the enormous amount of pain that abounds everywhere in the world, and
originates in needs and necessities inseparable from life itself, as
serving no purpose at all and the result of mere chance. Each separate
misfortune, as it comes, seems, no doubt, to be something exceptional;
but misfortune in general is the rule.

I know of no greater absurdity than that propounded by most systems of
philosophy in declaring evil to be negative in its character. Evil is
just what is positive; it makes its own existence felt. Leibnitz is
particularly concerned to defend this absurdity; and he seeks to
strengthen his position by using a palpable and paltry sophism.[1]
It is the good which is negative; in other words, happiness and
satisfaction always imply some desire fulfilled, some state of pain
brought to an end.

[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_, cf. _Thèod_, §153.--Leibnitz argued
that evil is a negative quality--_i.e_., the absence of good; and that
its active and seemingly positive character is an incidental and not
an essential part of its nature. Cold, he said, is only the absence of
the power of heat, and the active power of expansion in freezing water
is an incidental and not an essential part of the nature of cold. The
fact is, that the power of expansion in freezing water is really an
increase of repulsion amongst its molecules; and Schopenhauer is quite
right in calling the whole argument a sophism.]

This explains the fact that we generally find pleasure to be not
nearly so pleasant as we expected, and pain very much more painful.

The pleasure in this world, it has been said, outweighs the pain; or,
at any rate, there is an even balance between the two. If the reader