must be realized. At some time or other this goal must be
attained, as surely as there is a world of the senses, and a race of
reasonable beings in time, for whom no serious and rational object can
be imagined but this, and whose existence is made intelligible by this
alone. Unless the whole life of man is to be considered as the sport
of an evil Spirit, who implanted this ineradicable striving after
the imperishable in the breasts of poor wretches merely that he might
enjoy their ceaseless struggle after that which unceasingly flees
from them, their still repeated grasping after that which still
eludes their grasp, their restless driving about in an ever-returning
circle--and laugh at their earnestness in this senseless sport--unless
the wise man, who must soon see through this game and be tired of his
own part in it, is to throw away his life, and the moment of awakening
reason is to be the moment of earthly death--that goal must be
attained. O it is attainable in life and by means of life; for Reason
commands me to live. It is attainable, for I am.

III

But now, when it is attained, when Humanity shall stand at the
goal--what then? There is no higher condition on earth than that.
The generation which first attains it can do nothing further than to
persist in it, maintain it with all their powers, and die and leave
descendants who shall do the same that they have done, and who, in
their turn, shall leave descendants that shall do the same. Humanity
would then stand still in its course. Therefore its earthly goal
cannot be its highest goal, for this earthly goal is intelligible, and
attainable, and finite. Though we consider the preceding generations
as means of developing the last and perfected, still we cannot escape
the inquiry of earnest Reason: "Wherefore then these last?" Given a
human race on the earth, its existence must indeed be in accordance
with Reason, and not contrary to it. It must become all that it can
become on earth. But why should it exist at all--this human race? Why
might it not as well have remained in the womb of the Nothing? Reason
is not for the sake of existence, but existence for the sake of
Reason. An existence which does not, in itself, satisfy Reason and
solve all her questions, cannot possibly be the true one.

Then, too, are the actions commanded by the voice of Conscience, whose
dictates I must not speculate about, but obey in silence--are they
actually the means, and the onl