They leave the world in the shape of an unreconciled
contradiction, and seek no higher unity. Compared with the
complex ecstasies which the supernaturally regenerated Christian
may enjoy, or the oriental pantheist indulge in, their receipts
for equanimity are expedients which seem almost crude in their
simplicity.
[75] For instance, on the very day on which I write this page,
the post brings me some aphorisms from a worldly-wise old friend
in Heidelberg which may serve as a good contemporaneous
expression of Epicureanism: "By the word 'happiness' every human
being understands something different. It is a phantom pursued
only by weaker minds. The wise man is satisfied with the more
modest but much more definite term CONTENTMENT. What education
should chiefly aim at is to save us from a discontented life.
Health is one favoring condition, but by no means an
indispensable one, of contentment. Woman's heart and love are a
shrewd device of Nature, a trap which she sets for the average
man, to force him into working. But the wise man will always
prefer work chosen by himself.
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