Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/672

 modes of enjoyment more especially disparaged in this ascetic teaching are of very questionable value. It may be doubted, for example, whether much dancing, carried on into the small hours of the morning, or much frequenting of hot and badly ventilated theatres, conduces to a really pleasurable and efficient life. On the other hand, it deserves to be remembered, perhaps, that society distinctly puts its mark of approval on enjoyment by actually imposing the duty of pleasure seeking on its individual subjects. Many a delicate woman will attend the social gayeties of the season because she is expected to enjoy herself in this way; and many a busy man will take his month or six weeks' holiday at a fashionable pleasure resort, not because he desires the kind of enjoyment offered, or even expects to realize it, but simply because society tells him to act thus. What makes people neglect pleasure much more than any form of ascetic prohibition is, we suspect, personal indifference arising from inattention and preoccupation. More particularly in our busy age, men are very apt to be absorbed in some exciting pursuit, so as to overlook the pleasurable resources of life. Often this engrossing pursuit, though entered on at first from a motive of pleasure, ceases to bring any appreciable enjoyment, and thus the whole life becomes to a large extent robbed of its proper emotional hue. Nor is this narrow and unreflecting disposition of opportunities and energies simply a loss of so much enjoyment. It commonly results in the accumulation of a large mass of pain. The non-satisfaction of natural tastes and impulses pretty certainly brings a vague sense of something wanting—a dreary feeling which depresses the mental tone and throws a gloom on life. Add to this that the state of mental absorption in some one line of activity is highly favorable to a neglect of all the many little circumstances which must cooperate in sustaining health. The first indication of this inattention to health is probably a development of abnormal nervous irritability. The temper is ruffled; sources of annoyance multiply, while those of gratification decrease in the same ratio. The full development of this change is seen in a morose view of life, which has the same practical results as a professed asceticism. There is a growing disposition to dwell on vexatious elements of experience, to nurse a sense of injury, and a corresponding disinclination to seek enjoyment, or even to accept it, when close at hand.

It seems to us that this neglect of the conditions of a full and pleasurable life is, as Mr. Spencer suggests, a thing to be severely deprecated on moral grounds. For there is no doubt that it leads in a number of ways to the infliction of suffering on others. To have to live with an irritable and gloomy person is probably as great an affliction as to be burdened with a painful illness. Accordingly, a man who by inattention to the conditions of a cheerful frame of mind becomes the source of numberless vexations to his family may really produce as much suffering as many a well-recognized criminal. It is