therefore, an indication of the happiness of the nations anterior and
preferable to population." The most certain indication of felicity is a
large proportional consumption of products; a high rate of living. The
marvelous and even the sublime are to be dreaded; but "all that
multiplies men in the nations, and harvests on the surface of the earth,
is good in itself, is good above all things, and preferable to all that
seems fine in the eyes of prejudice."[Footnote: Chastellux finds it
hard to stick quite close to his definition of felicity. Of the English
he says, "Such are the true advantages of this nation; which, joined to
the safety of its property and the inestimable privilege of depending
only on the law, would make it the happiest on earth, if its climate,
its ancient manners and customs, and its frequent revolutions had not
turned it toward discontent and melancholy. But these considerations do
not belong to our subject." ii. 144.]

And as material good is the only good, so it is in modern times and in
civilized countries that the highest point reached by humanity is to be
found. "If wisdom be the art of happy living; if philosophy be truly the
love of wisdom, as its name alone would give us to understand, the
Greeks were never philosophers."

To show that modern nations are increasing the ease and comfort of life
to a point unknown before is no difficult task. Chastellux enumerates
the discoveries of physical science, and touches on the achievements of
learning and the arts, then calls on his readers to look on all these
but as payments on account in the progress of our knowledge; as so much
of the road already passed in the vast course of the human mind. Here we
have the truly modern ideal of progress; the end of government the
greatest happiness of the greatest number, and happiness dependent
merely on material conditions. Morals under this system are but a branch