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

which such things are capable.
Again, love is able to break down the hard shell of
the ego, since it is a form of biological cooperation
in which the emotions of each are necessary to the
fulfilment of the other’s instinctive purposes. There
have been in the world at various times various
solitary philosophies, some very noble, some less
so. The Stoics and the early Christians believed
that a man could realise the highest good of which
human life is capable by means of his own will
alone, or at any rate without human aid; others
again have regarded power as the end of life, and
yet others mere personal pleasure. All these are
solitary philosophies in the sense that the good is
supposed to be something realisable in each
separate person, not only in a larger or smaller
society of persons. All such views, to my mind, are
false, and not only in ethical theory, but as
expressions of the better part of our instincts. Man
depends upon cooperation, and has been provided
by nature, somewhat inadequately, it is true, with
the instinctive apparatus out of which the