Of course that inner elevation of the individual by no means lifts him gently and simply out of all the confusion that the experience of our existence shows; at the first glance it may even seem to make the confusion greater. For, if each individual can become a co-operator in the building up of a new world, and if his activity thereby acquires a value for the whole, then the complete indifference with which, according to our human impression, the individual is treated by the course of the physical world, the inflexibility and injustice that he often experiences in this world, the defect of love and justice in this world, in which the bad so often obtain the victory and the good are led to destruction, are all the greater mystery. The more the development of the spiritual life widens the field of vision; the more it leads us beyond a lifeless resignation to the question of the rationality of events and compels us to compare the destiny of one man with that of another, the deeper must that feeling of mystery become. All attempts at a theodicy founder on this difficulty; we must inevitably submit to the view that with regard to this problem all is obscure to the eyes of man. There is, however, no need on this account to doubt and to regard our life as hopeless; our investigation also has shown this. For, in contrast with the obscurity of the world around us, we are able to set the fact of the emergence of a new world within us. Great things take place within us; not only does a new world appear, but we are called by an inner necessity of our own being to co-operate in its development, and this co-operation is not limited to individual activities, but involves our being as a whole. For it was just in this that we were able to recognise the development of being as the essence of the spiritual life--that the chief movement of our life is to win a genuine being, and that in the development of personality and spiritual individuality such a being is in question. We saw clearly enough that we are not personalities and individuals from the beginning; but that nature gives us only the possibility of becoming this. To realise this possibility our own activity is necessary; and this activity is not a sudden resolution, but requires a revolution of our being and the development of a new nature; and this can only be achieved by a faithful and zealous life-work, and even then only approximately. Thus life as a whole is a task which includes all multiplicity within it, the task of winning our own being completely, and just in this way to increase the kingdom of the spirit at our point.