The quest of happiness PDF book by Philip Gilbert Hamerton 1897



If you are searching for happiness this book will be a very interesting book for you- negative happiness and positive Happiness, what are they? Can we live only with positive happiness or we need negative?





He was still at work on it in November 1894, when he died, leaving the closing chapters unwritten. These last chapters were to be upon " The Influence of the Affections upon Happiness; " and the book was intended to close with an epilogue upon " Unhappiness and the Possibilities of Deliverance." The author's theory, expressed in the " Quest of Happiness," was that all unhappiness is caused by the non-exercise of natural faculties.The same law he intended to apply to the affections. He purposed considering separately the natural ties of parental and filial love, the love of wife, and similar relationships. These relationships were to be studied in their effects upon individual happiness; and he wished to show that no individual, even though he were denied the exercise of these natural faculties, need be wholly wretched if he possessed one devoted friend.In a chapter of " The Intellectual Life " called " Women and Marriage," this thought is admirably expressed: " Now, although an intellectual man may not care to make himself understood by all the people in the street, it is not a good thing for him to feel that he is understood by nobody. The intellectual life is sometimes a fearfully solitary one. Unless he lives in a great capital, the man devoted to that life is more than all other men liable to suffer from isolation, to feel utterly alone beneath the deafness of space and the silence of the stars. Give him one friend who can understand him, who will not leave him, who will be accessible by day and night, one friend, one kindly listener, just one, and the universe is changed." This passage will show any who are unfamiliar with " Human Intercourse " and " The Intellectual Life " how much stress Mr. Hamerton laid on sympathetic relationships with other human beings.The ties of blood he cared little about; the ties of the spirit were everything. " There must have been mutual affinities of some kind to make a friendship, while natural relations are all like tickets in a lottery."Chapter page I. A definition I Ii. The author neither optimist nor pes- Simist 5 Iii. On the dual nature of happiness. N Iv. On happiness as a gift of nature . . 31 V. How our happiness is incomplete . . 52 Vi. The imperfection of the higher hap- Piness 60 Vii. The origin of the ideal ..... 66 Viii. Happiness and the ideal 76 Ix. The sense of reality 86 X. Happiness in our occupations .... 103 Xi. The congeniality of occupation 108 Xii. Insufficiency of gifts 118 Xiii. On the question of whether our hap- Piness in the use of our faculties Is in proportion to their strength. 132 Xiv. That every time of life has a hap- Piness peculiar to itself . . . . 138 Xv. Of the perfection of the senses. Introduction 150 Xvi. Grounds for rational encouragement. 165 Xvii. Some real experiences 175 259Author: Philip Gilbert HamertonPublication Date: 1897