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

that it has become too much a training in the
acquisition of certain kinds of skill, and too little
an enlargement of the mind and heart by any
impartial survey of the world. You become
absorbed, let us say, in a political contest, and
work hard for the victory of your own party. So
far, so good. But it may happen in the course of the
contest that some opportunity of victory presents
itself which involves the use of methods calculated
to increase hatred, violence and suspicion in the
world. For example, you may find that the best
road to victory is to insult some foreign nation. If
your mental purview is limited to the present, or if
you have imbibed the doctrine that what is called
efficiency is the only thing that matters, you will
adopt such dubious means. Through them you will
be victorious in your immediate purpose, while the
more distant consequences may be disastrous. If,
on the other hand, you have as part of the habitual
furniture of your mind the past ages of man, his
slow and partial emergence out of barbarism, and
the brevity of his total existence in comparison
with astronomical epochs - if, I say, such thoughts