pollution of human lust in glory undimmed by the sordid conditions of
human life.

Sehnen hin zur heil'gen Nacht
Wo ur-ewig einzig wahr
Liebes-Wonne ihm lacht.

Such a future life would with Schopenhauer only be a renewal of the
misery of existence in another form. It is the Christian, not the
Buddhist, way of feeling that inspires the lovers. Christianity starts
from the insufficiency and misery of human life, but contemplates
redemption therefrom by love, whereas Buddhism conceives of no
possibility of redemption. Its release is annihilation, and it is a
religion of despair, not of hope.

It would be interesting, if it did not take us too far from our
present subject, to compare this conception of love with that of
Sokrates as set forth in the _Symposium_ of Plato. Sokrates
believed fully in immortality, but wisely refrained from speculating
on the conditions of existence after death. His _Eros_ is
confined to this life, but none the less he treats it as a divine
gift. Love is the mediator and interpreter between gods and men; and
love of the beautiful, which manifests itself in the procreation and
love of offspring, is the desire for immortality, the children being
the continuation of the immortal part of their parents.[29] This is
the lower mystery. The higher, which is not revealed to all, is the
gradual expansion of love until it comprehends the eternal Idea. The
beauty which we love in the individual becomes a stepping-stone from
which we may rise to the love of all beautiful things, passing from
one to many, from beautiful forms to beautiful deeds, from them to