This emptiness finds its expression in the whole form of existence, in
the infiniteness of Time and Space as opposed to the finiteness of the
individual in both; in the flitting present as the only manner of real
existence; in the dependence and relativity of all things; in constantly
Becoming without Being; in continually wishing without being satisfied;
in an incessant thwarting of one's efforts, which go to make up life,
until victory is won. _Time_, and the _transitoriness_ of all things,
are merely the form under which the will to live, which as the
thing-in-itself is imperishable, has revealed to Time the futility of
its efforts. Time is that by which at every moment all things become as
nothing in our hands, and thereby lose all their true value.

* * * * *

What _has been_ exists no more; and exists just as little as that which
has _never_ been. But everything that exists _has been_ in the next
moment. Hence something belonging to the present, however unimportant it
may be, is superior to something important belonging to the past; this
is because the former is a _reality_ and related to the latter as
something is to nothing.

A man to his astonishment all at once becomes conscious of existing
after having been in a state of non-existence for many thousands of
years, when, presently again, he returns to a state of non-existence for
an equally long time. This cannot possibly be true, says the heart; and
even the crude mind, after giving the matter its consideration, must
have some sort of presentiment of the ideality of time. This ideality of
time, together with that of space, is the key to every true system of
metaphysics, because it finds room for quite another order of things
than is to be found in nature. This is why Kant is so great.