Or, again, watch people at a gay evening. Once in a way a car-load of coloured people will show genuine enjoyment, but will cause indignation by erratic behaviour, and ultimately get into the hands of the police owing to an accident: enjoyment in holiday time is illegal. This pursuit is conducted by all at a uniform pace, that of the slowest car in the procession it is impossible to see the road for the cars, or the scenery, since looking aside would cause an accident all the occupants of all the cars are absorbed in the desire to pass other cars, which they cannot do on account of the crowd if their minds wander from this preoccupation, as will happen occasionally to those who are not themselves driving, unutterable boredom seizes upon them and stamps their features with trivial discontent.

On a main road at the week-end you will see men and women, all 'comfortably off, and some very rich, engaged in the pursuit of pleasure. In the work-hour crowd you will see anxiety, excessive concentration, dyspepsia, lack of interest in anything but the struggle, incapacity for play, unconsciousness of their fellow creatures. You will find that each of these different crowds has its own trouble. Stand in a busy street during working hours, or on a main thoroughfare at a week-end, or at a dance of an evening empty your mind of your own ego, and let the personalities of the strangers about you take possession of you one after another. Let us suppose that you are in New York, in New York, the most typically modern of great cities. Though the kinds are different, you will find that unhappiness meets you everywhere. And when you have reviewed your friends, teach yourself the art of reading faces make yourself receptive to the moods of those whom you meet in the course of an ordinary day. If you are happy, ask yourself how many of your friends are so. If you are unhappy yourself, you will probably be prepared to admit that you are not exceptional in this. Human beings, one feels, ought to be, but in the modern world they are not, at least in a great majority of cases. It is in the belief that many people who are unhappy could become happy by well-directed effort that I have written this book.ДЄnimals are happy so long as they have health and enough to eat. On this ground I venture to hope that some among those multitudes of men and women who suffer unhappiness without enjoying it, may find their situation diagnosed and a method of escape suggested. All that I claim for the recipes offered to the reader is that they are such as are confirmed by my own experience and observation, and that they have increased my own happiness whenever I have acted in accordance with them. I have aimed only at putting together some remarks which are inspired by what I hope is common sense. No profound philosophy or deep erudition will be found in the following pages. This book is not addressed to the learned, or to those who regard a practical problem merely as something to be talked about. _ _ e-texts of Bertrand Russell's writings _ _ Power, a new social analysis, 1938 (full text)Д«ertrand Russell: The Triumph of Stupidity On Education, especially in early childhood, 1926 (full text) Our Knowledge of the External World, 1914 (full text Under Construction!) The Problems of Philosophy, 1912 (full text) Japanese Translation of The Conquest of Happiness (with English text) Share Bertrand Russell : The Conquest of Happiness, 1930 (Full Text)

Happiness level age of conquest iv