Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/705

 ON LIFE-SA TISFA CTION 68 5

seeking. In this way religion has helped many individuals and nations to overcome periods of depression in their lives, and pre- vented their "progress curve" from falling too low. While thus religion, as a fly wheel, by its opposition, takes much joy away from progress, it returns it later, in the form of stored energy, to joyless people.

If my proposition be true, the following consequences must be drawn :

1. If you wish to give pleasure to someone to a people, a group of persons, a friend, or even to yourself always try to do it in the shortest possible time. Otherwise, if you do it slowly or step by step, the result will be imperceptible. It is better to increase the ordinate of the "progress curve" little and quickly than much and slowly.

2. Notwithstanding the immense progress to be expected in the future, humanity will never be very happy, or, more precisely, its happiness will never be commensurate with the reached results, because, to be satisfied, it constantly requires new prog- ress, and because every new step tends to make people more exacting.

If, by some miracle, we were transported a hundred years forward, we should undoubtedly be extremely happy, because a great step would have been taken in a short time, correspond- ing to a large angle on the " progress curve." But it does by no means follow that people in reality will be very happy after a hundred years. They will have obtained the large quantity of goods in their possession by a long route ; the curve will be a slanting one, and the degree of happiness felt will probably be as moderate as our own perhaps even smaller.

Thus our theorem explains the apparent paradox that, not- withstanding the progress of culture, humanity has not become perceptibly happier. People constantly complain, constantly seek for something better, as they have sought for it in ancient Egypt, in Rome, in the Middle Ages everywhere and always. The whole paradox is based on a wrong standard of happiness. It is taken for granted that the aggregate amount of goods possessed by a people, and not the rapidity of its increase, con- stitutes the measure for its happiness.