In my will-to-live the universal will-to-live experiences itself otherwise than in its other manifestations. In them it shows itself in a process of individualising which, so far as I can see from the outside, is bent merely on living itself out to the full, and in no way on union with any other will-to-live. The world is a ghastly drama of will-to-live divided against itself. One existence makes its way at the cost of another; one destroys the other. One will-to-live merely exerts its will against the other, and has no knowledge of it. But in me the will-to-live has come to know about other wills-to-live. There is in it a longing to arrive at unity with itself, to become universal. Why does the will-to-live experience itself in this way in me alone? Is it because I have acquired the capacity of reflecting on the totality of Being? What is the goal of this evolution which has begun in me? [pg 250] To these questions there is no answer. It remains a painful enigma for me that I must live with reverence for life in a world which is dominated by creative will which is also destructive will, and destructive will which is also creative. I can do nothing but hold to the fact that the will-to-live in me manifests itself as will-to-live which desires to become one with other will-to-live. That is for me the light that shines in the darkness. The ignorance in which the world is wrapped has no existence for me; I have been saved from the world. I am thrown, indeed, by reverence for life into an unrest such as the world does not know, but I obtain from it a blessedness which the world cannot give. If in the tenderheartedness produced by being different from the world another person and I help each other in understanding and pardoning, when otherwise will would torment will, the division of the will-to-live is got rid of. If I save an insect from the puddle, life has devoted itself to life, and the division of life against itself is got rid of. Whenever my life devotes itself in any way to life, my finite will-to-live experiences its union with the infinite will in which all life is one, and I enjoy a feeling of refreshment which prevents me from pining away in the desert of life. I therefore recognize it as the destiny of my existence to be obedient to this higher revelation of the will-to-live in me. I choose for my work the removal of this division of the will-to-live against itself, so far as the influence of my existence reaches. Knowing now the one thing needful, I leave on one side the enigma of the world and of my existence in it. The surmisings and the longings of all deep religiousness are contained in the ethic of reverence for life. This religiousness, however, does not build up for itself a completed world-view, but resigns itself to the necessity of leaving its cathedral unfinished. It finishes the choir only, but in this choir piety maintains a living and never-ceasing divine service. [pg 251]