which is in a constant course of evolution from the beginning until the end of time, the epic which is daily poured forth from the heart of the whole human race, sometimes in rejoicing pæans, but oftener amid woeful lamentation, tears, and disappointed hopes—what is it but Paradise sought for?
6. Hence there has been a tendency in the minds of all men, whether rude or civilised, both in ancient and in modern times, to accept this fact as they found it; to set forth happiness as the summum bonum, the supreme good, the ultimate end of all human endeavour, the magnet whose power of attraction no human being could successfully resist. The general tendency of opinion, I say, has been to acknowledge the universal dominion exercised over man by the desire of happiness, and to accept this principle as his supreme rule of action, and as the basis of all ethical disquisition, whether practical or theoretical. To have denied that happiness was man's chief good and his ultimate aim, would have appeared to be flying in the face of truth, and setting nature herself at defiance.
7. But although philosophers, as well as mankind at large, have generally agreed that happiness is the greatest good, or the chief end of man, philosophers have differed as to what happiness itself is—as to what it consists in. By an easy transition, some people come to regard happiness as convertible with
