The first and foremost rule for the wise conduct of life seems to me to be contained in a view to which Aristotle parenthetically refers in the _Nichomachean Ethics_:[1] [Greek: o phronimoz to alupon dioke e ou to aedu] or, as it may be rendered, _not pleasure, but freedom from pain, is what the wise man will aim at_. The truth of this remark turns upon the negative character of happiness,--the fact that pleasure is only the negation of pain, and that pain is the positive element in life. Though I have given a detailed proof of this proposition in my chief work,[1] I may supply one more illustration of it here, drawn from a circumstance of daily occurrence. Suppose that, with the exception …
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