10. Is Happiness Still Possible?

Russell begins by identifying two kinds of happiness: "one sort is open to any human being, and the other only to those who can read and write." [page 113] But before long it becomes clear that there is little difference between them. As examples of the first kind, he tells us about his gardener (who wages a perpetual war on rabbits) and a well-digger whose happiness "was based upon physical vigor, a sufficiency of work, and the overcoming of not insuperable obstacles in the shape of rock." [page 114] To the objection that educated people cannot find such simple happiness, Russell allows only that they must find different obstacles to overcome, ones more in line with their abilities. "The difference made by education is only in regard to the activities by which these pleasures are to be obtained. Pleasures of achievement demand difficulties such that beforehand success seems doubtful although in the end it is usually achieved." [pages 114-115]

Having bluffed us with this apparent distinction between sources of happiness, he goes on to identify several: work, belief in a cause, and absorption in a hobby. This is all in the style of a ramble, filled with entertaining anecdotes presented in an attitude of amused superiority. As an example of belief in a cause, he relates descriptions of characters who appear to be amiable lunatics: "The men I have known who believed that the English are the lost ten tribes were almost invariably happy, while as for those who believed that the English were only the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, their bliss knew no bounds." [page 120] And I am unsure what to make of this example: "The happiness of the reformer or revolutionary depends upon the course of public affairs, but probably even while he is being executed he enjoys more real happiness than is possible for the comfortable cynic. I remember a young Chinese visitor to my school who was going home to found a similar school in a reactionary part of China. He expected the result to be that his head would be cut off. Nevertheless, he enjoyed a quiet happiness that I could only envy." [pages 117-118]

Finally, around page 121, Russell gets serious again. "Fundamental happiness depends more than anything else upon what may be called a friendly interest in persons and things. ... The kind [of interest in persons] that makes for happiness is the kind that likes to observe people and finds pleasure in their individual traits, that wishes to afford scope for the interests and pleasures of those with whom it is brought into contact without desiring to acquire power over them or to secure their enthusiastic admiration. The person whose attitude towards others is genuinely of this kind will be a source of happiness and a recipient of reciprocal kindness. ... To like many people spontaneously and without effort is perhaps the greatest of all sources of personal happiness." [pages 121-122]

"It may be said that it is impossible to feel friendly to things. Nevertheless there is something analogous to friendliness in the kind of interest that a geologist takes in rocks or an archeologist in ruins. ... The man who can forget his worries by means of a genuine interest in, say, the Council of Trent, or the life history of stars, will find that, when he returns from his excursion into the impersonal world, he has acquired a poise and calm which enable him to deal with his worries in the best way, and he will in the meantime have experienced a genuine even if temporary happiness." [pages 122-123]

"The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile." [page 123]