ABSTRACT
‘Felicity’, says Hobbes, ‘consisteth in prospering, not in having prospered.’ In modern language, it is not the amount of your income that makes you happy, but its rate of increase. The man who enjoys life is the man who, with habits adjusted to one standard of life, finds himself continually in a position to adopt a slightly higher standard. That is why, on the whole, England was happy under Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria, and America is happy at the present time. I shall be told that I am taking a too materialistic view of the causes of happiness, but before tackling this question let us see in what sense America is more optimistic than Europe.
