Instead of remaining what it was, 'the dry, sorry analysis of millions of infirmities', the dubious negation of the negative, it was given the splendid task of establishing in men's lives the positive role of health, virtue, and happiness; it fell to medicine to punctuate work with festivals, to exalt calm emotions, to watch over what was read in hooks and seen in theatres, to see that marriages were made not out of self interest or because of a passing infatuation, but were based on the only lasting condition of happiness, namely, their benefit to the state.