The-Conquest-of-Happiness-by-Bertrand-Russell

may think that the man with zest whom we have
been praising does not differ in any definable way
from the gormandiser. The time has come when we
must try to make the distinction between the two
types more definite.
The ancients, as everyone knows, regarded
moderation as one of the essential virtues. Under
the influence of romanticism and the French
Revolution this view was abandoned by many, and
overmastering passions were admired, even if, like
those of Byron’s heroes, they were of a destructive
and anti-sociai kind. The ancients, however, were
clearly in the right. In the good life these must be a
balance between different activities, and no one of
them must be carried so far as to make the others
impossible. The gormandiser sacrifices all other
pleasures to that of eating, and by so doing
diminishes the total happiness of his life. Many
other passions besides eating may be carried to a
like excess. The Empress Josephine was a
gormandiser in regard to clothes. At first Napoleon
used to pay her dressmaker’s bills, though with