himself from it, and to free others; and to do this so that, even after death,
life shall not be renewed any more but be completely destroyed at its very
roots. So speaks all the wisdom of India.
These are the direct replies that human wisdom gives when it replies to
life's question.
"The life of the body is an evil and a lie. Therefore the destruction of the
life of the body is a blessing, and we should desire it," says Socrates.
"Life is that which should not be -- an evil; and the passage into
Nothingness is the only good in life," says Schopenhauer.
"All that is in the world -- folly and wisdom and riches and poverty and
mirth and grief -- is vanity and emptiness. Man dies and nothing is left of
him. And that is stupid," says Solomon.
"To life in the consciousness of the inevitability of suffering, of becoming
enfeebled, of old age and of death, is impossible -- we must free ourselves
from life, from all possible life," says Buddha.
And what these strong minds said has been said and thought and felt by
millions upon millions of people like them. And I have thought it and felt
it.
So my wandering among the sciences, far from freeing me from my
despair, only strengthened it. One kind of knowledge did not reply to life's
question, the other kind replied directly confirming my despair, indicating
not that the result at which I had arrived was the fruit of error or of a
diseased state of my mind, but on the contrary that I had thought correctly,
and that my thoughts coincided with the conclusions of the most powerful
of human minds.
It is no good deceiving oneself. It is all -- vanity! Happy is he who has not
been born: death is better than life, and one must free oneself from life.