reat truth that only the Ideas, not the individuals, have actual
reality and are complete objectivity of the will.

Man is Nature himself, but Nature is only the objectified will to live.
So the man who has comprehended this point of view may well console
himself when contemplating death for himself or his friends, by turning
his eyes to the immortal life of Nature, which he himself is. And thus
we see that birth and death both really belong to life and that they
take part in that constant mutation of matter which is consistent with
the permanence of the species, notwithstanding the transitoriness of the
individual.

_V.--The Will as Related to Time_

Above all, we must not forget that the form of the phenomenon of the
will, the form of life in reality, is really only the _present_, not the
future nor the past. No man ever lived in the past, no man will live in
the future. The present is the sole form of life in sure possession. The
present exists always, together with its content, and both are fixed
like the rainbow on the waterfall.

Now all object is the will so far as it has become idea, and the subject
is the necessary correlative of the object. But real objects are in the
present only. So nothing but conceptions and fancies are included in the
past, while the present is the essential form of the phenomenon of the
will, and inseparable from it. The present alone is perpetual and
immovable. The fountain and support of it is the will to live, or the
thing-in-itself, which we are.

Life is certain to the will, and the present is certain to life. Time is
like a perpetually revolving globe. The hemisphere which is sinking is
like the past, that which is rising is like the future, while the
indivisible point at the top is like the actionless present. Or, time is
like a running river and the present is a rock on which it breaks but
which it cannot remove with itself. Therefore we are not concerned to
investigate the past antecedent to life, nor to speculate on the future
subsequent to death. We should simply seek to know the present, that
being the sole form in which the will manifests itself. Therefore, if we
are satisfied with life as it is, we may confidently regard it as
endless and banish the fear of death as illusive. Our spirit is of a
totally indestructible nature, and its energy endures from eternity to
eternity. It is like the sun, which seems to set only to our earthly
eyes, but which, in reality, never