of time ebbs away; if it were not that in the furthest depths of our
being we are secretly conscious of our share in the exhaustible spring
of eternity, so that we can always hope to find life in it again.

Consideration of the kind, touched on above, might, indeed, lead us to
embrace the belief that the greatest _wisdom_ is to make the enjoyment
of the present the supreme object of life; because that is the only
reality, all else being merely the play of thought. On the other hand,
such a course might just as well be called the greatest _folly_: for
that which in the next moment exists no more, and vanishes utterly,
like a dream, can never be worth a serious effort.

The whole foundation on which our existence rests is the present--the
ever-fleeting present. It lies, then, in the very nature of our
existence to take the form of constant motion, and to offer no
possibility of our ever attaining the rest for which we are always
striving. We are like a man running downhill, who cannot keep on his
legs unless he runs on, and will inevitably fall if he stops; or,
again, like a pole balanced on the tip of one's finger; or like a
planet, which would fall into its sun the moment it ceased to hurry
forward on its way. Unrest is the mark of existence.

In a world where all is unstable, and nought can endure, but is swept
onwards at once in the hurrying whirlpool of change; where a man, if
he is to keep erect at all, must always be advancing and moving, like
an acrobat on a rope--in such a world, happiness in inconceivable.
How can it dwell where, as Plato says, _continual Becoming and never
Being_ is the sole form of existence? In the first place, a man never
is happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something which
he thinks will make him so; he seldom attains his goal, and when he