Who will stop us from making use of the freedom we are allowed, and casting existence from us? Every thinking human being makes acquaintance with this thought. We let it take a deeper hold of us than we suspect from one another, as indeed we are all more oppressed by the riddles of existence than we allow others to notice. What determines us, so long as we are comparatively in our right mind, to reject the thought of putting an end to our existence? An instinctive feeling of repulsion from such a deed. The will-to-live is stronger than pessimistic [pg 214] facts of knowledge. An instinctive Reverence for Life is within us, for we are will-to-live. . . . Even the consistently pessimistic thought of Brahmanism makes to the will-to-live the concession that voluntary death may only come about when the individual has put behind him a considerable portion of life. The Buddha goes still further, rejecting any violent exit from existence and demanding only that we let the will-to-live within us die out. All pessimism, then, is inconsistent. It does not push open the door to freedom, but makes concessions to the obvious fact of existence. In Indian thought, which tends to pessimism, it attempts to make these concessions as small as possible, and to maintain the impossible fiction that merely the bare life is being lived with complete abstinence from any share in the happenings which are taking place here, there, and everywhere about it. With us the concessions are larger, since the conflict between the will-to-live and pessimistic recognition of facts is to a certain extent damped down, and obscured by the optimistic world-view which prevails in the general mode of thought. There arises an unthinking will-to-live which lives out its life trying to snatch possession of as much happiness as possible, and meaning to do something active without having made clear to itself what its intentions really are. Whether somewhat more or somewhat less of world- and life-affirmation is retained matters little. Whenever the deepened world- and life-affirmation is not reached there remains only a depreciated will-to-live, which is not equal to the tasks of life. Thought usually deprives the will-to-live of the force lent it by its freedom from pre-conceptions, without being able to induce it to adopt a practice of reflexion in which it would find new and higher force. Thus it still possesses energy enough to continue in life, but not enough to overcome pessimism. The stream becomes a swamp. That is the experience which determines the character [pg 215] of men’s existence, without their confessing it to themselves. They nourish themselves scantily on a little bit of happiness and many vain thoughts, which life puts in their manger. It is only by the pressure of necessity, exerted by elementary duties which throng upon them, that they are kept in the path of life.