And supposing that the desires of mankind were suddenly fulfilled, and the world was rendered perfect!  There would be no motive for effort, no altercation of conflicting motives in the human heart; nothing to do, no one to befriend, no anxiety, no want unsatisfied.  Equilibrium would be established.  A cheerful world!  You can see instantly how amusing it would be.  It would have only one drawback—­that of being dead.  Its reason for being alive would have ceased to operate.  Life means change through constant development.  But you cannot develop the perfect.  The perfect can merely expire.

That average successful man whom I have previously cited feels all this by instinct, though he does not comprehend it by reason.  He reaches his ambition, and retires from the fight in order to enjoy life,—­and what does he then do?  He immediately creates for himself a new series of difficulties and embarrassments, either by undertaking the management of a large estate, or by some other device.  If he does not maintain for himself conditions which necessitate some kind of struggle, he quickly dies—­spiritually or physically, often both.  The proportion of men who, having established an equilibrium, proceed to die on the spot, is enormous.  Continual effort, which means, of course, continual disappointment, is the sine qua non—­without it there is literally nothing vital.  Its abolition is the abolition of life.  Hence, people, who, failing to savour the struggle itself, anticipate the end of the struggle as the beginning of joy and happiness—­these people are simply missing life; they are longing to exchange life for death.  The hemlock would save them a lot of weary waiting.

* * * * *

We shall now perceive, I think, what is wrong with the assumptions of the average successful man as set forth in the previous chapter.  In postulating that happiness is what one is not, he has got hold of a mischievous conception of happiness.  Let him examine his conception of happiness, and he will find that it consists in the enjoyment of love and luxury, and in the freedom from enforced effort.  He generally wants all three ingredients.  Now passionate love does not mean happiness; it means excitement, apprehension and continually renewed desire.  And affectionate love, from which the passion has faded, means something less than happiness, for, mingled with its gentle tranquility is a disturbing regret for the more fiery past.  Luxury, according to the universal experience of those who have had it, has no connection whatever with happiness.  And as for freedom from enforced effort, it means simply death.