We are accustomed, not without reason, to distinguish the life of the spirit from philosophy. But the reason, instead of destroying, confirms the identity between spirit and philosophy, and for the following cause. The spirit never being what it ought to be, we live acquiring consciousness of ourselves. But when we pause to ask ourselves if we have really obtained this consciousness, and turn to our life as to the subject-matter of this problem, which is the problem of philosophy, we discover that we cannot answer in the affirmative. For answering is spiritual living, a living, therefore, which consists not in having self-consciousness but in acquiring it. So that philosophy does not arise from the need of understanding the life already lived, for the past is the realm of death; but rather from the much keener desire of living, of leading a better life, a true life, and of finally realising this spiritual reality which is our ideal. But when? Can we believe that there is ever going to be a philosophy which will definitely fulfil the ideal? It is obvious that a pursuit of such philosophy would lead the spirit into a race to death; whereas on the contrary the spirit is life; it is an impulse to ever more intense living. This philosophy, it is evident, is not the exclusive, esoteric classroom discipline, the professional privilege of a few specialists. It is rather the source from which this professional speculation derives its right to address all men who have an exalted sentiment of their human dignity, who hearken to the deeper utterances of their souls, who are able to see how much of their own self there is in this vast world which is being disclosed to their eyes; who, even though vaguely and timidly, are conscious of the divine power that resides in every human heart; who feel that this human heart, prone though it be to all baseness, is also capable of lifting itself to the most sublime heights, and of enjoying the pure and lofty satisfactions which human phantasy ordinarily relegates to heaven. In the depths of every mind there is a philosophy: the mind itself is untiring speculation, which more or less successfully scales the height, but which is always turned upward to the summit whitened by the rising sun. Life is made human by the rays of this philosophy. Man is really man when he recognises an object which is the world, reality, law, and when he recalls that nothing absolves him from the duty of being in this world; of seriously being in it, which means working and coöperating towards reality by knowing reality and fulfilling the law. For in his freedom and power he can never divest himself of his own responsibility; he must therefore develop his capacity to the utmost value, and to that end work and work, think, and act as the centre of his world. This philosophy does not allow him either to withdraw into the abstract retirement of his egoistic self, or to deny and sacrifice this self to an imaginary reality. This philosophy