instinct of inert malice. The object of life can be regarded as
nothing less than the realization of the vision of the Immortals;
and it is only under a communistic state that the vision of the
Immortals can be realized; because only in such a state is that
petrified illusion of inert malice which we name "private property"
thoroughly got rid of and destroyed.

CONCLUSION

No attempted articulation of the mystery, life, can be worthy of
being named a "philosophy" unless it has a definite bearing upon
what, in the midst of that confused "manifold" through which we
move, we call the problem of conduct.

The mass of complicated impression, which from our first dawn of
consciousness presses upon us, falls into two main divisions--the
portion of it which comes under the power of our will and the
portion of it which is supplied by destiny or circumstance, and
over which our will is impotent.

Superficially speaking what we call conduct only applies to action;
but in a deeper sense it applies to that whole division of our
sensations, emotions, ideas, and energies, whether it take the form
of action or not, which comes in any measure under the power of
the will. Such acts of the mind therefore, as are purely intellectual
or emotional--as for instance what we call "acts of faith"--are as
much to be considered forms of conduct as those outer visible
material gestures which manifest themselves in action.

This is no fantastic or extravagant fancy. It is the old classical and
catholic doctrine, to which not only such thinkers as Plato and
Spinoza have affixed their seal, but which is at the root of the
deepest instincts of Buddhists, Christians, Epicureans, Stoics, and
the mystics of all ages. It may be summed up by the statement that
life is an art towards which the will must be directed; and that the
larger portion of life manifests itself in interior contemplation and
only the smaller part of it in overt action.

In both these spheres, in the sphere of contemplation as much as in
the sphere of action, there exists that "given element" of destiny or
circumstance, in the presence of which the will is powerless. But
in regard to this given element it must be remembered that no
individual soul can ever, to the end of time, be absolutely certain
that in any particular case, whether his own or another's, he has
finally arrived at this irreducible fatality.

The extraordinary phenomenon of what religious people call
"conv