In all this philosophical construction, both in formulating and answering the questions, there is one tacit, particularly curious, and interesting and unexpressed postulate. Schopenhauer starts from the assumption that his valuation of life, joy and suffering, in order to have the right to be called truth, must contain something universal, by virtue of which it will in the last resort coincide with the valuation of all other people. Whence did he derive this idea? Psychologically the train of Schopenhauer's thought is intelligible and easily explained. He was used to the scientific formulation and solution of problems, and he transferred to the question which engaged him methods of investigation which by general consent usually conduct us to the truth. He did not verify his premiss _ad hoc,_ and usually it is impossible to verify a premiss every time that a need arises for it. It is not even becoming to exhibit it, to speak of it. It is understood. If the fundamental sign of any truth is its being universal and obligatory, then in the given case the true answer to the question of the value of life can only be something which will be absolutely admissible by all men to all creatures with a mind. So Schopenhauer would probably have answered, if any one had questioned his right to formulate in such a general way the question of the value of life. Still Schopenhauer would hardly be right. This, by the way, is being made clear by the objections which are put forward by his opponents. He is accused because his very statement of the question presupposes a subjective point of view--eudaemonism.