual, ethical content and happiness, is the inspiration and the goal of every human activity. Here we finally come to that struggle in human nature which must take the place of Darwin's "Struggle for Nutrition," and Drummond's "Struggle for Reproduction." It takes the place of those strug- gles, but not in the sense of denying their existence, their value or their influence. The Struggle for Happiness merely assumes the leading role in human life, in place of those involuntary activ-
240 HARMONICS OF EVOLUTION.
ities which sustain the physical processes of nutrition and repro- duction.
This universal struggle of the intelligent soul is foreshadowed in every activity of every lower entity. In each human being is repeated all of the demands of all the lower elements. That is to say, the physical body represents the play of the electro-magnetic and vito-chemical life elements, while in the physical appetites and passions are displayed the energies of the spiritual life ele- ment. In man, however, there are demands which transcend both the chemical requirements of the body and the physical sat- isfactions of the appetites and passions. These other higher de- mands have their source in the soul, and require satisfaction in the nature and quality of the soul element.
These are demands which govern the rational and moral de- velopment of human nature and have to do with the evolution of happiness.
For that which the soul demands, human language has found but one definition. There is but one word for it, and this is an ethical word. No other word nor elaboration of words could better explain or define that certain ethical desire which univer- sally exists in the intelligent soul. When the higher science de- clares that the main activity of human intelligence is The Strug- gle for Happiness, it has explained the nature of the condition desired, as explicitly as human language permits.
Up to this time the world has never seriously considered hap- piness as either a natural phenomenon, as a normal state of being, or as the scientific basis of the philosophy of life. Physical sci- ence, in its engrossment with the involuntary operations of food combinations, with the instincts of reproduction, and the influ- ences of environment, has absolutely ignored the operations of in- dividual intelligence which govern the higher phenomena of life. The intellectual and moral energies and capacities and mo- tives of the individual man have been obscured by a method of study which excludes everything but the physical improvement of species.
THE STRUGGLE FOR HAPPINESS. 241
A science, therefore, which is prepared to sponsor a natural philosophy of human happiness must be prepared to meet the criticism of scholars who have reached other conclusions.
Physical science has no room in its method for the study of intellectual and moral phenomena. On the other hand, pessi- mistic philosophies, contaminated by continual association with disease, crime and abnormality, come to regard human happi- ness as a delusion of the mind, the dream of dreams, without basis in fact, a hollow echo of physical appetites and passions. Even religion, which recognizes a struggle of the soul for happi- ness, has not located that struggle as directly bearing upon this mortal life. On the contrary, it has almost universally regarded this struggle as one whose aim and fruition belong to another world than this.
Sacred literature nowhere contains a nobler inspiration of human intelligence than that embodied in our own Declaration of Independence. When* it affirmed that among the inalienable rights of man are "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," the United States Government took its stand upon the most exalted interpretation of Nature.
Nobody, be he scientist, or pessimist, or theologian, will deny that happiness is the most desirable state of being. If honest with himself, he will admit that a longing for this condition is the secret spring of his own higher activities. Indeed, if one studies, not the operations of physical functions, but the lives of his neighbors, he will discover that the hope and expectation of happiness sustain the individual man during the struggle for nutrition and the individual woman in her reproductive sacrifices.
How to secure this individual content is the first question which human reason puts to Nature. To this search of imma- ture minds for an individual and ethical content we owe the steady development of intelligence and morality.
To discover the most direct route to this desirable estate has absorbed the energies of individual intelligence for ages. The
knowledge acquired throughout the process constitutes our civil- 16
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ization with all of its science, art, literature and learning, together with all of its religions, philosophies, and philanthropies.
Ideals as to what constitutes happiness have, therefore, varied as much as individuality itself. They have differed as much as do men in point of time, race, country and development.
The important question to science is not what manner of ideals men have set up to mark the goal of human will and de- sire. It is not what men seek and name as happiness. That which is important to science is the fact that the individual man cherishes such an ideal and seeks a certain ethical condition as the end and aim of all his acts and accomplishments.
Ignorant of the vibratory principle in Nature, and ignorant of evolutionary processes and possibilities, man works out his happi- ness under seemingly hostile conditions. Those conditions, how- ever, are only seemingly hostile, for to one familiar with the corre- lation of forces they are seen as beneficent conditions only. Only just such conditions could have developed a rational and moral human being. At the beginning the individual has no remote conception of the laws which govern individual happiness. He does not even speculate as to why he desires this state of being. He has no theories as to a law of harmony in life. Only after ages of experiment and penalty does he discover that there is an immutable principle in Nature which governs physical equi- librium and ethical harmony or content.
The primitive man has only his crude impulses and ambitions to guide him. His rational intelligence is not equal to the con- sideration of general laws. All he feels are his impulses of attrac- tion and repulsion. He is conscious only of his necessities and desires. He is conscious only of love or hate, or sorrow or satis- faction. He only knows that he is content in the possession of that which he craves, and discontented or unhappy when deprived of his desires.
Because of this undeveloped reason, the Struggle for Happi- ness has been subject to every character of experiment which the imperious will and strong passions of man, and the weakness and
THE STRUGGLE FOR HAPPINESS. 243
stupidity of woman could suggest. It has been subject to glut- tony and lust, to fierce ambition, avarice and vanity. It has dis- played every variation that animalism, cruelty and folly could suggest to ignorant men and women as means to an end.
The history of human development proves that happiness — the goal of human desires — is a state of consciousness that does not depend upon the physical appetites and passions, nor upon the acquisition of material wealth. It proves further, that not even power or position or fame or honor is the guaranty of this cov- eted estate. Because of this universal fact, painfully demon- strated throughout the ages, there should be little wonder that the scientist and philosopher become skeptical on the subject of human happiness.
It is nevertheless true that the repeated failures of the past have not served to wipe out the hope and expectation of happi- ness from the minds of succeeding generations. This is a fact which can not be accounted for by the laws of heredity, as laid down by physical science. Does it not rather suggest that Na- ture, here as elsewhere, has really furnished adequate laws for what appears to be a universal necessity?
If happiness were the outcome of physical satisfactions, man had never progressed beyond the limit of Nature's sufficiency. If the organs of digestion and reproduction were the real inspira- tions of life, then human intelligence had never risen beyond ap- preciation of the pleasures of appetite and of lust.
Physical nature is, in fact, easily satisfied. So easily, indeed, that without the higher intelligent ambitions and desires, life had never passed the stage of savagery. If material possession (sur- passing physical necessity) created happiness, then the words "wealth" and "happiness" were synonymous. Is this the fact? On the contrary, what more abject being exists than the miser, the soul who has bent its energies along lines below its natural level? Is it not also true that the sorrows of the rich are as commonly exploited as the miseries of the poor?
Nor is happiness the result or outcome of a biological need.
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On the contrary, most of the disease and much of the crime and sorrow of human life are the direct results of perversion in the physical sex relation. The most unhappy and the most de- graded of mortals are those who seek happiness through the physical appetites and passions. The personal life history of the glutton, the libertine and the prostitute would carry its own proof of this statement. The attempt to satisfy the soul through the body always has been and always will be the most lamentable mistake that a rational being can make.
Nor is happiness bound up in maternity. The universal sacri- fice of woman in this relation needs no comment. The unhappi- ness imposed upon woman by masculine lust and by compulsory child bearing, is a matter well known, at least to woman herself. Children do bring love. They may prove to be a pleasure and a consolation, but a woman never yet realized the sum of her de- sires in "paying the eternal debt of motherhood."
Human happiness results from neither a competitive struggle for nutrition nor a compulsory struggle for reproduction. On the contrary, the sources of happiness as far transcend the phys- ical activities of life as the demands of the soul transcend the requirements of the body.
The history of intellectual and moral development is the his- tory of self-conscious intelligences seeking satisfactions which appeal to intelligence alone. The greatest struggle in Nature,-- therefore, rests upon ambitions and ideals which have nothing to do with the involuntary operations of physical nature. To re- late this ethical struggle of the soul with conditions growing out of physical nature is to set intelligence an impossible task. By no trick of imagination can we logically relate the universal am- bitions of intelligence with feeding and breeding. By no process of reason can we confuse the purely ethical rewards which intelli- gence seeks with the purely physical satisfactions which the body demands.
Indeed, the physical deprivations which intelligence suffers in the pursuit of its higher necessities are the commonest facts
THE STRUGGLE FOR HAPPINESS. 245
of human history and individual experience. All that man has accomplished above and beyond animal accomplishment repre- sents the ambitions of an intelligent soul, seeking to gratify itself through possession, power, fame, honor, knowledge and love.
The motives and ambitions which move men to their daring accomplishments reside in the soul and not in the body. The inspirations which have evolved both the word and the ideal of "heroism" have their seat in the brain and not in the stomach.
Take, for illustration, the history of exploration and discovery alone. Before this record of voluntary physical sacrifice, depri- vation and suffering, how insufficient appears the theory of a "struggle for nutrition in the midst of a hostile environment." Among these historical adventurers have been men of strong physical nature and strong physical desires. There have been men of wealth and comfortable condition ; men who literally aban- doned certain physical comfort, for certain physical discomfort, for probable disease, for possible death. What relation, however remote, exists between the demands of nutrition, the instinct of self-preservation, and 'that spirit of daring which braves the un- known dangers and deprivations of the burning tropics or the frozen north? Do any or all of the laws of physical heredity ac- count for those intelligent processes which override the demands of physical nature, mapping out a path of achievement perilous to physical health and even to life itself?
What other possible motive than a purely intellectual ambi- tion could lie at the basis of such adventures?
The history of exploration and discovery is but the history of all higher human achievement. Such achievement is everywhere the record of individual intelligence, aggressive, ambitious and masterful, moving out in new lines, seeking those rewards which only intelligence appreciates. It does not matter whether the particular ambition which moves a certain individual to action, be the desire for wealth, power, knowledge, fame or even love it- self. That which is important is the fact that the higher develop-
246 HARMONICS OF EVOLUTION.
ment of man rests upon psychical ambitions and not upon phys- ical functions.
Whatever may have been the particular motive which inspired a Nero, a Napoleon, a Washington or a Lincoln, that motive can- not be even remotely associated with "the struggle for nutrition in the midst of a hostile environment." The thirst for power and the love of liberty are qualities of the ambitious and intelligent soul. They are not even remotely expressions of physical func- tions or physical compulsions.
What is there in the struggle for nutrition to account for missionary zeal and adventure? Here we have to deal with rational beings who voluntarily resign the physical comforts of life and voluntarily imperil health and even life. For what? Merely that they may educate the ignorant in what is regarded as truth, there- by satisfying an internal ethical need. In this case we have neither ambition, vanity, scientific zeal, nor the love of wealth or power to account for this phenomenon.
Indeed, here is renunciation of not merely physical comfort, but of most of the things which intelligence regards as sources of happiness. The missionary, nevertheless, has done that which, according to his soul's necessities, promises him the greatest measure of ethical content and happiness.
Again, where or how shall we find any relation between the struggle for nutrition and the act of the millionaire who piles up another million? Through what processes of digestion shall we account for the miser, that unhappy being who denies the de- mands of nutrition to satisfy a purely intellectual greed for treas- ure? Or, again, how does the Darwinian theory account for the soldier who rushes to certain death in the midst of battle? How does it account for the deprivations to which the scholar will subject himself in the mere acquisition of knowledge?
To what character of food combinations and to what class of physical competitions must we look for explanation of the in- dividual achievements of scientists, inventors, poets, painters and singers, throughout the world's history?
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Almost universally the history of intellectual development is the history of physical deprivation. It is the record of individual intelligences choosing between comfortable physical conditions and their intellectual ambitions. It is almost universally a his- tory in which the demands of digestion are made secondary to the demands of intelligence. The enforced struggle for nutrition may be a spur to indolence and stupidity, but it is the perpetual stumbling-block to the intellectually ambitious. The absurdities into which the Darwinian theory leads, are not so clear until we attempt to connect the highest expression of pure intelligence and moral heroism with the involuntary operations of chemical sub- stances. The attempt to account for a Christ or a Buddha, or for a Shakespeare or a Plato, by the findings of physical science, is an effort that confuses reason and belies every intuition.
If the theories of evolution seem inadequate to account for intellectual ambition and achievements, how much less does the procreative tyranny account for the love story of the world. How, according to this theory, shall we account for even that law of in- dividual preference which has rescued the animal world as well as the human, from a promiscuous sex relation? With countless opportunities for gratifying purely physical passions, what is there in intelligent Nature which limits individual choice and erects the barrier of a "natural repulsion" ? What is there in the theory of a "tyrannic need of procreation," which explains the death of a human being when disappointed in love, or when separated from the chosen lover by circumstance or death? What is there in human nature that impels a man or woman to suicide when deprived of the love and association with — shall we say the body, or the soul, of some particular individual?
By what perversion of reason can a "biological need" be made to account for such love and such a relation as existed between Petrarch and Laura, Abelard and Heloise, Dante and Beatrice? To claim that such love, even remotely, depends upon the lusts of the flesh, is to debase reason and to desecrate the noblest ideals of our own souls.
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Indeed, the study of the intelligent side of animal life goes to show that the individual animal is given up to the business of living, and is seeking individual satisfactions as eagerly as man himself. The man or woman who owns and loves a dog, knows that the dog has capacities for love and friendship which are wholly unrelated to procreative instincts or even to the affinity of species. The dog that starves and dies upon his master's grave is a singular commentary upon the theory of evolution by diges- tion and a procreative tyranny.
The common sense of the world has come to acknowledge that we must look elsewhere for explanation of a higher evolu- tion of man than in physical feeding, breeding and battle. When science discovered the universal law of completion in Nature, and the universal struggle for self-completion in the individual, that explanation was found. When science recognizes the de- mands of the soul, as well as those of the body, when it perceives a "Struggle for Happiness," as well as a struggle for nutrition and a struggle for reproduction, it is then prepared to analyze man as a physical, intellectual and moral entity.
Intellectual progress was made possible only by the fact that intelligence refuses to be satisfied with those necessities, pleas- ures and powers which belong to the physical plane. The very fact of an intellectual and moral evolution is witness of this higher struggle of the soul to achieve satisfaction in terms of its own essential nature.
The higher philosophy insists that the universal is the natural. It realizes that the desire and the struggle for happiness con- stitute a universal impulse and activity. Men toil, not merely for nutrition and physical necessities, but that life may be sus- tained to achieve results. They toil, hoping to win from toil the conditions for happiness. Men toil, not merely for bread, but for the further satisfaction of that higher nature which is not satisfied by bread alone. They toil that they may achieve knowledge or power or possession, or that they may form those ties which shall guarantee content or happiness to the soul.
THE STRUGGLE FOR HAPPINESS. 249
Happiness and the ideal of happiness are no more the outcome of the struggle for nutrition, than love and the ideal of love are the outcome of the tyrannies of lust or the sacrifices of maternity.
If human development and happiness were indeed the outcome of the struggle for existence in the midst of a hostile environment, then the Laplander and the African should represent the stand- ards of enlightenment and happiness. The truth is, however, that the happiest and the most highly developed human beings are found in the prolific belts of the temperate zones. Nature, there- fore, develops through giving rather than through withholding, through hospitality rather than through hostility. It develops the body through generous nutrition. It stimulates intelligence by furnishing it intellectual ideals. It confers happiness through a natural principle of fulfillment.
Even in savagery the struggle for nutrition is subordinated to the struggle of ambitious intelligence for satisfactions appealing to intelligence only. The savage delights far more in the scalp- locks at his belt, than he does in the spoils of battle. The scalp- locks are the visible sign and symbol of his individual strength and courage and victory over his enemies.
So the millionaire rejoices in his surplus, the result of his individual genius, the passport to public admiration, the sign of his intelligence and power among men.
Thus also the miser enjoys what appeals to intelligence only. He cheats physical nature for a benefit that is solely and only an ethical benefit, a state of consciousness.
It is probable that the Prince of Wales hopes to succeed to the crown of England. If so, what is the basis of that desire? The struggle for nutrition or the Struggle for Happiness? He may look to that succession with mixed motives. His anticipa- tions may be the egoistic pleasures of sovereignty, or altruistic designs for his subjects. In either case he anticipates satisfac- tions which flow from the honors of the one or the privileges of the other. In no remote sense can this occasion contribute to his physical necessities or physical pleasures. On the contrary, here
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is a man whose entire life represents the complete gratification of every physical necessity, appetite and impulse, but it is safe to say that the Prince of Wales has made as vigorous a struggle for individual happiness as the lowliest of his subjects.
The entire history of art is the history of intelligence seeking satisfaction, not because of, but in spite of the exactions of phys- ical nature. It is the history of individuals who have almost uni- versally sacrificed purely physical demands for purely intellectual ambitions. Indeed, the struggle for nutrition has-been the ob- stacle of genius instead of its inspiration, the world over.
Edgar Allen Poe had better served the struggle for nutrition by following the plow instead of the pen. He would have been far more comfortable physically, but who shall say he would have been better satisfied or happier? The life of Poe is but a type of life in Bohemia, where genius suffers and starves that it may pursue its intellectual ambitions and immortalize the ideals of the soul.
Who that considers the voluntary physical deprivations of intelligence the world over, but feels intuitively that the sources of art are as far removed from purely physical functions as the ambitions of the soul are removed from the cravings of the stomach.
Thus also with the motives which inspire men to patriotic and religious martyrdom. The one satisfies conscience in battle for the (to him) ethical principles of right. He battles for life and liberty that he may be free to pursue the struggle — not for nu- trition— but for happiness according to his conscience. The other dies by torture that he may not forfeit his soul's happiness by de- nial of his God.
Thus moves the world of intelligent life. Thus moves the intelligent individual in search of those objects, relations and con- ditions which shall afford a purely ethical content and happiness to the soul.
The ideals of, and the capacities for happiness, are as infinite as individuality itself.
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The Hottentot and the Christian gentleman entertain very different ideals of happiness. So, too, their individual enjoyments are as widely separated as are their ideals. The difference in their ideals and in their ethical satisfactions is measured by the physical, spiritual and psychical differences in their individualities. Happiness, to the highly developed, not only appears more, but is vastly more, by way of effects, than it is to the man of low degree. It is more by way of effects, in that the physical body, the spirit and the soul of the highly developed are keyed to the higher vibrations and the higher harmonies in Nature.
A Digger Indian may experience what to him may be a perfect temporary satisfaction. No one, however, would imagine that he experiences the same ethical enjoyment which a Shelley or a Tennyson might feel in the full realization of his desires and ideals.
For illustration, the man who eats dogs, reptiles and raw meat, creates wholly different vibratory conditions in the organs of taste than the epicure whose sense of taste is keyed to correspond- ence with Nature's finest and most delicate foods. The savage whose food affinities are confined to the coarse in Nature, is ab- solutely incapable of those pleasurable sensations which the epi- cure enjoys. In the same way, the man of cultivated taste sickens at the mere thought of dog meat and reptiles as food. If the savage cannot enjoy the finer effects of finer food through the physical organs of taste, how much less is his undeveloped intel- ligence prepared to understand or enjoy the higher harmonies of the soul life.
Or, again, the savage whose physical ear is attuned to the dis- cordant vibrations of the Tom-Tom cannot be expected to grasp or enjoy the vibratory harmonics of a Beethoven sonata ren- dered in the most approved style of the modern musician.
Both the savage and the scholar enjoy spiritual intuitions. They are not, however, the same class of intuitions. Each re- ceives his intuitions of spiritual things in the degree of his own re- finement, and the acuteness of his spiritual senses. As a result,
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the aesthetic natures of the two vary as widely as the degrees of refinement in their physical and spiritual organisms. Nor does the undeveloped intelligence of the savage formulate moral con- ceptions which are possible to the scholar. Neither is he able to receive the same suggestions from other intelligences, either here or upon the spiritual plane, as the man of developed brain and cultivated moral principles.
Thus, Nature conditions man, and man so conditions himself, that The Struggle for Happiness is an infinitely varied and un- equal struggle, and the capacity for happiness is an infinitely varied and unequal measure.
The Struggle for Happiness is forever subject to the mandates of intuition or those of reason. This means that happiness is a state or condition which depends upon both impulses that are involuntary and judgments that are voluntary and independent.
When primitive man undertakes to shape his course by reason, as well as by intuition, he becomes an independent experimenter in the midst of unknown and seemingly hostile conditions. Thus, he appears to bring confusion into the orderly scheme of Nature. The dark early history of man covers that period when human intelligence abandoned purely intuitive methods before his ra- tional knowledge was sufficient to keep him in harmony with the general laws. As a result, the general harmony which pre- vails in the animal world is lost to man until he becomes a rational and independent demonstrator of the harmonic principles in Nature.
Thus, throughout the ages, The Struggle for Happiness has shaped itself according to the degree and quality of individual development, and the degree of correspondence between reason and intuition.
The inherent elements of masculine and feminine nature con- dition man and woman to pursue the Struggle for Happiness along different lines.
It must be recalled, that man represents the positive and ag- gressive energies of all the life elements, while woman represents
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the receptive or absorbing energies of the same elements. The same inherent principle, therefore, which conditions one atom as positive and another as negative also conditions one intelligent soul as positive and aggressive and the other as receptive and pacific in its nature.
Therefore the same character of energy that impels an uncon- scious physical atom to seek vibratory equilibrium in another atom, impels the self-conscious soul to seek conditions and per- sons in harmony with itself.
In the Struggle for Happiness man represents all aggressive energies and elements, and seeks an individual and ethical con- tent in terms of his essential strength, physical, spiritual and psychical. In the same way, woman, representing all receptive energies and elements, seeks an individual ethical adjustment in consonance with her essential qualities of receptivity, absorption and self-surrender.
The outcome of these two principles, running side by side through evolution, was inevitable. By reason of these innate energies and qualities, the Struggle for Happiness has been char- acterized by force on the masculine side and by self-surrender on that of the feminine.
Perhaps no better definition can be found for the aggressive spirit in which masculine intelligence seeks its own satisfaction than the spirit of Conquest by Force, which stands for war. Per- haps no better definition can be found for the non-resistant spirit in which feminine intelligence seeks its own content than the Spirit of Self-Surrender or Peace.
The one, therefore, the masculine, stands for acquirement and conquest by force, while the other, the feminine, represents ac- complishment by self-surrender.
As already shown, the positive and receptive natures of mas- culine and feminine are accentuated in each higher kingdom. Thus, positive and unconscious energies of mineral and vegetable substance merge into the positive conscious energies of animal in- telligence. These, in turn, re-enforced by a higher element, give
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rise to the positive and aggressive psychical will of man. So on the receptive side of Nature, the powers of absorption increase from the mere material receptivity of mineral and vegetable atoms to the self-conscious psychical desire of the woman.
Thus we have, as the two dominating factors in the psychical Struggle for Happiness, the aggressive will of man on the one side and the absorbing desire of woman on the other. To put it in another way, we have on the one side a forceful or ambitious masculine intelligence, and on the other an intelligence that is pacific and unambitious in its nature.
Thus, it will be seen that the sex principle shapes the higher Struggle for Happiness as it does the lower struggles for nutri- tion and reproduction. It dominates the psychical as well as the physical plane, and governs ethical content as well as the physical functions.
Man pursues his ambitions and ideals in conformity to that strong psychical nature which dominates a strong physical body and strong physical appetites and passions. Moved by the spirit of conquest, he seeks to forcefully wrest his physical comfort and psychical content from Nature and his fellow man. The effect of this masculine inclination to conquer by force has been to largely concentrate his energies upon the physical plane of action. The concentration of will necessary to forceful acquirement keeps him close to the earth plane. As a result masculine activities are characterized by the physical conquest of physical and material nature, and by the attainment of temporal power in the affairs of men. This same spirit of conquest also characterizes masculine sports and even the masculine pursuit of love. Man conquers, acquires, recreates and loves in conformity to his aggressive nature.
War is not a natural necessity in the struggle for nutrition. Nutrition merely furnishes masculinity a pretext for war. In fact, the struggle for nutrition is best conserved by pacific and co- operative methods, rather than by warring and competitive ones.
THE STRUGGLE FOR HAPPINESS. 25$
War is simply the physical, visible sign of the innate masculine constitution — the spirit of conquest by force.
As history shows, this conflict of masculine strength, this struggle for supremacy begins in personal, physical combat. This personal struggle rises to the dignity of rationally organized and directed warfare. This, in turn, merges into purely intellectual controversy, or into contests scientific and philosophic in their nature. In its last analysis, this primitive masculine ferocity is transformed into noble emulation along the higher lines of eth- ical principle, thus furnishing the world its ideals of perfect man- hood.
This contest for individual supremacy, as between man and man, and between schools of men, appears to be the very life of masculine activities. To measure swords with his fellow man, first literally, and then intellectually, is an impulse inherent in man's nature. War, therefore, is not a natural necessity, only in so far as it represents the primitive impulses of barbarous masculine nature. Scientific, philosophic and religious controversy are un- necessary modes of education, except for the fact that undisci- plined masculine intelligence conceives of no better way to impart its truths.
The history of primitive war is not the history of hostile envi- ronment moving upon empty stomachs. Instead, it is the history of fiercely ambitious intelligences moving upon each other for the love of conquest, supremacy and power.
If one doubts that the actual foundation of war lies in mascu- line temperament and not in environment, let him imagine what had been the results if men were of the psychical constitution of women. Nobody will believe that the struggle for nutrition would have engendered war among women. If man represented the same energies which constitute femininity, flags of truce and arbitration treaties would have taken the place of invasion and conquest.
The earth is and has been so prolific in nutrition for all life
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that the theory of war, as a natural necessity in the struggle for nutrition, amounts to an absurdity.
While this is the history of masculine development, exactly the reverse appears in the feminine Struggle for Happiness.
Woman, from the beginning, shapes her desire in conformity to her weaker body and her weaker physical appetites and pas- sions. Conditioned by Nature in every element to non-resistance, her intelligence seeks to conciliate force and to achieve her desires through self-surrender.
The obscuration of woman in the earlier reaches of civili- zation is due as much to her own innate nature as to the tyranny of man. During this long dark period she permitted herself to be overwhelmed by the force and ferocity of the masculine will and masculine passion. She was enslaved mentally as well as physically. Her non-resistant spirit, as well as her physical body, was overshadowed by that of her savage mate. Not man alone, but woman also, is responsible for her long suppression and ob- scuration, for her physical servitude and mental bondage.
Dominated by desires, rather than by ambitions, the ideals of woman did not, in the beginning, necessitate aggressive meth- ods. Lacking the masculine thirst for power and supremacy, she was not impelled to either the forceful acquirement of knowl- edge or the forceful control of environment. Her desires did not necessitate the same concentration of intelligence as to the gen- eral affairs of the world. Her rational powers were, therefore, permitted to lie dormant while her impulses largely shaped her destiny.
Bound to maternal duties and the individual relations of life, woman employed her intelligence along the lines of least resist- ance. As a result, her energies and emotions are more directly employed in the development of the love relations which are personal and individual to herself.
Out of this innate feminine love nature springs that silent, bloodless warfare of rivalry and jealousy as between woman and woman. Between her love of love and her love of beauty, woman
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has occupied herself too much in making herself attractive to men and an object of envy to other women.
If it can be said that masculine nature tends too much to pride of intelligence, it can be truthfully said that feminine nature tends too strongly to vanity of personal appearance and charm. Where man goes to war in support of his convictions and opin- ions, woman employs her intelligence to increase and preserve her personal beauty. The one is bent upon establishing his opin- ions through his strength, the other is consumed with the desire for personal admiration. The one is seeking a personal power, the other a personal love relation.
These are the paths along which the sexes travel. These are the general principles upon which man and woman conceived their ideals of happiness.
In both sexes, however, the low rivalries of undeveloped na- tures are slowly transformed. Masculine combats and contests lose their ferocity and virulence, while women, broadened by ra- tional and moral development, finally rise above the petty rivalries and vanities and jealousies in the love relations of life.
As already explained, the more delicate physical organiza- tion of woman has its basis in the non-resistant spiritual prin- ciple. This means that woman, generally speaking, is in closer touch with and more susceptible to the purely spiritual side of Nature than is man. This greater susceptibility of woman to the vibrations of spiritual material and to the mental suggestions of spiritual intelligences, has two definite results. It gives to woman, first, her finer aesthetic nature, and next, conditions her to receive moral suggestion from the other side of life. This means that woman becomes the aesthetic factor in society and the natural monitor and inspiration along lines purely ethical.
While feminine intuition is a source of certain kinds of knowl- edge, that knowledge has to do with spiritual relations, rather than with physical conditions. For this reason, woman is credited with using her intuitions rather than her rational powers, with being a creature of impulse rather than of reason. While this 17
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criticism is largely a just one, it is nevertheless this feminine power of spiritual intuition which serves to keep the masculine half of humanity in touch with the spiritual side of Nature, and to emphasize the power and importance of the love relations.
Conditioned by Nature to seek her happiness through physical, spiritual and psychical non-resistance, the physical servitude, mental subserviency, and petty vanities and deceptions of woman are explained. Dependent upon her attractions instead of her strength for her victories, moved by impulses rather than by judgments, the subtle and evasive tactics of a woman are easily understood. Feminine intelligence has served feminine weakness in its long Struggle for Happiness by methods which can only be defined as "feminine."
For example, we find illiterate women who are strangely cun- ning and resourceful. We find highly developed women whose diplomacy and tact are the wonder of the masculine mind. Though her receptive intelligence and weaker will leave woman the subject of masculine aggressiveness, at the same time they equip her to outwit brutality with cunning, and to disarm tyranny with tact. "Cunning" and "tact" are the especial subtle devices by which feminine intelligence guards feminine weakness and circumvents masculine will and logic. This ready weapon of "woman's wit" has, from the beginning, served her when opposed to masculine strength, masculine will and masculine reason.
How unlike are the methods of men and women, irrespective of time, race or development. Man, whether pursuing his natural tendency for war, whether engaged in commercial, political or scholastic pursuits, brings to bear all of the aggressive elements of his nature. Even in love, as well as in war, the masculine method is bold, self-assertive and imperious. It is, therefore, a natural principle and not a social custom nor a legal code that impels the individual man to seek the woman of his own choos- ing, and impels the individual woman to wait for his coming.
There are, of course, exceptions to the general law of sex. There are abnormal men and women. There are "degenerates"
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of both sexes. There are many curious perversions of natural law. There are honest fanatics and foolish experimenters. These, however, are quickly classified and removed from the ranks of those the world calls "normal men and women."
Briefly stating the psychical Struggle for Happiness as a sex principle, it appears to be the struggle for knowledge, wealth, fame and power on the masculine side, and a struggle for love, beauty, harmony and pleasure on the feminine side. Who shall say that Nature has not wisely apportioned each to its task? Who shall deny that the sum of masculine ambitions and feminine de- sires constitutes completion and happiness when intelligently joined?
The evolution of happiness is bound up in this reciprocal scheme of sex. This principle, and none other, conditions the terms upon which an individual equalization and balance of mas- culine and feminine nature shall obtain. Setting out with fierce aggressiveness on one side and stupid submission on the other, these differing intelligences have run a long and painful course of tyranny and slavery in the world. In their final analysis, however, as manly strength and womanly grace, they justify the painful processes of evolution.
At the beginning the masculine and feminine ideals of happi- ness were as different as their methods were unlike. The savage looked to war, conquest and control. The slave looked only to the amelioration of her condition through conciliation of and sub- mission to her master. Her master and her children constituted the only world she could hope to influence to her advantage.
In its later and higher aspects, however, the Struggle for Happiness appears as the rational effort of man and woman to effect a harmonious relation as between themselves. It is a mutual effort to bring their individual ideals into correspondence and harmony.
In such a relation the spirit of conquest and the spirit of peace constitute supplementary powers of intelligence. The masculine ambition for supremacy and control finds its satisfaction in the
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feminine desire for self-surrender. Reason and intuition find their natural relation and employment, while both thought and feeling unite to promote the usefulness and the beauty of life.
In such a relation, and in such alone, masculine will and feminine desire will accord as to all material interests, intellec- tual occupations and ethical principles, thereby effecting that har- mony of activity which the soul recognizes as a state of happiness.
A few years ago Mr. Drummond stated the object of life by a question which he answers himself. "Why do you want to live to-morrow?" is his question. He answers: "It is because there is some one who loves you and whom you want to see to-morrow and to be with and to love back. There is no reason why we should want to live on than that we love and are beloved."
Here is the philosophy of life in a paragraph. It will be observed that Mr. Drummond does not say here that man de- sires to live in order to fulfill his destiny in the struggle for nutri- tion. Nor does he hint that woman desires to live on that she may "pay the eternal debt of motherhood." On the contrary, he here distinctly recognizes that the only motive, inspiration and purpose of individual life are the attainment of happiness through the love relations.
When Mr. Drummond declared that "Love is the greatest thing in the world," he stated the case of Nature fairly. He only failed when he attempted to trace the origin of love.
How shall the Struggle for Happiness be accelerated? How shall the goal of masculine ambition and feminine desire be earli- est reached? These are questions the individual is entitled to ask of science and philosophy.
Since the wisest of earth have agreed that human happiness rests, primarily, upon the love relations of life, this becomes at once an individual and personal question. It resolves itself into a question of personal Intelligence, Courage and Perseverance.
The state cannot legislate upon the question of individual happiness. Law cannot compel it. Governments can, at best,
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merely protect the individual in his right to its pursuit and en- joyment.
Each individual is the architect of his own destiny. He is the builder or destroyer of his own happiness. There is no royal road to happiness, any more than there is to knowledge, power or fame. Rational happiness necessitates rational knowledge of the laws of life. It necessitates rational conformity to spiritual principles. It necessitates legal sanctions for natural relations.
This means that the Struggle for Happiness is a matter of evolution and not revolution. It means that Nature is develop- ing the powers of the individual soul just as it does the functions of the individual body, through and by an infinite series of ex- periments and adaptations which finally mold and condition it for its noblest destiny — Happiness here and hereafter.