This we know, now, for good and all: that which is good, and moral, is that which brings into us a stronger, deeper flow of life and life-energy: evil is that which impairs the life-flow.
But man’s difficulty is, that he can’t have life for the asking. “He asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest it him: even length of days for ever and ever.” There’s a pretty motto for the tomb!
It isn’t length of days for ever and ever that a man wants. It is strong life within himself, while he lives.
But how to get it? You may be as healthy as a cow, and yet have fear inside you, because your life is not enough.
We know, really, that we can’t have life for the asking, nor find it by seeking, nor get it by striving. The river flows into us from behind and below. We must turn our backs to it, and go ahead. The faster we go ahead, the stronger the river rushes into us. The moment we turn round to embrace the river of life, it ebbs away, and we see nothing but a stony fiumara.
We must go ahead.
But which way is ahead?
We don’t know.
We only know that, continuing in the way we are going, the river of life flows feebler and feebler in us, and we lose all sense of vital direction. We begin to talk about vitamines. We become idiotic. We cunningly prepare our own suicide.
This is the philosophic problem: to find the way ahead.