At about the middle of a man’s life, and often the most quickly in the case of the best and most successful lives, there comes a moment of dissatisfaction with all that has hitherto been attained. This is more frequently the case among the cultured than among the other classes, because the continuous struggle of the latter for existence partly spares them this dissatisfaction and more clearly shows the way to free themselves from it. When, at this time, any one stands quite at the exit-gates of earthly existence, all human concerns appear to him literally nothing worth, and he would never feel kindly toward them again, even in their highest activities, if the wisdom of this world did not bring him back into the belief that these are only morbid sensations that must be overcome by a feeling of robust vitality. This, to be sure, they must do, but not unless a real death of the selfish nature precedes; upon such a death the most in every human life depends, although this event does not always come to pass in just the same form. The same feeling, however, is present in all nobler souls, that they do not get forward with their “intentions to do better,” but daily find new hindrances in themselves and in the surrounding world; and that, in their own nature, what is lacking is not the dream, indeed, but the _power_ of attaining an existence truly worthy of man. Those are conditions that often last for years; in their later period arise thoughts which, to some, make this process seem to resemble the ascent of a mountain. But this ascending of the mountain does not always lead to the true summit it is designed for, even in the case of the best men, and in this respect, also, one is tempted to believe in predestination. Another mountain-peak which is sometimes attained is a noble scepticism, such as Gottfried Keller gives expression to in the touching words that, at some time or other in life, one must accustom himself to the thought of a real death, and that if he then gathers himself together, he does not become any the worse man therefor. Certainly not, only he is no perfectly satisfied man, with the thirst for truth and eternal life slaked; that is a goal which the most beautiful sceptical philosophy never reaches. Doubting thought stands on a still higher plane in “The Holy Grail” of Tennyson: “_Thereafter, the dark warning of our King, That most of us would follow wandering fires, Came like a driving gloom across my mind: Then every evil word I had spoken once, And every evil thought I had thought of old, And every evil deed I ever did, Awoke and cried: ‘This Quest is not for thee.’_” Beyond this thought the most earnest and sincere souls would never get, if it were not for the solution which the English poet himself offers at the conclusion of his profound poem: