nature is absolutely "good." Such a fallacy takes for granted that
somewhere and somehow "Good" will finally triumph over "evil."

The revelation of the complex vision destroys this fallacy. Such a
complete triumph of "good" over "evil" would mean the end of
everything that exists because everything that exists depends upon
this abysmal struggle. But for personalities who are able to
recognize that the mere fact of their being alive is already a
considerable victory of "good" over "evil," there is nothing
overwhelming in the thought that "good" can never completely
overcome "evil." It is enough that life has given them life; and that
in the perpetually renewed struggle between love and malice they
find at the rare moments when love overcomes malice a flood of
happiness which, brings with it "the sensation of eternity."

For such souls eternity is here and now; and no anticipated
absolute triumph of the "good" in the world over the "evil" can
compare for a moment with the indescribable happiness which this
"sensation of eternity" brings. It is this happiness, evoked by the
rhythmic play of the soul's apex-thought in its supreme hours,
which alone, even in memory, can destroy "the illusion of dead
matter."

The psychological situation brought about by the fact that this
illusion is a perpetually recurrent one and a thing that is always
liable to return whenever reason and sensation are driven to isolate
themselves is a situation a good deal more complicated than I have
so far indicated. It is complicated by the fact that although in
certain moods the contemplation of "the illusion of dead matter"
produces profound melancholy, in other moods it produces a kind
of demonic joy. It seems as though the melancholy mood, which
carried to an extreme limit borders on absolute despair, comes
about when the creative energy in our soul, although under the
momentary dominance of what resists creation, is still, so to speak,
the master of our will.

Under such circumstances the will, still resolutely turned towards
life, is confronted by what appears to be the very embodiment of
death. Under these conditions the will is baffled, perplexed,
defeated and outraged. It beats in vain against the "inert mass"
which malice has projected; and feels itself powerless to overcome
it. It then turns furiously round upon the very substratum of the
soul and rends and tears at that, in a mad effort to reach the secret
of a phantom-world which