For the most part we close our minds to the knowledge that happiness is a delusion. We strive unweariedly from wish to wish, and from desire to desire. It is incredible how meaningless when viewed from without, how dull and unenlightened by intellect when felt from within, is the course of life of the great mass of men. It is a weary longing and complaining, a dreamlike staggering through the four ages of life to death, accompanied only by trivial thoughts. Such men go like clockwork, without knowing the reason why. The life of every individual, if we survey it as a whole, is always a tragedy, but looked at in detail, it has all the character of a comedy. Everyone who has awakened from the first dream of youth, who has reflected on his own experience and on that of others, must conclude inevitably that this human world is the kingdom of chance and error, which rule without mercy in great things and in small. Everything better struggles through only with difficulty. That which is noble and wise seldom attains to expression. The absurd and the perverse in the sphere of thought, the dull and tasteless in the sphere of art, the wicked and deceitful in the sphere of action, assert a supremacy which is rarely disturbed. Nothing external has power to deliver man from this dominion of woe. In vain does he make to himself gods, in order to get from them by prayers and flattery what can be accomplished only by his own will-power. The most beautiful part of life, its purest joy, is pure knowledge. It is removed from all willing, and lifts us out of real existence. This relief, however, is granted {45} only to a few, because it demands rare talents and rare opportunities. Even the few, to whom it comes only as a passing dream, are made susceptible of far greater suffering than duller minds can ever feel. They are placed in lonely isolation by their nature, which is different from that of others. To the great mass of men, purely intellectual pleasures are not accessible. They are almost incapable of the joys which lie in pure knowledge. Their lives are given up to willing. If we could bring clearly to a man's sight the terrible sufferings and miseries to which his life is exposed, he would be seized with horror. The brevity of life may be the best quality it possesses.