Here the conflict of
evil with good is done away, for no evil can any longer spring up.
The contest of the good among themselves, even concerning the good,
vanishes, now that it has become easy to them to love the good for its
own sake, and not for their sakes, as the authors of it--now that the
only interest they can have is that it come to pass, that truth
be discovered, that the good deed be executed--not by whom it is
accomplished. Here every one is always prepared to join his power to
that of his neighbor, and to subordinate it to that of his neighbor.
Whoever, in the judgment of all, shall accomplish the best, in the
best way, him all will support and partake with equal joy in his
success.
This is the aim of earthly existence which Reason sets before us, and
for the sure attainment of which Reason vouches. It is not a goal for
which we are to strive merely that our faculties may be exercised on
something great, but which we must relinquish all hope of realizing.
It shall and must be realized. At some time or other this goal must be
attained, as surely as there is a world of the senses, and a race of
reasonable beings in time, for whom no serious and rational object can
be imagined but this, and whose existence is made intelligible by this
alone. Unless the whole life of man is to be considered as the sport
of an evil Spirit, who implanted this ineradicable striving after
the imperishable in the breasts of poor wretches merely that he might
enjoy their ceaseless struggle after that which unceasingly flees
from them, their still repeated grasping after that which still
eludes their grasp, their restless driving about in an ever-returning
circle--and laugh at their earnestness in this senseless sport--unless
the wise man, who must soon see through this game and be tired of his
own part in it, is to throw away his life, and the moment of awakening
reason is to be the moment of earthly death--that goal must be
attained.
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