Consequently my relation to the world is this: I no longer do anything for it "for God's sake," I do nothing "for man's sake," but what I do I do "for my sake." Thus alone does the world satisfy me, while it is characteristic of the religious standpoint, in which I include the moral and humane also, that from it everything remains a _pious wish_ (_pium desiderium_), _i. e._ an other-world matter, something unattained. Thus the general salvation of men, the moral world of a general love, eternal peace, the cessation of egoism, etc. "Nothing in this world is perfect." With this miserable phrase the good part from it, and take flight into their closet to God, or into their proud "self-consciousness." But we remain in this "imperfect" world, because even so we can use it for our--self-enjoyment. My intercourse with the world consists in my enjoying it, and so consuming it for my self-enjoyment. _Intercourse_ is the _enjoyment of the world_, and belongs to my--self-enjoyment. III.--MY SELF-ENJOYMENT We stand at the boundary of a period. The world hitherto took thought for nothing but the gain of life, took care for--_life_. For whether all activity is put on the stretch for the life of this world or of the other, for the temporal or for the eternal, whether one hankers for "daily bread" ("Give us our daily bread") or for "holy bread" ("the true bread from heaven"; "the bread of God, that comes from heaven and _gives life_ to the world"; "the bread of life," John 6), whether one takes care for "dear life" or for "life to eternity,"--this does not change the object of the strain and care, which in the one case as in the other shows itself to be _life_. Do the modern tendencies announce themselves otherwise? People now want nobody to be embarrassed for the most indispensable necessaries of life, but want every one to feel secure as to these; and on the other hand they teach that man has this life to attend to and the real world to adapt himself to, without vain care for another. Let us take up the same thing from another side. When one is anxious only to _live_, he easily, in this solicitude, forgets the _enjoyment_ of life. If his only concern is for life, and he thinks "if I only have my dear life," he does not apply his full strength to using, _i. e._ enjoying, life. But how does one use life? In using it up, like the candle, which one uses in burning it up. One uses life, and consequently himself the living one, in _consuming_ it and himself. _Enjoyment of life_ is using life up.