What I Want from Life

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23009, 9 April 1938, Page 15 (Supplement)

What I Want from Life

Margaret fuller, a New England mystic, once said: , "1 accept the universe." To .•which Thomas Carlyle remarked: ''Gad, she'd better." 1 have got to accept the universe as it is. I must not require the impossible, and L Bhall do harm rather than good if I try fco i&agjne perfect beings in a perfect world. {-JBui, given tie world as. it is, I can *ay what, I may reasonably hope for l>oth for myself and for others. [ was born in a peaceful age, and in Xny youth I looked forward to a life of peace. Since 1914 1 have been living • in an heroic age, and I see no prospect of - surviving into another epoch of peace and quiet. So I must try to make the best of the time in which I live. .What do I ask for myself? 1 assume that I have food, water, clothes and shelter.

Exceptionally Lucky I i v '! First, work and a decent wage for my work. Aristotle defined happiness, not as a sum of pleasures, but as unimpeded activity. I want work which is hard but interesting, work of which I can see the fruits. 1 am exceptionally lucky because I jean Choose ray own work to a large rextent. If I want a respite from science I can go and be a war correspondent, or write children's stories, 01 make political speeches. So I enjoy a good deal of my second ' Xequirement, freedom, in fact, vastly more than most people. But ,1 want still wore, particularly moro freedom of speech. I should like to say and write what I think about sensational newspapers, Mr Dash's pills, and Sir John Asterisk's beer, all of which are poisonous. The law of libf?l prevents me from doing so. I require health. 1 don't mind an Occasional toothache or headache, or even an acute illness every seven years > or so But I want to be fit for work Btld enjoyment in the intervals and to when I can work no longer. Friendship Essential 1 require friendship. Particularly I require the friendship of my colleagues and comrades in scientific and political *ork. I want the society of equals who v| '.Will criticise me, and whom I can criticise. / I cannot be friends with a person "4 whose orders I have to obey, or with one who has to obey my orders. And I find friendship with people much richer or poorer than myself very difficult. These things are general i human needs For myself I also demand adventure. Life without danger would be like beef without mustard. But since my life is useful would be wrong to risk it for the mere sake of risk, as by mountnineer--IDg or motor-racing. As a physiologist I can try experiments on myself, and I can "also participate in wars and revolutions °f which T approve. "Thrills" Defined -- By the way, love of adventure does B °t mean love of thrills. I spent five Weeks in Madrid during the present ; ®ieg«. The only thrill that I got there *as from reading Rimbaud's poetry. - ~° e satisfaction of adventure is something much more solid than a thrill. There are' other things which I | jjesire, but do not demand. 1 like to ave a room of my own with some looks, good tobacco, a motor-car, and j a daily bath; but I could manage very *oll without them.

| I should like to have a garden; and a bathing pool, bearh, or river within |j reach. I3ut 1 have not, and I j benr up quite happily. ' lam an exceptionally lucky person aUSB 1 g6t a good deal of . what I an t, and can work actively for the re ®t. But mOst of my fellows do not •®Joy what I regard as essential re-

(Copyright) . jJROFESSOR J. B. S. HALDANE was 45 on November * 5 last. He says he does imaginative work best in incongruous, noisy surroundings. For instance: fairy stories which he has just published came to him in the Paris "underground," in a United States sleeping car and elsewhere, and he made two chieif mathematical discoveries in, respectively, a Montparnasse night club, and a busy government office in Madrid, y Professor Haldane spends long days at London University College in lecturing and research work. He is now chiefly famous in scientific circles for application of mathematical methods to biology. He comes of a distinguished Scottish family, to which also belonged Lord / Haldane, former Lord Chancellor. J. B. S. Haldane fought through the Great War in the Black Watch.

quirements. And 1 cannot be completely happy while they are unhappy. Certain things are Jacking in my list ot requirements, notably peace and security. It is futile to require things which one is most unlikely to obtain. Fascism is a living reality, and Fascism, as Hitler and Mussolini explicitly state, and prove by their actions, implies war. War is spreading at present. I sincerely hope it will not spread over the world, as it spread in 1914 to 1918; but I do not look forward to perfect peace till Fascism is dead. Peace and Security I fully realise that „ peace and security are rightful aims, and that roy own desire for violent adventure is probably merely 'an adaptation to the age in which I live. 1 am a child of my ago, and all the worse for being one. 1 therefore demand security rather than adventure for others. 1 have said nothing about many things which I desire to see, such as a spread of education, and an increasing application of scientific methods in all branches of life.' From what I have seen m Russia and in Spain, .[ do not doubt that these and other good things would follow almost automatically if our class distinctions were abolished. Fortunate Socrates To sum up, for myself I require food, warmth, work, liberty, health and friendship. Supplementary to my requirements of life, are my requirements of death. Of all'men whose deaths are recorded, I considei that Socrates' was the moat enviable. He died for his convictions, when he could easily have survived by betraying them. He' died at the age of about seventy, still in full possession of his faculties, but having completed all the work which he could reasonably hope to do. And he died laughing. His last words were a joke. I do not require of death that I shall be as fortunate as Socrates. A death which fulfils all the three conditions of his is very rare. But if I can achieve even two of them I shall have done well, and though my friends may lament me, I trust that they will not pity me.