James Frederick Ferrier - The True End of Man 汉译

The philosophy of the Cyrenaic school, founded by Aristippus, proceeds on the assumption that happiness is, in point of fact, the good, the supreme good, or chief end of man; and this assumption, so far from being discountenanced by the philosophy of Socrates, is involved in that philosophy as one of its most vital principles. Viewed as a matter of fact, we must admit that his own happiness, whatever it may consists in, or whatever may be the means to be employed in the attainment, is the end which each individual has most at heart, and at which he ultimately aims. This is the end after which all men most eagerly strive. Happiness is the goal, which, consciously or unconsciously, we are all struggling to reach. Milton has written two epic poems in which he commemorates our fallen and our restored condition. He has written “Paradise Lost” and “Paradise Regained”. But the true epic of humanity—the epic 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 paeans, but oftener amid woeful lamentation, tears, and disappointed hopes—what is it but Paradise sought for?