Happy, Happily [1]. This word is evidently derived from heur  [2] [ good fortune, good luck ] of which heure [ hour ] is the origin. From there, come these old expressions: à la bonne heure [ at the good hour ], à la mal’heure  [3] [ at the bad hour , e.g ., at the hour of death ], since our forefathers, who had only for all philosophy a few prejudices from older nations, admitted favorable and ill-fated hours .

We could, seeing that bonheur [ happiness ] in past times was only une heure fortunée [ favorable hour ], give more credit to our ancestors than they deserve and conclude therefrom that they regarded happiness as a fleeting thing, such as it is in effect.

What we call happiness is an abstract idea, comprising a few ideas of pleasure; as he who has only a moment’s pleasure is not a happy man; just as a moment of sorrow does not make an unhappy man. Pleasure is more rapid-moving than happiness , and happiness more fleeting than felicity . When we say I am happy in this moment, we are abusing the word, and this only means that I am pleased [ j’ai du plaisir ]: when we have a bit of repeated pleasures, we can in this space of time, say that we are happy , when this happiness endures a little longer, it’s a state of felicity; sometimes one is very far from being happy in prosperity, just as a person sick with nausea eats nothing of a large feast prepared for him.

The old adage, we should not call anyone happy before his death , seems to be centered on many false principles; we would say by this maxim that the name happy should be due only to a man who would be so constantly from his birth until his final hour. This continual series of agreeable moments is impossible due to the constitution of our organs, due to that of the elements on which we depend, due to that of men on whom we depend more. Claiming to be always happy is the philosopher’s stone of the soul; it is good for us to not be in a sad state for a long time; but the one whom we would suppose to have always enjoyed a happy life, and who perished miserably, would have certainly deserved the name happy up until [his] death; and we would be able to hardily declare that he was the happiest of men. It is very well possible that Socrates was the happiest of Greeks, although some judges, either superstitious and absurd, or unjust, or all of this taken together, had legally poisoned him, at the age of seventy, [based] on the suspicion that he believed in one sole God.

This much argued philosophical maxim, nemo ante obitum felix [ we should not call anyone happy before his death ] seems, therefore, absolutely false in every sense; and if it signifies that a happy man can die an unhappy death, it only signifies the trivial. The people’s proverb, heureux comme un roi [ happy as a king; American English would be happy as a lark ], is even more false; whoever has read, whoever has lived, should know how much the vulgar is mistaken.

We wonder if there is one condition that is happier than another, if man in general is happier than woman; it would be necessary to have been man and woman like Tiresias and Iphis [4] to decide this question; furthermore, it would be necessary to have lived in all conditions with an intellect equally appropriate to each one [each condition]; and it would be necessary to have passed through all the possible states of man and woman in order to judge this.

We further wonder if of two men one is happier than the other; it is very clear that the one who has stones [kidney stones, gallstones] and gout [arthritis], who loses his possessions, his honor, his wife and his children, and who is condemned to be hanged immediately after having been cut, [5] is less happy in this world, all things considered, than a vigorous young sultan, or la Fontaine’s shoemaker.

But we want to know who is happier  [6] of two men equally healthy, equally rich, and of an equal condition; it is clear that it is their temperament that decides this. The more moderate, the less anxious, and at the same time the more sensitive, is happier ; but unhappily the more sensitive is always less moderate: it is not our condition, it is the moral fiber of our soul that makes us happy . This disposition of our soul depends on our organs, and our organs have been arranged without our having the least part in it; it is up to the reader to form his reflections on the above; there are many articles on which he can reflect more about these things for himself than we should tell him about them: in matters of art, he must be instructed; in matters of morals, he must be left alone to think.

There are some dogs that we caress, that we groom, to whom we feed biscuits, to whom we give pretty bitches [7]; there are others [of them] who are covered in mange, who starve to death, who are hunted and beaten, and then slowly dissected by a young surgeon, after having hammered four huge nails into their paws; did it depend on these poor dogs to be happy or unhappy ?

We say pensée heureuse [ inspired thought ] , trait heureux [ pleasing trait ] , repartie heureuse [ witty retort or repartee ] , physionomie heureuse [ pleasing face, good-looking ] , climat heureux [ agreeable climate ]; these thoughts, these traits heureux [ pleasing traits], which come to us in sudden flashes of inspiration and which are called the natural talents of witty men , are given to us like light entering our eyes, without effort, without our seeking it; they are no more in our power than is a pleasing face [“physionomie heureuse ”]; that is, sweet, noble, so independent of us, and so often misleading.

The agreeable climate [“climat heureux ”] is one that nature favors; so, too, are imaginations heureuses [ lively, creative imaginations], so, too, is the heureux génie [ inspired genius], that is, the great talent; and who can give himself genius? Who can, when he has received a few rays of this flame, forever conserve its brilliance? Since the word heureux [ happy ] comes from bonne heure [good hour or good luck ], and malheureux [ unhappy ] from mal’heure [ bad hour or bad luck ], we could say that those who think, who write with genius, who succeed in tasteful works, write à la bonne heure [with good luck ]; the majority are those who write à la mal’heure [with bad luck ].

We say in terms of art, heureux génie [ inspired genius ]; and never malheureux génie [ uninspired genius ]; the reason for this is palpable; it is that he who does not succeed, absolutely lacks genius.

Genius is only more or less heureux [ inspired ]; that of Virgil was more inspired [plus heureux ] in the Dido episode than in the Lavinia fable; in the description of the siege of Troy than in the war of Turnus; Homer is more inspired [plus heureux ] in the invention of the belt of Venus than in that of the winds entrapped in a goatskin bag.

We say invention heureuse [ fortunate invention ] or malheureuse [ unfortunate ], but this is about morals, this is in consideration of the harm an invention produces: the unfortunate invention of gun powder; the fortunate invention of the compass, of the astrolabe, of the proportional compass, etc.

Cardinal Mazarin asked for a lucky general [général houroux, heureux ]; he meant or should have meant a skilled general ; since when he [a general] has had reiterated successes, skill and good luck  [8] [ habileté and bonheur ] are usually synonyms.

When we say heureux scélérat [ lucky villain], we are referring only to his successes: felix Sylla, [ fortunate Sylla ], heureux Sylla [ lucky Sylla ]; one Alexander VI, a Duke of Borgia, [ont heureusement ] successfully pillaged, betrayed, poisoned, ravaged, slit throats; there is a great likelihood that they were very unhappy [très -malheureux ] although they would not have feared their own likes.

It could be that an ill-mannered villain, a hardy Turk, for example, to whom we would have said that it is permitted of him to lack faith in Christians, to have his principal officers hanged by the neck from a silk cord when they are rich, to throw his strangled or massacred brothers into the channel of the black sea, and to ravage miles and miles of a country for his own glory; it would be possible, I say, with great emphasis, that this man had no more remorse than his mufti, and was very happy . The reader can reflect much more on this; all that we can say here is that it is desired that this sultan be the unhappiest of men.

Perhaps what is best written on how to be happy is Seneca’s book, de vita beata [ on the happy life ]; but this book made neither its author happy nor its readers. See , moreover, if you wish, the articles Good and Blessed in this Dictionary .

In past times, there were lucky planets [planettes heureuses ], others unlucky [ malheureuses ]; happily , there are no more of them.

They wanted to deprive the public of this useful Dictionary; happily , they did not succeed.

Every day, filthy souls, absurd fanatics, counsel the powerful, the ignorant, against the Philosophers; if, unhappily , they [the powerful] listen to them [absurd fanatics], we will fall back into the barbarism from which the Philosophers alone have pulled us.

Notes

1. Throughout much of this translation I have kept the original French word “ heureux ” in the body of the text alongside its various English equivalents in brackets (or vice versa, where appropriate) to follow Voltaire’s trajectory of the origins of the French “ heureux ” [ happy ]. Additionally, the French “ heureux ,” which Voltaire uses in several different French expressions throughout this article, does not always translate literally, depending on context, into the English “ happy .” For example, “ un climat heureux ” would be “ an agreeable ” or “ favorable climate ”; “ un trait heureux ” in the context of art and esthetics would be “ a pleasing ” or “ harmonious trait .” Hence, I have attempted to translate the balance of these French expressions into their equivalent English-language expressions, which do not use the adjective “happy.”

Much of the text of this article appears in Voltaire’s Dictionnaire Philosophique , which has been translated into English by various translators. See , for example, The Works of Voltaire, A Contemporary Version , (New York: E.R. DuMont, 1901), A Critique and Biography by John Morley, notes by Tobias Smollett, trans. William F. Fleming.

2. The Old French word “ heur ” means fortune or luck , either good or bad, and was eventually replaced by bonheur and malheur . See , for example , “ Heur ,” Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue française , 1964 ed.

3. Usage of mal(e) as an adjective meaning bad appears mostly in compound forms, such as mal’heur or male-heure , which were eventually replaced by malheur . See, “ Mal, ” Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 1762 ed.; see, also, “ Heur ” and “ Heure ,” Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue française , 1964 ed.

4. Tiresias is a blind prophet from Greek mythology who is transformed into a woman for seven years; Iphis, daughter of Telethusa and Ligdus, from Greek mythology, is transformed by goddess Isis into a man.

5. The word “cut” here (“ taillé ”) possibly refers to the Eighteenth Century medical procedure for having kidney stones or gallstones removed from the bladder, since the hypothetical man Voltaire is discussing in this paragraph is “the one who has stones” [“ celui qui a la pierre ”]. Surgical cutting during this period was extremely painful for the patient as anesthesia was not yet being used. To condemn someone to be hanged immediately after he has had surgery to cure his ailment would, of course, be ironic. See , Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française , 4 ^th ed. (1762): “TAILLER signifie aussi, Inciser, faire une incision pour tirer la pierre de la vessie. Il a la pierre, on ne sauroit le guérir sans le tailler. Il a été taillé deux fois. ” Refer, also, to the Encyclopédie Plates under the word [Surgery]. Plates V, XII, and XIV, in particular, show various illustrations related to stones in the bladder or the removal of stones in the bladder by way of the surgical cut or “taille.”

6. [Voltaire uses the superlative here (“ le plus heureux [the happiest] de deux hommes ”) although the comparison is of only two men, which would, in English, take the comparative ( happier ). I have translated Voltaire’s words here (“ le plus heureux ” or “the happiest”) as “happier” so as to agree with the comparative sense in English ( who is happier instead of who is the happiest , of two men). For the other adjectives used in this paragraph in the same context (for example, “ moderé ” [“moderate”]), I have used the forms “ the more moderate” or, simply, “ more moderate,” as appropriate. The same grammatical structure applies to “ moins ” (“less”).]

7. [Voltaire, well known for his mocking style or tone, seems to be making a play on words here. Since he is talking about dogs in this paragraph, he makes a reference to pretty female dogs, or, as he literally writes, “ de jolies chiennes ” (“pretty bitches”), but is possibly targeting the French aristocracy, French aristocratic women in this case, with whom small lap dogs were very popular in the Eighteenth Century. Voltaire seems to take his caustic tone one step further by phrasing his words as “[t]here are [male] dogs ... to whom we give pretty bitches” rather than “ who are given to pretty bitches.” Since the male dogs are being given “pretty bitches,” the aristocratic women to whom Voltaire is possibly alluding are possessed by the dogs rather than the reverse, with this slight turn of a phrase. The contrast he makes between the fates of “aristocratic” dogs and the fates of other, much less fortunate dogs, is more striking by metaphorically casting aristocratic women in a vulgar light with this indirect comparison to “pretty bitches.” Refer, also, to portrait paintings of the Eighteenth Century, when lap dogs were popular with aristocratic women as viewed in various portraits of them posing with their little dogs. See, for example, certain paintings by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Jean-Antoine Watteau, François Boucher, Alexander Roslin.]

8. [The word “ bonheur ,” generally meaning happiness , in the context here, means “ good luck. ” See , for example, Jean-François Féraud: Dictionnaire Critique de la Langue Française (1787-1788) .]