CHAPTER I.

The new import of the question. 
          
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The question may seem vague and useless; but if we consider its real meaning we shall see that it is not so 1

In the present day it has acquired a new importance 2

Its exact meaning.  It does not question the fact of human happiness 3

But the nature of happiness, and the permanence of its basis 4

For what we call the higher happiness is essentially a complex thing 5

We cannot be sure that all its elements are permanent 7

Without certain of its elements it has been declared by the wisest men to be valueless 8

And it is precisely the elements in question that modern thought is eliminating 11

It is contended that they have often been eliminated before; and that yet the worth of life has not suffered 13

But this contention is entirely false.  They were never before eliminated as modern thought is eliminating them now 17

The present age can find no genuine parallels in the past 19

Its position is made peculiar by three facts 19

Firstly, by the existence of Christianity 19

Secondly, the insignificance to which science has reduced the earth 23

Thirdly, the intense self-consciousness that has been developed in the modern world 25

It is often said that a parallel to our present case is to be found in Buddhism 27

But this is absolutely false.  Buddhist positivism is the exact reverse of Western positivism 29

In short, the life-problem of our day is distinctly a new and an as yet unanswered one 31

CHAPTER II.

Morality and the prize of life.

The worth the positive school claim for life, is essentially a moral worth 33

As its most celebrated exponents explicitly tell us 34

This means that life contains some special prize, to which morality is the only road 34