The book then opens with an exclamation which serves as a text or topic――‘Vanity of vanities,’――and forthwith proceeds to state the question, and work out the conclusion which this topic suggests. Has mankind any advantage (in the sense of a result in the future) by reason of his toil or anxiety (the technical word here used is עמל, by which word is meant the same thing as the Greek expresses by μέριμνα, cares of this life, Matthew xiii. 22)? This he answers in the negative by eight aphorisms, four drawn from observation of nature and four from moral considerations, which we have called the eight _un_beatitudes of the sermon. This constitutes the first part of the proof. Koheleth then goes on to discuss the question, Can any solution of this providential difficulty be discovered? This, in the first place, is attempted to be answered by an autobiography, in which Koheleth shows in succession that wisdom, mirth, accumulation of wealth, etc., are alike evanescent and unsatisfactory, as his own experience (and no one was likely to do better) abundantly displayed. These together form the first great division of the book――Chapters I. and II. In the next five Chapters, III. to VII., the same question is discussed from another point of view. Koheleth remarks on the unalterable character of Providence, and shows that even if it were possible that human wisdom could cause change (which it cannot), that the alteration could only be for the worse. He begins by enumerating twenty-eight times or seasons――that is, a fourfold seven――of which the last is ‘a time of peace.’ This is especially worthy of remark, as it is an instance of one of those hopes of better things which Koheleth allows to appear, as it were by stealth, amidst his most melancholy utterances. He then argues this matter, and through a long and sustained course of reasoning, the conclusion of which is, that God must right the wronged. But there naturally arises the objection, If this be so, why does impiety and oppression exist so continually in the very places or circumstances where we ought to expect the reverse? To this Koheleth offers two solutions, which, however, are neither satisfactory; the second indeed would lead to absolute scepticism. The true deduction is however stated in the last verse of chapter iii. (22), which is, that if any result is to be accomplished by human toil, it can only consist in present gratification.