rom this world
of misery, it substitutes one that is merely apparent. For death merely
destroys the phenomenon, that is, the body, and never my inmost being,
or the universal Will.

Suicide can deliver me merely from my phenomenal existence, and not from
my real self, which can not die.

How, then, can man be released from this life of misery and pain? Where
is the road that leads to Salvation?

Slow and weary is the way of redemption.

The deliverance from life and its sufferings is the freedom of the
intellect from its creator and despot, the Will.

The intellect, freed from the bondage of the Will, sees through the veil
of selfhood into the unity of all being, and finds that he who has done
wrong to another has done wrong to his own self. For selfhood--the
asserting of the Ego--is the root of all evil.

Covetousness and sensuality are the causes of misery.

Sympathy is the basis of all true morality, and only through
renunciation, through self-sacrifice, and universal benevolence, can
salvation be obtained.

He who has recognized that existence is evil, that life is vanity, and
self an illusion, has obtained true knowledge, which is the reflection
of reality. He is in possession of the highest wisdom, which is not
merely theoretical, but also practical perfection; it is the ultimate
true cognition of all things in mass and in detail, which has so
penetrated man's being that it appears as the guide of all his actions.
It illumines his head, warms his heart, leads his hand. We take the
sting out of life by accepting it as it is. "Drink ye all of it."

* * * * *

Arthur Schopenhauer very early in life contracted a bad habit of telling
the truth. He stated the thing absolutely as he saw it. He spared no
one's feelings, and conciliation was not in his bright lexicon of words.
If any belief or any institution was in his way, the pilot in charge of
the craft had better put his prow hard a' port--Schopenhauer swerved for
nobody.

Should every one deal in plain speaking on all occasions, the philosophy
of Ali Baba--that this earth is hell, and we are now suffering for sins
committed in a former incarnation--would be fully proved. Our friends
are the pleasant hypocrites who sustain our illusions. Society is made
possible only through a vast web of delicate evasions, polite
subterfuges, and agreeable falsehoods. The word person comes from
"persona," which means a mask. The reference