The Quest for Happiness

by Darrin M. McMahon

Down through the ages, philosophers and poets, politicians and theologians, friends and strangers have argued about the nature of happiness. They haven’t been able to settle on what happiness is exactly, but that hasn’t kept them from chasing it down. In the end, and the beginning, too, happiness may be a lot easier to experience than to define.

German philosophers are not noted for their lightheartedness. Consider Hegel, who believed that it was the fate of great men like himself to be denied “what is commonly called happiness.” Hegel conceded that “one may contemplate history from the point of view of happiness,” but he saw the task as essentially futile. “History is not the soil in which happiness grows,” he concluded. “The periods of happiness in it are blank pages.”

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