If, still further, one commit himself, as is so often the case, to that philosophy of materialism in which this brief life is the end of opportunity, so that but a few years are ours for the accomplishment of all which the pitiless and endless struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest permit, then there is an end of all restfulness and blessedness in work. Under such a view, time is indeed too short, and every art is indeed too long. The true spirit of work, which has no time for superfluities, but time enough for what is right and true, grows best in the soil of that philosophy which sees one’s work extending into the infinite world, and one’s life on earth as but one part of life itself. Then one gets strength to do his highest tasks, and patience among the grave difficulties and hindrances which confront him both within himself and in the times in which he lives. One is calmly indifferent to much which in the sight of this world alone may seem important, but which, seen in the light of eternity, loses significance. This is the meaning of that beautiful saying of the philosopher of Görlitz, which brings to our troubled time its message of comfort: “_He who, while here, lives the eternal life Is through eternity set free from strife._”[3] VI. HAPPINESS VI. HAPPINESS Whatever the philosophers may say, it remains true that, from the first hour of man’s waking consciousness until that consciousness ceases, his most ardent desire is to be happy, and that the moment of his profoundest regret is when he becomes convinced that on this earth perfect happiness cannot be found. Here is the problem which gives to the various ages of human history their special characters. Blithe are those ages when young and progressive nations still hope for happiness, or when men believe that in some new formula of philosophy, or of religion, or perhaps in some new industrial programme, the secret of human happiness has at last been found. Gloomy are those ages in which, as in our time, great masses of people are burdened with the conviction that all these familiar formulas have been illusions, and when persons of the keenest insight say--as they are now saying--that the very word happiness has in it a note of melancholy. No sooner, we are told, does one speak of happiness than it flees from him. In its very nature it lies beyond the sphere of practical realization.