as it seems at first, pursues him with
no vague or uncertain method, but with a positive
and unbroken pertinacity. Its presence is
not absolutely continuous, else man must cease
to live; but its pertinacity is without any break.
There is always the shadowy form of despair
standing behind man ready to touch him with
its terrible finger if for too long he finds
himself content. What has given this ghastly
shape the right to haunt us from the hour we
are born until the hour we die? What has
given it the right to stand always at our door,
keeping that door ajar with its impalpable yet
plainly horrible hand, ready to enter at the
moment it sees fit? The greatest philosopher
that ever lived succumbs before it at last; and
he only is a philosopher, in any sane sense, who
recognises the fact that it is irresistible, and
knows that like all other men he must suffer
soon or late. It is part of the heritage of men,
this pain and distress; and he who determines
that nothing shall make him suffer, does but
cloak himself in a profound and chilly selfishness.
This cloak may protect him from pain, it
will also separate him from pleasure. If peace
is to be found on earth, or any joy in life, it
cannot be by closing up the gates of feeling,
which admit us to the loftiest and most vivid
part of our existence. Sensation, as we obtain
it through the physical body, affords us all that
induces us to live in that shape. It is inconceivable
that any man would care to take the
trouble of breathing, unless the act brought
with it a sense of satisfaction. So it is with
every deed of every instant of our life. We
live because it is pleasant even to have the
sensation of pain. It is sensation we desire,
else we would with one accord taste of the deep
waters of oblivion, and the human race would
become extinct. If this is the case in the
physical life, it is evidently the case with the
life of the emotions,--the imagination, the
sensibilities, all those fine and delicate formations
which, with the marvellous recording
mechanism of the brain, make up the inner
or subtile man. Sensation is that which makes
their pleasure; an infinite series of sensations
is life to them. Destroy the sensation which
makes them wish to persevere in the experiment
of living, and there is nothing left.
Therefore the man who attempts to obliterate
the sense of pain, and who proposes to maintain
an equal state whether he is pleased or
hurt, strikes at the ver